Conversations with the opposition.

The enemy can still get my ear.  I have found this to be true in my life.  I don’t like to admit it, but I have to be honest with myself.

When I am tired, frustrated, feeling sorry for myself…

When I spend too much time disconnected from the world around me…

When I have experienced victory through Christ… (yes… then too)

That is when the adversary comes with his smooth talk… trying to tell me what I want to hear, rather than what I need to hear.

Do you ever experience that?

Do you find that it is when the questions going through your head center on you rather than on Him that you say things you regret, or act in ways you would rather not?

You wish that you would become more mature… that you would be outside the devil’s reach… that he couldn’t still get to you…

You wonder why he is even allowed to have an audience with you…

But don’t get down on yourself when it happens.  You are in good company.

“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” Matthew 4:1

Being tempted is not sin.  Being tempted is what is done to you.  Sin (dishonoring God) is what is done by you.

The devil likes to make a lot of noise.  And sometimes we hear it.  Sometimes we entertain the conversation… for any number of reasons.

But hearing is passive.

Listening… acting on what you have heard… is active.

And so is resisting.

How do we resist?  The same way Jesus did.

“But he answered and said, It is written,” (Matt 4:4)

“Jesus said unto him, It is written again” (Matt 4:7)

“Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written,” (Matt 4:10)

We need to act on what we have heard through the Word.  We need to listen to Jesus.  And, if you are like me, when we begin to get focused on ourselves, our situation, our needs, our problems, our pain… we need to learn to say, “it is written.”

“God loves me.”

“Christ is in me.”

“I am more than a conqueror.”

“I have all the riches of heaven, through Christ.”

“I can do all things through Christ.”

We all hear the lies of the great deceiver…

but we can choose not to listen…

We can choose to resist…

                By declaring, “It is written.”

SDG