Neutralizing Evil or Good?

 

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

Luke 4:1–2 (NIV)
Dan Wilt writes in today’s Wake Up Call devotional (at seedbed.com), “ There is a spiritual power of evil that both exists and has a purpose—to get you to either forfeit or extinguish the precious gift of life your Creator has given you.”
This spiritual evil, the satan, knows what we know… that our bodies are merely temporary. He will destroy them if he can or lure us into destroying them ourselves if for no other reason than to destroy or prevent the witness for God our lives are intended to be.  But he also knows that our souls are eternal and if he can cripple or destroy them, then we are less likely to embrace and obey God and he can perhaps use us for his own destructive activities in the earthly realm for a while.  We can be made pitiable and unwitting pawns or out-and-out allies of his evil.
He will assault one’s mind, manipulate emotions, whittle away at the will, sear the conscience, and deform the image of God in one’s personality and spirit beyond recognition until one is effectively spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, volitionally, and relationally dead to God, self, and others.  At that point one has been neutralized, even if still physically alive, and made irrelevant in the spiritual battle between good and evil.

 

When a traumatized fear-filled soul receives peace and healing in a relationship with Christ so that nightmares end, hope and joy are expressed, and life functionality is restored, God is glorified. I have experienced it and I have witnessed it many times while discipling women with various mental health and emotional challenges marked by addictive behaviors, grief, depression, paranoia, anger, co-dependency, anxiety, hallucinations, delusions, isolation, etc.

For many years I have written the enemy’s name “satan” in lowercase letters as a way of denying any equality of influence, authority, or power with God. Those things are sought by satan, and God permits satan to ply the wares of temptation. But only I can grant satan victory in doing so. And only I, using the same reliance on prayer, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit, can defeat satan when he comes at me with them.

It has occurred to me that satan’s punishment in being cast down to the earth among humankind is hidden in the thrill of thinking he will defeat God through God’s children but it is exposed in satan finding again and again that God is endlessly wise, loving, patient, protective, good, kind, and redemptive to those who love and obey His Word and receive His Holy Spirit. So the satan’s reign and reach shrinks among humankind as his ploys are recognized, rejected and overcome and as God’s children learn to live In Christ, victoriously in the world but not of it, just as Jesus Christ prayed in John 17 and continues to pray now. As we do so satan is reduced to irrelevancy and impotence one redeemed life at the time.

That fact and reality has to be humiliating for satan as he is forced to grovel before God to ask permission to sift humanity while experiencing defeat over and over again as Christ’s influence overcomes his own in the lives of those he tries to destroy.

The image that comes to mind is that of the scheming cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, and the road runner. The coyote is determined to defeat the roadrunner but has his traps and schemes blow up in his face, literally and figuratively, again and again.  It seems that for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, art once again imitates even spiritual life’s reality.  God is sovereign and his redemptive will always wins over the cunning wiles of the enemy of the souls of God’s children.

Jesus was clear that just because one has breath, it does not mean that person is a child of God.  It means only that there is hope still for redemption.  The soul and spirit may be quite lifeless, in need of resurrection power  of Christ. (Read John 8:34-47)

 

When one has learned to put on the whole armor of God to withstand and overcome the traps of the enemy, he becomes an
invincible foe. Christ shows us how and equips us with the means to be overcomers.

A Child of God knows these truths and, in knowing and living into truth, is set free from fear and from the tempting ploys of satan. The world is moving toward that ultimate reality. Of this, I am a witness and a messenger.