RESIST

We touched on this in Tuesday’s blog. The idea of actively resisting the force of the devil. I wanted to expand on this A) because it is important and B) I texted myself a thought about it a couple weeks ago and tag-lined it with ‘blog post’. Dang I just reread it and it’s goooood. Sometimes I need to pump myself up. I sent this to myself on August 5th at 8:57 AM. I do not know why I was having deep thoughts so early in the morning but I am grateful for a working logical mind.

A little tip for my writer’s out there or people who have thoughts they want to remember or are typically very forgetful. Write it down. Put it in your notes. Or, I literally send myself things I need to remember on Messenger. It does not matter where I am or the time, I will open up Messenger and text myself things because then it is received as a notification. Even if there is no internet, it saves the message and sends when there is. A great little hack.

To the actual message though (without anything changed for true integrity):

BLOG:: What if we stopped resisting the devil without realizing it? Maybe that’s why the battle is continuing and we feel like we’re losing. Because somewhere along the way we forgot to actively resist the voice which said it would never happen, we would never be healed, nothing good would ever happen again. What if we’ve given a foothold without realizing it? What if we stopped holding God to His word and truly living in the faith and mindset of knowing He WILL do what He has proclaimed He will and Satan has no power over that?

It is not an active choice of giving up or stopping the fight. Instead it is when we get too comfortable, too lax. The healing has already come so we do not need to keep praying, or we no longer think about trying to change the situation we know God wants us to pray for because it seems hopeless. It is not the kind of conscious choice someone makes but a passivity that grows through the idea of laziness or cessation.

I know we talked about cessationism but this is different. This is closing our eyes on the battlefield and taking a rest when the enemy is marching forth because we do not think about it. My pastor shared yesterday (Sunday) a sermon on the armour of God and the war we are still in. He talked about John Sedgwick. A major general in the Civil War who is known for his last words “they couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”.

He was striding out on the battlefield among flying bullets, declaring they could never get him from 1,000 yards away. He ended up being shot in the face, under his left eye.

His story is one more of purposeful arrogance and lack of respect for the deadly situation he was in, but how often do we as Christian ignore the deadly scenario we are in? We are in a war and we are told to resist the devil a couple different times, in a couple different ways.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 4:7

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

1 Peter 5:8-9

Do we consider resist an inactive word? When I think resist, I think force. I think action. You are purposefully going against or stopping something from happening. Resist is a verb. An action word. It predicates an action taken for or against. You resist the temptation to eat a cookie. Joseph resisted Pharaoh’s wife’s attempts to seduce him. People resist arrest.

You do not think of resisting as some person sitting on a couch doing nothing. What are they resisting? The urge to get up.

Resisting is a world of action. It excites passion and expects action. While the riots were dangerous and got out of hand, the protests were resisting systematic racism weaved into the fabric of a white society. While we can resist in a good way and in a bad way, it always implies an action taken for a cause or a force against.

I like using resistance bands in my workouts because it burns more to have a force actively moving against me so I have to push harder. Wind creates resistance. A rusted bolt may resist the wrench twisting it.

I know I keep going on about this, but what I am trying to instill is a deep sense and understanding of what the word actually means. Two different Apostles, in two different books, used the word resist when it came to the devil.

Do you think that means ignore? Do you think that means overlook? Do you think that means avoid?

No. Ignoring him is all great and good except sometimes he presents himself in a nice little package. Overlook is what he wants. He wants you to overlook him. We should neither overestimate nor underestimate Satan, because that is how he gets us. Avoiding him does not work because let me tell you, while Satan cannot be everywhere because he is not omnipresent, there are forces and principalities working against us and there is EVIL in this world.

Resist means actively work against. The dictionary definition is “Withstand the action or effect of”.

It is not resisting if you are not thinking about the action. Resisting is not doing something else that is ‘less’ bad because at least it’s not what you used to do. Resisting is not entertaining the idea, like a cat plays with a mouse or toy. It is not about dipping your toe in the water to test it.

Satan wants you to test the water. He wants you to click on that link and stare at the log-in you used to know off the top of your head. When you start thinking in shame about yourself, he wants you to do that. In fact he encourages you to. Resisting is not passive forgetfulness or dropping prayer because it is not working. Resisting is remembering what the truth is and fighting against ANYTHING that is not the truth.

My pastor also said in his sermon (funny that he had a sermon about this when it was on my docket to write this week (Funny or JESUS?)) that anything that is not the truth is a lie. Even a slight twist on the truth is a lie.

Resist the devil, resist the lies. Actively remind yourself who you are, whose you are, and what no longer holds you down. This goes for porn, anxiety, depression, anger, shame, healing, anything. If God told you to pray for something, you pray for it more. Disappointment and hopelessness can be a foothold for Satan to create something even worse inside of us.

If I remember the conversation correctly, this came from talking to my friend about depression and anxiety and how it was incredible how one moment you can be doing so good and the next you are worse. Even after God has delivered you. I have thought about it too when it comes to healing. A friend of mine has been in pain since she can remember. Lots of problems in her body. She told me once she no longer even prays for it because “it’s just the way things are”.

I think that’s the danger when we stop actively resisting. We stop actively renewing our minds and claiming God’s truth. We stop fighting despair and hopelessness. Pain and grief become the new norm and we do nothing to fight it because it is just the way things are. Our passivity leads to accepting lies about the way things are, simply because we have stopped actively revolting.

This should not be the case.

We need to remain active in our faith and the declaration of God’s truth. We need to wake up every single day with the understanding today is a battle and while Jesus has the victory, we are fighting for ourselves and this world.

Jesus has already declared victory over you and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about that… except make you forget to walk in it. Interesting how our tone and posture changes when bad things start happening. It is always interesting to me how after having a really good worship night or prayer with God or a powerful blog post, how old thoughts start to come back.

How things begin to resurface that God already put to rest. Satan loves throwing his flaming arrows and mud balls at us, hoping something will stick because he is afraid of the power Jesus gives us.

A Christian podcaster I follow on Instagram shared a quote, I cannot remember if she said it or someone else or what the exact wording is, but she said ‘if you are being attacked, it means Satan sees you as a threat. If you are not, it means you are not doing your job properly.’

Something like that. I am guilty of saying to kids at camp that Satan would not attack them because he has bigger eggs to fry but I also know there is a lot of power that comes with child-like faith and he does not like that. Being attacked means you are resisting and he knows he is being forced out. It’s time to evict him.

The Accuser says, “Feel guilty and condemned for all the things the Most High has had to do for you.” Deliberately refuse to listen to him. Because the more you listen, the more he’ll say.

Beth Moore

Interesting… deliberately refuse. Like resisting.

The above quote is true. If you listen to what Satan says, if you give him that foothold, you’re going to be upside down with no idea how you got there, caught in a web of lies, and unsure where to start to get out. Metaphorically of course unless the devil is trying some new tactics…

Part of being a Christian is understanding our faith, our belief, our prayers, everything we do is a choice. Every morning we need to choose to resist, to build, to renew, to help. We have to make the effort of declaring God’s truth in a world of lies, because if we are not actively resisting, you would be surprised just how slippery that slope is.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 

Ephesians 6:10-18

This is definitely a more popular section of the Bible. One most Sunday school teachers probably use once a year so they can do crafts of armour with the kids. The armour of God is all about the active resistance against the scheme’s of Satan and the forces against us. Read it. There are spiritual forces of evil guys.

If you do not believe it, look at the world. There are people trying to get pedophilia to be accepted as a sexual orientation. Black people are dying based off the colour of their skin??? There is division all over the place. Natural disasters. Wars still being waged. Bombs going off. Dictators. THERE ARE CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN CHINA BUT NO ONE SEEMS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!? If you do not think evil objectively exists… I am going to ask you to go get your eyesight checked and take another look.

As Christians it is our job to actively resist the evil and darkness of the world. Shed Jesus’ light and that starts with our light not being dimmed by the swirl of our own darkness. It means praying in the knowledge God will move. Actively changing our thoughts and renewing our minds. Catching every thought, intention, inclincation, and temptation and finding out where it came from and why.

It means we never ‘accept’ the way things are because THIS LIFE IS NOT WHAT WAS INTENDED FOR US. JESUS is. We can have a full life on earth and I believe Jesus intends for us to live life to the fullest on this planet, but I also believe we should never accept anything less than Him. Than Heaven. Than the the life we were intended to have and live alongside God.

Passivity is the enemy of a spiritual Christian.

Watchman Nee

Passivity. A dangerous poison and probably one of the trickiest schemes of the devil. Convincing us everything is fine or to accept anything less than the miraculous, magnificence our incredible God would provide.

I am so guilty of it. Becoming lukewarm in Christ. Just reading the Bible, not seeing it or absorbing it. Listing off a prayer so I can go on my social media or go to sleep or listen to music. Slowly allowing myself to go back into old thinking habits or just ‘checking’ something I know I should not.

It is not good enough to ride the wave through life until Jesus comes. We need to be fighting and resisting the world until He does. Good enough is not good enough. It just isn’t. Put the passion and fight you have when someone cuts you off or a worker gets your order wrong or your favourite character in a show dies, towards the cause of fighting for your soul and others.

God, give me the strength to resist the schemes of the devil. Father I know he comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Thank you for giving me life. For giving me the many gifts and providence you pour over my head. Thank you for building me up. You are great, there is no power close to yours and while Satan may be our opponent, he is nothing more than an insignificant child to you. There is no comparison to be found.

I pray Lord that I would be able to distinguish the voice of the devil, so I may know his voice and rebuke it. I pray you would reveal to me where I have become passive in my life. Fill me with a new passion and an overflow of your strength. Even when I do not feel like it and I am struggling, I will fight for you God because I want to be your vessel. I want to make you proud Lord. Help me to honour you and to help your children whom you love and I fight to love.

Lead me through these battles as I actively rebuke and denounce the ways of the devil. I know you have won the war my All-Powerful Saviour. You are good.

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen

I gotta go because my niece just arrived and she is cute. Going to go get baby cuddles!

God bless.

~ Ashley

P.S. May you be as happy as I am getting baby cuddles as I type this.