Spiritual Warfare
James 4:7 (NIV): "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
I believe...
Satan exists.
Satan fell from heaven and took a third of the angels with him.
Satan and the other fallen angels/demons (herein, and in total, "the enemy") hate God.
The enemy hates humanity because God loves and prizes humanity so much.
The enemy wants to hurt each of us because they think it will hurt God, which it does(1).
Jesus came to redeem us from our fallenness, bring us back to life (that is, back to eternal union with Himself); defeat the enemy; and set us free from the tyranny of evil, darkness, sin, sickness, and death.
We, the redeemed and recreated of Christ, have dominating, supernatural authority over the enemy.
Over the last many months, the enemy has been ruthless and relentless in their attacks against me. With each attack, they drive me to my knees, ever deeper into the Heart, Arms, and Word of God Almighty.
As such, the enemy's strategy is flawed. Their attempts to hurt me and draw me away from God are only serving to drive me closer to Him and to those I love and care about. Given this, I believe either one of two things will happen:
The enemy will continue to attack me and only drive me closer to God and accelerate the expansion and expression of His love in and through me.
The enemy will stop attacking me because they realize their efforts are counter-productive and a waste of resources.
Either way, the kingdom of God wins (Which means I win, too!), and the enemy loses. I'm anticipating the second option occurring at some point in the not-so-distant future. The enemy's not dumb; if you resist them in the Name of Jesus, and do it tenaciously, they'll leave you and seek to focus their resources elsewhere. That's what I believe God, through the above passage in James, wishes to convey to us.
If you're under attack, surrender to God, let Him love you, and then empty that very same love into those around you. This is your primary means of resistance to the enemy, evil, and the temptations of this present, fallen order. Do all this, and the enemy, sooner or later, will leave you alone. This is the general nature of spiritual warfare.
God's peace to you...
Notes
Some may argue God cannot be hurt. I beg to differ. God is saddened over the enemy's attacks against us. Even though He uses such circumstances and instances to train and strengthen us, it saddens Him just the same. I think it also angers Him. BTW...God is NOT angry at you. The anger He feels is the anger a very loving parent might feel when he (or she) sees his child suffering. In God, we have a suffering God, who came to earth, by becoming man in Jesus of Nazareth, and suffered so we could be redeemed, healed, and, ultimately, freed from all suffering (see Is 53:4-6, Jn 3:16, and Re 21:4).
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