Overcome Discouragement and Lies from satan
One thing that satan constantly tries to do is wear down the
saints, satan will lie to people and tell them that they are worthless, that
they should just give up, that they should just go back into the world, he will
constantly tell you that you have backslidden, that you’re worthless. And it is one of the ploys of satan to constantly
wear down the saints. Many saints have
become very discouraged, any word that comes from the Lord, satan immediately
tries to snatch it from them, and instead of it being an encouragement to them
to overcome sins, to repent, to listen to the LORD, to have boldness, satan
rather lies to them and he says; “You’re not bold, you can’t overcome sin and
you are worthless, other Christians hear from the Lord, you don’t hear from the
Lord, Jesus doesn’t love you as much…”
And on and on the accusations go.
It is important WHO we listen to and to know that Jesus Christ has given
us power over the evil spirits. He has
given us the power to REBUKE satan in the name of Jesus whether he comes
against us with lust, sexual temptation or with doubt, with worry, with envy,
or with just discouragement.
Many of the saints that are
following Jesus, they are not falling back to sin, they’re not backsliding in
the traditional sense, they are not going back to the ugly old habits of the
world. But they are starting to fall to
discouragement, and when they fall to discouragement, they can’t get themselves
up, they can’t be an encouragement to others and they are just drained. So, how do we overcome this? They way to overcome is by the power and the
love of Jesus. We have to stay in prayer
and we have to make SURE that we are not listening to satan. It’s very easy to listen to the devil, and
many Christians are giving their ear to satan.
Every day when we wake up we have
to put on the full armor of God; the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of
righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, the belt of truth
and the feet with boots ready to bring the gospel of peace to those that
ask. We have to be fully equipped for
every good work. We have to realize that
we are in spiritual combat and whenever the devil comes against us with
anything we have to immediately rebuke him and instead of listening to satan we
listen to the Spirit of GOD who loves us and who calls us into everlasting
life. I hear from both sides, I hear
satan tempting me, I hear from satan trying to discourage me, but also I hear
from the Holy Spirit and I choose who I listen to. Some days it is harder than others to push
out satan, but as the Apostle James wrote, we have to resist satan and he will
flee, draw close to God and He will draw close to us, and that is what I
practice and that is what all of us have to practice if we are going to grow in
our faith.
We have to practice daily resisting
satan by having on the full armor of God, rebuking him in Jesus’s name whenever
he comes against us, with any lie from the evil side. And whatever is good, whatever is true,
whatever is pure and lovely THOSE things we meditate on and think of. We think how we will please our Lord and
Master Jesus Christ, how we will encourage others. And the more you practice what is right the
better you get at it. When you start to
all to discouragement, the thing is you stop practicing righteousness, you stop
encouraging others, you stop listening to the Holy Spirit and you start tuning
into satan, and the more you practice at listening to the devil, the better you
get at listening to the devil, the more easily you will become
discouraged. But the more you practice
speaking about Jesus, speaking HIS name, telling others about Him, the more you
practice praying, speaking in your new tongue, the more you sing for the LORD,
the better that you will get at those things.
And we want to become experts at singing the Song of the Redeemed. Not in a prideful way, not that we think that
we are better than others, but we need to be very good at singing the Song of
the Redeemed, we need to be well versed in righteousness. Our performance needs to be pushing towards
perfection, and when we seek after Jesus with ALL OF OUR HEART, He will perfect
us, He will make us perfect. He will
dross us and He will pull everything out of us, He will cut off everything from
us that is harming us, hurting us, holding us back, discouraging us. The more we practice what is right the firmer
we will go in the way of the truth and that is what we need to be.
If we are going to make it in these days, if
we are going to overcome satan, we are going to have to be FIRM, our feet are
going to have to be rooted on the Rock of Salvation, on Jesus Christ. I encourage you to push through the
accusations of satan, overcome lust, overcome every single lie that comes from
satan. REBUKE him immediately, push it
out of your mind and out of your heart.
Tune your spiritual ears to the Spirit of GOD and receive what is
GOOD. PRAY, because Jesus Christ HAS
given you the power to OVERCOME. But YOU
have to choose who you will listen to and who you will obey.
It is not a sin to be tempted, to
be tempted in your mind, to have temptations come in, to see things that are
tempting, satan will immediately accuse you though and say; “See, you looked at
something that was sinful, you lusted, you thought about something that was
sinful, you lusted…” But to be temped is not sin, but to dwell upon those
things and to start harkening to those things and to give your heart to those
things is sin. So , whenever satan
tempts us we have to quickly rebuke him.
Whatever is coming against us from the evil side we rebuke in the name
of JESUS and the Spirit of God does give us power over these things if we
choose to resist, if we choose to draw close to God, He will draw close to
us. If we resist the devil he will
flee. But we have to continue to resist
and we have to continue to walk the path of righteousness, drawing close to
GOD. May the grace of Jesus be with
you.
