Weapons of Satan – Pride Part 2
The Lord revealed more to me today on this topic and I felt compelled to share what He has given. This is a follow-up to this post: Weapons of Satan – Pride Part 1.
Just as the Lord allowed Job to be attacked, He allows us to be attacked. The sin itself, as well as the temptation, is not of the Lord. The trials and tribulations we experience are blessed experiences for our growth. The Lord allows Satan to work on us, for our well being and growth.
This will continue to happen until the only solution, God’s solution, is to become Christ-like. We do things that we shouldn’t do because ‘we’ want to do them. We want to sin, thus our wants and our selfish desires trump Christ within. Of course, after the fact, we feel bad, we don’t like what we did, we’re convicted by the Holy Spirit, etc. But again, this is our growth. We must learn from our mistakes and repent – stop doing them all together. We can only do this to become Christ-like in that situation. When we place Him FIRST, we don’t do the things we once did. When we place ourselves first, we do the things we want to do, while completely ignoring the Holy Spirit’s voice that says “I wish you wouldn’t”.
See, if we are continually attacked in the same area, and we see the growth opportunity and we stand in agreement with God that we sinned, we are on the path of growth. We see that we do things we wish not to do. We must turn from them if the Spirit wishes we don’t do them. We cannot possibly recognize things we shouldn’t do, and keep doing them, w/ complete disregard to the Holy Spirit. There must be growth. When growth exists.. when we start learning… moving forward… and seeing the evil one for what he is doing in our life, and how we need to repent and bring Christ into the situation that keeps repeating itself, then the evil one will stop attacking in that specific area because he can see that it is bringing us to God. That’s the last thing he wants to happen and if his tactics bring God into the situation, he will flee. Thus, count it all joy, assuming growth is happening. Of course, in no way can this justify our actions to do the things we know are wrong. And of course, the actual temptation and the sin itself is a terrible thing… but if the outcome brings us closer to God, well… I count the outcome and the situation as a blessing… We don’t call the sin a blessing.. We call the drawing near to God a blessing.
From the 3 battlegrounds:
God cannot entrust His Kingdom to those that have not been broken of pride. Pride is the armor of darkness. Pride caused Satan’s fall. We deny Christ when pride is first. On the flip side, we deny Satan when Christ is first (and then we don’t fall).
Pride comes before the fall. Before we sin, we have a choice. The actions/heart/mind of Christ, or to do something we want to do. Pride will always preempt a fall. It’s placing ourselves before God. Sometimes, we even will form God and make Him into what we want Him to be just so we can justify our actions. Pride is very evil and wicked. It will continue to justify things, it will be a “me first” mentality. And if the “me first” mentality or the justifications don’t work, then the wicked one will re-issue more justifications. The words in our head will get reformed, they will get twisted, and new justifications form… until the evil one finds the justification that will make us do what we shouldn’t do.
We should recognize that the areas in our darkest places are the areas of our future defeat.
We really need to pay close attention to our self talk here.. our motives.. our drive. We can only recognize our pride and selfish ambitions if we humble ourselves. We can only repent and see our sin if we humble ourselves. Without humbling ourselves, the pride will be in focus and will continue in our thought process, thus fooling us.. preventing us from seeing. These are the scales of the eyes… hardened hearts.. deafened ears. Pride will refuse entry, will refuse discovery, and we end up being unable to humble ourselves. Humility is the opposite of pride – it’s the act of surrendering, submitting and being obedient to the Most High God. Bowing down before Him.
The greatest defense against the devil is to have a honest heart before God.
We gotta get away from defending our beings, our ways, our pride, our selfishness, our personal beliefs, our self-preserving, our self-protecting mechanisms… we need to stop using defending thoughts and ways to beat around the bush. We need to have an honest heart before God. Let Christ be the words, our advocate, our defender, and our righteousness. Surrendering of self and pride means to bring Christ in to the forefront of our beings, forefront of our thoughts, our mind, our will is His will. Let Christ speak through our lips, think through our minds, and feel through our hearts. When we can humble ourselves and repent… and when we have that honest heart before God, the evil one doesn’t have a chance. The battle is for our soul.. It’s Self/Flesh/Pride/Satan vs Christ/God/Love/Holy Spirit. Our choice – Choose our selfish desires/prideful self or choose Him.
Victory begins with Jesus in our hearts, on our minds, and on our lips. Failure begins w/ pride/self.
