NOT TODAY SATAN!

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

Ephesians 6:11

A strange thing I have always been fascinated by is dreams. The way God is so detailed in how He designed our sleep amazes me. I’ve always loved sharing weird dreams I’ve had with friends and discussing these little movies we experience when we sleep at night. But, lately I’ve been having horrible dreams night after night. Dreams of death, violence, and other really unpleasant things. I know there is probably some scientific reason why, but as I was talking to my friend Megan she said something that struck me. This isn't word for word but she said something like, “You’re relationship with God is so strong during the day the devil can only get you when you're sleeping!” We both laughed at the idea but the more I thought about it the more I couldn't help but think there’s some truth behind it. What if Satan is creeping in while I’m sleeping and tormenting me? This idea sounds very “paranormal”, but scripture shows us that Satan is extremely sly, manipulative, and he is most certainly REAL. He tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and even tried to get Jesus to bow down to him. In our lives today his weapon of choice is our sin. Satan loves to see how sin builds walls between us and our Father. 

I want to look at a section in Romans where Paul talks about how we are a slave to whatever we obey. He says in Romans chapter 6 verse 16 “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.” Let’s dive deeper into this. I encourage you to observe your daily life. Examine your routine, daily habits, how you treat people, and just everyday things. Have you ever stopped for a moment and thought; am I daily being held captive to my sin? Think about it. If you are waking up everyday and living in fear, you are letting fear become your master. If you are speaking negatively everyday into peoples lives, you are letting negativity take you as its slave. These are just some examples, but we often don't realize the power that sin has on us. We become blind to the way Satan creeps into our lives and takes us captive. He can drag us down with just one thought or one dream. But my question is, why are we giving him the power to run our lives? If we truly love Jesus and we declare that He is our Savior, how are we missing the fact that the devil is so sneakily tempting us? 

I didn't write these paragraphs to scare you. I wrote them to motivate you to prepare yourself for spiritual warfare. God has equipped us with weapons to fight sin, death, and the devil! We have to CHOOSE to daily seek our Father. We need to daily go to God in PRAYER and ask Him into our day. We need to SURRENDER every aspect of our daily lives to God. We need to CAST OUT the demons that are daily taking us hostage. We need to READ His word daily. These are the ways we put on the ARMOR God has given us. That way in those times we feel defeated by sin we can take a deep breath and scream “NOT TODAY SATAN!”. 

“However you wanna walk in this world is whatever kind of spiritual footwear you’re gonna wear. You can wear (spiritual) flip flops if you want, but there’s a lot of rough terrain. There’s gonna be a lot of hills and you’re gonna have to go through a lot of mess. If you’re not fully prepared to walk strong then you're gonna very quickly realize you're not equipped. We are making ourselves vulnerable to a very real enemy who is out there and he is prowling, he is attacking, and he is after us. Meanwhile, we are distracting ourselves and numbing ourselves. We are ill equipped to fight! I want us to be prepared and strong so we walk through this world better. Here’s the plan: you read your bible, you pray, and there’s a third element that some people don't realize; you put yourselves constantly in positions to see God’s transformative work.” 

- Lisa Whittle from “The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey” podcast