Since leaving training camp I have gone through every emotion in the book:
confusion, excitement, anticipation, sadness, guilt, worry. You name it, I’ve felt it.
I hate to admit it, but it took me some time to figure out what was going on with me. I just chalked it up to “the fear of the unknown” and was telling myself things like,
“Well, Juliana, you know you’re no good at transitional phases“,
“You’re scared and you’re always going to feel scared because the unknown is a scary dangerous place“.
Helloooooo? This is just not true.
I’m excellent at transitional phases. I live for spontaneity and opportunities to dive headfirst into the unknown. Who was I kidding telling myself these lies!?
And then it hit me.
DUH. I am under spiritual attack right now.
I reached out to my awesome team for some advice. They shed light into spiritual warfare, ‘go-to’ verses they turn to, and equally honest vulnerability that they feel attacked as well.
I spent the next couple days digging into Truth and who the devil is. If I was going to combat his attack, then I wanted to understand his game, to understand the language of lies.
It turns out the devil is pretty lazy. He plays the same games every single time. And yet, we fall for the same games every single time. Haven’t we learned? I went to the Bible to see what Jesus did in his moments of temptation.
After Jesus was baptized he ventured into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This story in the Bible gives us a perfect example of the tricks the devil uses to tempt us. I mean, come on, Satan was tempting Jesus.. he had to pull out all his trump card tricks here. For Satan, this was his make it or break it moment, because what Jesus would do after this time of temptation would change the world forever.
We get to read about worst case scenario tempting of the devil and how Jesus came out on top. There’s definitely something to be learned here.
Satan first starts by attacking Jesus’ identity and His security in God. The devil says to Him, well “If you are the Son of God…”, if you are who you say you are, then turn these stones to bread.
The devil’s only game plan here is to try to get in Jesus’ head and screw up what He believes His identity to be.
See here’s the thing. Our identity is secured. “It is finished“.
We don’t have to worry about who we are, or what works we have to do to have a relationship with God. It is already finished – through Jesus, through mercy and grace, we get to have it all. And it’s not some wishy washy forgiveness that goes away the next time we screw up (which we will). We are forgiven through and through, for our past, present and future sins. And NOTHING will ever take that away. Not even twisted lies from an accuser.
Jesus then turns to the devil in his moment of temptation and says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus uses Truth to combat his accuser.
I know I’m not the only one that needs to remember that I am enough. “My grace is sufficient for you.” I want to be so bold in my identity through Christ that I can stand up to any accusations about my past/present or future identity and say I know who I am because I know whose I am. And you can’t take that away from me – ever.
The devil comes at Jesus again, but this time he’s trickier. He says, “If you are the son of God.. (there it is again) throw yourself down, for it is written”.
Now this verse is interesting because it shows the laziness of Satan. Why in the world would Satan put in effort to sabotage us when we do perfectly well self-sabotaging our own lives? He’s not going to do more than he has to do.
Satan isn’t omnipresent though – he can’t do it all. So if we can do it for him, well, easier for him.
Let’s get real honest here. The devil doesn’t make us self-destruct. The devil doesn’t force us to destroy relationships, our bodies and lives. All he has to do is sit back and whisper a thought into our minds and we do all the destructing ourselves.
Why do we continuously make it easy for the devil to take control of our minds?
Jesus again used the Word of God to fight away his temptation by saying, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”. But Satan wasn’t done yet.
The final way the devil tempts Jesus is by showing him all of the kingdoms of the world, all of the riches in all of its glory, and then saying you can have all of this “If you will fall down and worship me”.
The third way the devil tempts us is through distraction. Satan wants to steal your focus. How many times do you have a problem in your life and you turn to distractions to rid yourself of those thoughts?
Well speaking for myself, and I know I’m not alone, I distract myself every chance I get. We are constantly bombarded with information of what we should look like, what we should eat, what house we should have, what guy/girl we should be with, and all of the how’s and ‘to-do’s’ to get there.
We need to stop “should-ing” on ourselves and start acting out in Truth. We are so distracted that instead of taking our fears and insecurities to God – the only one who can bring us peace, we go straight to the first “Top 10” self-help fix we can find.
God promises us an abundant life. A life overflowing. We need to be turning to what is True and what is promised to us. Instead we live in denial and self-destruct and then look up to the heavens and say “Oh God, why did you let this happen?” We have now become the very accuser we detest, and worst of all, we have become the accuser to the one God who has been with us, fighting alongside us, for us, the whole time.
That breaks my heart.
So now what do we do?
What do I do?
Well we look to Jesus and we use ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God’ to protect ourselves from the enemy. The tactics that the devil uses are still the same, and the Bible shows us exactly how to overcome them.
Identity. Self-destruction. Distraction. These are the ways the devil torments us when we are weak.
The Bible teaches us how to be strong, how to stand in Truth and how to fight back.
“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4
The Holy Spirit is within all of us and we have the power to overcome any obstacle in our way. “Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be discouraged for I am your God. I will give you strength and I will help you, surely I will hold you up with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)
I am only just realizing the power I hold over my enemies. Not only is the devil powerless, but he’s actually scared and threatened by me. The Bible says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” I have the power to literally make the devil run away from me. I need to stop thinking the opposite, that I have to run from him.
Spiritual warfare is no joke. I have to take time every day to read the Word and spend time with God in prayer to combat the lies that come at me.
I’m not perfect, and the devil knows that, and he tries to use that against me.
But what I also know is that he can’t touch me, and my strength’s stretch even into my weakest and darkest of places.
“I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong”
(2 Corinthians 12: 9-10).
I am on a journey now to change lives, to spread a love that is so unimaginably perfect and consuming. The devil should be threatened. The world will change. I will change, and the devil will have no power to stop me.
