The enemy does NOT want you to know this! (HOW TO FIGHT BACK)

do you know that Jesus knows exactly what you are going through Jesus knows what it's like for Satan to come against your mind day after day especially when you're weak but he also shows us how to fight back hello everyone welcome to or welcome back to 828 with Kate I'm your host Kate Taylor and today's episode maybe the most important message I have shared on the podcast so far simply because I think this is not talked about enough in the church at least in my experience and it's something that as Christians it's crucial for us

to be educated on so you might want to grab a notebook pen and your Bible for this one because we are diving in into the topic of spiritual warfare and the attack that is currently happening in your life and on your mind specifically whether you realize it or not you are in the middle of a spiritual battle right at this very moment if you are a Christian you are God's representative here on Earth there is someone who does not like God and therefore he does not like you in other words you have an enemy in

the Bible Peter is recorded warning the early church to be alert and of sober mind he said watch out for your great enemy the devil he prows around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour stand firm against him and be strong in your faith remember that your family of Believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are I have a note here that says when you transferred out of Satan's realm and into Christ's Kingdom you became a Target Satan wants to keep you from advancing God's Kingdom on

Earth he wants to destroy you the Bible says the enemy comes only to steal kill and destroy perhaps they're not teaching this much in church because that could scare off new Believers but the problem with that is if you are ignorant to the fact that you have an enemy who is leading a spiritual battle against you you are probably not winning that battle if you are in a war zone unarmed unprepared and vulnerable to me that is too dangerous of a place to be especially because as you draw closer and closer to God the enemy

is only going to increase his efforts to thwart that CS Lewis said the enemy will not see you vanish into God's company without an effort to reclaim you how does he do that well in Ephesians chapter 6 it tells us that the devil schemes when I looked up schemes in my Greek dictionary some of the other translations also said cunning Arts craft trickery and deceit and how do you deceive someone you lie to them right well that checks out because this is what Jesus said about Satan there is no truth in him when he lies

he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of Lies Satan told the very first lie that was ever recorded in history when he lied to Eve in the Garden of Eden so then I looked up the definition of deceive and it means to deliberately cause someone to believe something that is not true especially for personal gain and where does to see happen where does Satan do all of this trickery in our mind the mind is the battlefield Ephesians 6:12 says 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 we may not have eyes to see the spiritual realm and how those forces of evil are Waring against us yet that spiritual realm is more real than the reality you currently see and when you start to understand both what spiritual warfare is and how it manifests it's like turning on a light switch so you can start to see the Unseen and I want to give you an example something personal that happened in my

life a few weeks ago one afternoon I was sat right there on my sofa scrolling Instagram and a cute little family photo came up it was Kristen and Marcus John's they are a Christian couple you guys probably know them I have followed them on social media for years they just seem like the sweetest Christian family and it was just a family photo I'll try find it and put it in the video if I can but it was just the two of them holding their kids really sweet happy wholesome family photo as I was looking at

it I had this thought come into my head that said you will never have that as soon as this thought came in my eyes started to well up because I'm going to try not to get emotional about it now but having cptsd one of the symptoms that I struggle with the most is relational issues it's been very hard for me to trust people because growing up I learned that adults are not trustworthy and people will not protect you then in my adult years I unfortunately got into some relationships which only reinforced that negative belief so

now trying to be in a healthy relationship has been really difficult for me it's a lot of work I will say it's a million per worth it and with therapy I am coming a long way but there are still still some negative thoughts that I can tend to have on my not so good days that I'm too broken I'm too damaged from everything I went through that I'm not capable of having a healthy relationship or of living a normal life and sometimes I get stuck in these thought patterns I start ruminating on them and obviously

that only makes things worse but recently I was listening to Joyce Meer and she had said you don't have to accept every thought that just falls into your head in fact we shouldn't because second Corinthians 105 says we should take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ before we just accept any old thought that pops into our head and start running with it or giving it meaning we need to check if that thought is aligned with God's thoughts is our thinking aligned with God's way of thinking is that thought true or is that

thought even from you I Believe In This Moment the thought that came into my head was not from me because as I saw the photo and my eyes started to well up I felt this negative thought about to drag me down a dark rabbit hole but I identified what was happening as it was happening and I remembered what Joyce Maya had said she said don't accept the thought and talk back to the devil so as I was sitting on the couch I said out loud no I am not accepting that thought that is a lie

it's a lie that I'll never have that it's a lie that I will never have a family that is a lie and then I said to God please give me the truth and immediately I thought of Jeremiah 2911 for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future the reason I knew to ask God for a truth to counteract the LIE is because of what Jesus did in Luke chapter 4 I want to read this chapter to

you because it's here that we see Jesus facing the same war that we do he's in the same Battlefield that we are in every single day do you know that Jesus knows exactly what you are going through the Bible says for we do not have a high priest who was unable to empathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are yet he did not sin Jesus knows what it's like for Satan to come against your mind day after day especially when you're weak in this chapter

we see him face this torment for 40 days straight but he also shows us how to fight back he gives us the blueprint for winning the spiritual battle that we're in when Satan comes against our mind so I'm going to read it to you this is Luke 4 starting in verse one Jesus full of the Holy Spirit left the Jordan and was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil he ate nothing during those days and at the end of them he was hungry the devil said

to him if you are the Son of God tell this Stone to become bread Jesus answered it is written man shall not live on bread alone the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and he said to him I will give you all their Authority and Splendor it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want want to if you worship me it will all be yours Jesus answered it is written Worship the Lord your God and serve

him only the devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple if you are the Son of God he said throw yourself down from here for it is written he will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone Jesus answered it is said do not put the Lord your God to the test when the devil had finished all this tempting he left him until an opportune time I have five

takeaways from the scripture for you number one Satan is strategic and it's here that we see his strategy onf the scripture says that Jesus has not eaten for 40 days and 40 nights I Googled how long you can go without food before you'll die and it said you will become weak at 30 days and you'll typically die from 43 days onwards Jesus is at 40 days so he is weak and hungry almost to the point of death and what is the very first thing that Satan tempts him with rad the devil had been watching Jesus

go without food and he knew where he was weak the same goes for us he is watching us he knows exactly where to hit the hardest the other week when I had this negative thought that I'll never have a family I was already having a rough week with my mental health specifically with how my symptoms affect relationships and maybe for you if you had that same thought it might not be a big deal you could just easily brush it off but for me that was a thought that could very quickly drag me into a pit

of hopelessness about myself and about my life you didn't know that about me until I just told you now but Satan knows and he has known because he has studied me from birth to learn where I am weak in order to build his strategy and he has done the same for you he has studied you he knows exactly what thought to place to make you spiral to try and make you cave into his temptation so what what does Jesus do when he's faced with this he talks back to the devil he quotes scripture and what

you need to know and this is point number two is that Jesus is not just quoting scripture he is actually wielding a sword see you don't fight back in a spiritual battle with a physical weapon you fight back with a spiritual one and 2 Corinthians 10 4 says the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world on the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds strongholds are these negative thought patterns and here we see Jesus using the most powerful weapon he has against them the word of God Jeremiah 23:29 is not

my word like fire declares the Lord and like a hammer that smashes a rock Hebrews 4:12 for the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the division of Soul and Spirit and of joints and Marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart the best part about this is that Jesus didn't fight back with anything that we don't have access to he didn't call down armies of angels He used the word of God you can have the very same sword in your own

hand and why do you think that you feel discouraged and demotivated about reading the Bible why do you think every time you sit down to read you get distracted by something else because part of Satan's strategy is to keep your eyes off of the one thing that can help you the one thing that will put him in his place the one thing that will get him to leave you alone in the book fervent by Priscilla shyra she says if I were your enemy I'd want to devalue the most potent weapons in Your Arsenal he seeks

to dim your whole desire for prayer dull your interest in spiritual things and downplay the potency of your most strategic weapons doesn't this make so much sense he doesn't want us to know truth because the counter to lies is truth the answer to deception is truth the antidote to deceit is truth so each time the devil lied to Jesus Jesus responded with the truth but the next part of the story shocked me honestly the first time I read it because Satan tempts Jesus and Jesus replies it is written Satan tempts Jesus again and Jesus replies

it is written but the third time that Satan speaks he himself says it is written and he quotes scripture back to Jesus what does this tell us this is point number three Satan knows scripture and chances are he knows it better than you do the most dangerous thing about this is Satan manipulates the word he twists it he takes it out of context which is exactly what he does in this situation in the wilderness Jesus of course knows this and he is able to respond again with the truth but what about you do you know

the Bible well enough to discern when Satan is doing this can you differentiate between truth and a lie because the LIE he told wasn't overt it was subtle he was quoting scripture but there was a manipulation and sadly Satan is not the only one who does this before Jesus ascended up to heaven he warned us saying I know that false teachers like vicious wolves will come in among you after I leave not sparing the flock even some men from your your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following

now more than ever there are people online with podcasts churches and huge followings and not all of them are what they seem Satan is still using people to spread his lies for him and those lies may look very close to the truth the Bible says and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of Light it is not surprising then if his servants also masquerade as Servants of righteousness it says these people are deceitful workers masquerading as Apostles of Christ but a lot of Christians don't read their Bibles so they have no idea that

these people are wolves and sheep's clothing and they blindly follow them also even when someone isn't a false preacher there will be times when your pastor says the wrong thing or where you listen to my podcast and I say the wrong thing no Bible teacher is going to get it right 100% of the time we are fallible human beings interpreting the word of God through our own lens so you need to know the word for yourself not secondhand not regurgitated straight from the horse's mouth the only 100% reliable source is the source himself Jesus was

able to answer Satan's missuse of scripture with the proper use of the Bible because he understood it in its context do you number four Satan attacks the hardest right before your biggest breakthrough when did Satan tempt Jesus right as he is about to embark on his threeyear ministry which changed the world changed us and changed all of our futures by saving us from death I wonder why he wanted to stop that Satan attacks those he sees as a threat he will not rob an empty house that's why he has come after you you should not

be afraid of Satan he is terrified of you he is scared of what you will do if you break through those strongholds because you represent God here on Earth you have the holy spirit inside of you and there is no limit to what you can do for the kingdom of God also just because you are under attack does not mean that God has left you it says Jesus full of the Holy Spirit left the Jordan and was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness you may in fact be right in the middle of God's will

for you and I understand that is a theologically challenging concept that God himself may lead us into a Barren place like that Wilderness but trust that if God has placed you there there is something to be learned on the inside of it and something to be found on the other side of it just just wait stand your ground as it says in Ephesians chapter 6 with the bout 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 because number five if you don't quit the devil will James 4:7 says resist the devil and he will flee from you my Bible commentary says Satan is not stupid he will not continually put his limited resources into an ineffective battle if you want Satan to leave you alone for a while you must continually resist him Jesus resisted

him time and time again he stood his ground and he fought back with the sword of the spirit and it says when the devil had ended every Temptation he departed from him until an opportune time he lies in wait waiting until we are weak again and so we need to as Peter said be alert and of sober mind and I I want you to know the battle we are in has already been won Satan is fighting a fight that he has already lost the end is already determined it's like watching a football match but it's

a replay and you already know who the winning team is we are watching this all play out but we know who wins in the end and it's our team it's Jesus it's us the Bible says you dear children are from God and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world all Satan has in the meantime is trickery it's lies and deceit and trying to make you believe something that isn't true so before I wrap up I have some homework that I I'm going to

be doing and I would love you guys to do it with me I am going to make a list of of all of the negative thoughts that most often come into my mind and I'm going to ask God what are the counters what are the truths in your word to fight back with you can also Google scriptures to overcome anxiety depression low selfworth whatever your specific weaknesses are search that up online and then ask the Holy Spirit to highlight which ver to use to counter those lies I'm also going to leave links to other resources

in the description that I think are really helpful for battling spiritual warfare I hope this episode was helpful to you guys please leave a comment if it was or a rating and a review you can also send me a message on the 828 women Instagram page if you want to chat and I will talk to you again not next Wednesday but the Wednesday after until next time God bless you guys [Music]