Sisters, we all need to wake up. God has been testing my heart over the last couple of weeks and laying three specific messages on my heart. Out of urgency, I feel the first I need to blog about is that of evil. I believe with every ounce of me that God has an intricate plan for my life and your life that He is using to draw us closer to Him and refine us. Every Christian I know completely subscribes to this heartwarming message. But do we acknowledge that we have a great enemy-- one that has a plan for our lives as well? We cannot ignore this any longer. Being a Christian isn't about being kind and busy and baking cookies for our neighbors. No, following Christ means recognizing that there is a great battle going on in our flesh, and choosing to intentionally die to it and to ourselves everyday in an effort to gain life. God has a plan for your life. So does Satan. This topic has almost become taboo to talk about in the church. We want to learn about things that make us feel fluffy and loved, instead of facing the reality that our enemy is manipulative, cunning, and alive-- at work in our flesh until we gain the power through Christ to defeat him. If you don't recognize him in his attempt to gain control of your heart, he is going to suffocate the very life out of you.
Ezekiel 28 tells us the root of all of this evil: it's pride, and it's what drove the angel Lucifer from Heaven to the pits of hell. "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor." Ezekiel 28:17. C.S. Lewis said, "...the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: Pride leads to every other vice: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil.” What is pride? I never thought I struggled with it because I was always the first on the team to want to pass the ball to someone else. Proud people are only those people who are loud, show off, and don't want to share....right? Insecurity and pride are paradoxical, right? Wrong. Insecurity stems from wanting to people-please and appear more put together than we feel like we are. Insecurity is jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. Why do we suffer through this? Pride. We want to be good enough, we want to feel we've earned some sort of certificate of normalcy, and we want to be loved because of it. We want perfection, and control. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but sometimes, I desperately want and try to be the god of my own life. I've got this, I'm under control, I don't need help. "In the pride of your heart you say, 'I am a god;' But you are a man and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god." (Ezekiel 28:2). Gulp. God eventually smacks every proud person square in the face...Lord, give us the grace to humble our hearts in submission to You before You have to do it for us with a trainwreck of our lives left to show for it.
I recently listened to a sermon addressing evil spirits: their aim, their methods, and their instigator. I want to cover four that I think grip many women today and leave us in bondage to our enemy. The only way we are going to defeat these chains is to remain in scripture and overflowing with the peace and purpose of Jesus Christ. Don't worry about knocking me down off my soap box, because I'm confessing to you that right now I am currently drowning in my own self-pity and self-righteousness to the point that I had stopped even fighting to stay above water. In all honesty, here's the spirits I'm actively wrestling with in my own personal life right now...
- the spirit of jealousy.
I'm not talking about Godly jealousy like we dug into in my last entry. “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” (Exodus 20:17). Don't let the reference to ox and donkeys make you check out and consider this verse irrelevant today. This means, you shouldn't be burning inside because your sister is wealthy, funny, or smart. Every girl needs to listen up and hear that doing anything less than celebrating your sister's beauty, godliness, or unique gifts is sinful and prideful. Sister, I am struggling with this, this week specifically, from a place of fear in my heart. While the desire to be cherished and valued is valid and God-given, it doesn't ever give us the right to resent any other woman's value or beauty, or wish it was ours to claim as well. Just because your sista is gorgeous don't mean you're a dog! Why is this a competition? It's all going back to pride. C.S. Lewis said, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.” Ladies I pray for all of us, that we may recognize the spirit of jealousy as the evil spirit straight from Satan that it is, and that we will have the wisdom, the strength, and the humility to defeat it. How can we do this? I think one of the first things we can do is to be intentional about publicly celebrating the success of our sisters. March your little heiney up to that girl with a loving heart (or leave her an anonymous note) and tell her "I'm thankful for your heart....You are precious...Girl, you got style." Whatever it takes. Celebrate that girl, and denounce that evil spirit of jealousy. Your heart's going to feel more beautiful than any new outift that you bought out of anxiety ever would...
- the spirit of distress.
1 Samuel 16:14 tells us that "the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him." It's a little puzzling as to why the Lord would send an evil spirit. But I think we need to realize that if we "depart" from seeking the Spirit of the Lord, then we are His enemy. There is no neutrality. With that said, there is no warfare going on between the Holy Spirit and the enemy. Christ is already victorious. He has complete authority over these evil spirits. The battle that is going in is between our flesh and the evil that it innately flocks to. God hasn't lost an ounce of victory or credibility when our evil overcomes us; we lost that solely human battle because we failed to cling to Him. To get back on track, Saul's attendants in 1 Samuel recognize for themselves that he is being tormented by distress. When I'm in distress, my close friends know it long before they get a 3 a.m. phone call from me. This spirit is so heavy and tormenting that it's not one we can hide. Worry, anxiety, overwhelming stress... It's physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually draining. Ever feel like you're a car that's gas light has been flashing on empty for the past hundred miles? Oh geez, I am there right now. What's the solution to Saul's distressed spirit? Worship. In the form of a harp player named David. Worshiping the Lord leaves little room for self-indulging on sorrow, doesn't it? It's impossible to praise God for His blessings and His faithfulness and simultaneously feel that there is something He is robbing us of. Worship shifts our focus from ourselves to a more deserving Face.
On a complete tangent, it's interesting that the character David is the man of worship who is able to ease Saul's anguish. We later find out that this "brave, fine-looking, warrior" of a man is also an adulterer, a murderer, and...a man after God's own heart? Another post, another day. But it's key that we recognize that spiritual leaders are often attacked with the force of a thousand arrows as the demons try to cut off the source of our relief. It's unfortunately a genius tactic in our enemy's plan of warfare. We need to pray for the protection of our spiritual leaders...Satan's snare is that much more tangling and gripping on those who cause him the most defeats. He is that much more determined to make them fall. If you know anyone in the ministry, there's no doubt you have seen this at work firsthand.
-- a lying spirit.
This is perhaps the evil spirit that has taken ahold of almost every woman I know at some point or another. This evil spirit takes shape in the form of our thoughts. The enemy is going to lie to you about anything and everything that is going to trip you up. "You're not valuable," "Your feelings are more valuable than your holiness," "You are unlovable," "You deserve this." The list goes on and on. The more we listen to these lies, the louder they speak. This is my number one stumbling block for sin: my own thoughts. It leads to every single other evil spirit we've discussed so far, because my enemy knows me, and he knows exactly when to creep into my little overactive brain with every "what if" and "why" that you could imagine. I've fought this for years, and it's come to a point that I fear it's a battle I can never overcome. But that's just another lie I'm listening to. Truth be told, this looks more like a full-fledged war than a couple of battles for me. It's not going to go away by enrolling in the right program or reading the right self-help book. It's going to have to be fought intentionally, every day of my life, and not ignored. For me personally, the temptation to reach for the alcohol bottle is easier fought because it is active. The thoughts that flood into my brain cannot physically be turned off via a switch. But they are an addiction with just as much toxicity. Satan targets in on where each one of our unique weaknesses is, and he attacks. Beth Moore said, "An ongoing relationship with God through His Word is essential to the Christian's consistent victory!" Save yourself a lot of money you would have spent on books or counseling and subscribe to this one-step program to fight your deceptive thoughts: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8).
-- the spirit of fear.
While it's true that the world is damaging to our trust and our very souls, we are fools if we believe that we are obligated or warranted to live controlled by fear and anxiety. It is not from God. When we live in fear, we feel powerless, abandoned, and a little unstable. We practice learned helplesness and assume the position of victim any chance we get. Lord knows this has me written all over it. But if we assume our roles as victims, we are giving up our victory and our freedom. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and a sound mind."
We've got to put on our battle gear every morning as we face the evil spirits of the enemy. The only way to victory is through humility and submission to Jesus Christ and the one Holy Spirit. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty! Living in Your freedom, we see Your glory!"
Although not a woman...this was very much worth my time to read. I think men are vulnerable to much the same albiet different in some respects. Concerning your "spirit of distress" remarks, something I've always tried to keep in mind is a quote from Graham Cooke (a writer and speaker I think you would totally love) who said, "The Father says to you, 'If you do the worshipping, I'll do the fighting.'" So simple and yet so easily forgotten sometimes...
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