Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
8/30/2021
Why is Satan trying to destroy your relationships?
2nd Corinthians 10:3–5 when we have a disagreement with a loved one, when words are exchanged, they can physically hurt. In fact, we may even be bleeding. But there must come a time when we grow up and stop drinking the milk of God’s word and get into the meat of it. And that begins with realizing that we’re not fighting a physical war but we are in an all-out spiritual battle.
We’re not fighting for a promotion or some earthly prize or for more power or even some social recognition. We are fighting for perhaps the most precious thing that God gave us… our relationships.
When will you realize how despicable and underhanded Satan really is? Have you not grown enough in your relationship with Jesus to realize he’s not this biblical myth. Satan is beyond humanly clever, he attacks our thoughts with the most eloquent arguments, he is the master of deception. Rest assured he is more of a master salesman and magician than we are. However forceful our arguments are in the flesh they will not impress a demon! Ours are weapons of carnality… of the flesh and they are so pedestrian.
The good news is that the captain of the host has already defeated Goliath! Satan and his cohorts are defeated. That Victory by, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, lives strong in us, as he lends us his strength and spiritual insight to win the war!
Paul says to take every thought captive in Jesus. Because that’s where the enemy comes. He attacks us in our minds through our thoughts and our imaginations. And it manifests itself in our feelings, attitudes, opinions, and our passions and they exalt themselves above the “knowledge of God”
Paul uses phrases like “casting down arguments”, in verse five. That would certainly include our feelings. How often have we been told to not trust them? That’s what these satanic thoughts and attitudes do. They affect our behaviors in the way that we think, in the way that we receive the spoken words and actions of other people that derail us from the way God wants us to respond not react.
God gave each of us the power and the ability to reason. But we have to choose which filter we’re going to sift all of this through. The flesh or the spiritual. Satan and his cohorts want us to elevate our thinking, reasoning, our beliefs, and circumstantial evidence above the "knowledge of God”. What Satan does; he tempts us, in our core concepts and leads us through manipulation and circumstances to exalt and prioritize what we reason above the knowledge of God written in his holy word.
But a critical factor to remember is that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is the third person of the Trinity and we are supposed to be in a relationship with him. We should talk with him, reason with him, listen to him, and through that, we learn about God and his ways of understanding and applying what we read in the Bible. Satan seeks to destroy relationships on this earth which ultimately will hinder or destroy our relationship with God. And that is his ultimate end….his mission. Just like Eve, he wants you to start questioning God’s salvation, his love, his forgiveness and righteousness, and all of his promises and the way of life that he desires for his children. Just a little seed can grow some very large and ugly roots.
Would you pray for an hour this week about getting some of the less-than-perfect relationships you have in your life to a better place? About being intentional about speaking grace and love into them, even if you think they don’t deserve it. Neither did we!
Above All Michael W Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CIdfZBle38&list=RDVhrxRccU3Lw&index=29
