By: Hanny Lynn Stearns
Fish N
Loaves Ministries, Inc.
“Multiplying
God’s Word Around the Globe”
Get Behind Me Satan!
November 7, 2016
Mark 8:33
But when he had turned about and looked on his
disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not
the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
This is the story of my day yesterday. How else can we learn
how to fight the devil but through God’s word? Second to that, a testimony
about real life experiences can be a powerful aid. The things I am learning, I
am sharing with you so that you can also benefit from these lessons right along
with me. My sincere desire is that you can apply these things to your own circumstances.
As you probably know, my weight goal is within my reach,
after a long time coming. Glory to God! The closer I have come to the finish
line, the more the enemy has been rearing his ugly head to bring temptation,
distraction and lies. Yesterday while I was in the shower, the enemy tried to
get me to start adding food to my plan. He made himself sound a like the Lord
would speak to me. He watches and he learns how we hear from the Lord and how
God talks to us. He sees our journals, hears our conversations etc. So, what
does he do? He tries to mimic God by disguising himself as an angel of light.
The enemy will try to make the temptation sound so good that
one could easily be snared if they did not take it to the Lord in prayer. While
I considered the suggestion I was hearing, I thought it sounded reasonable. I
know at some point I will have to start to add some calories back in so I don’t
keep losing weight. But that is up to the Lord to decide, not me. I went about
my day, enjoying church and looking forward to coming home and meditating more
on the word that I heard in the sermon.
The next thing I knew, the enemy was bringing another
suggestion that in itself sounded just fine too. It had also started in the
morning in the shower. He was suggesting that I go for a walk to the big lake in
the afternoon where I go for my exercise walks during the week. He even
suggested that I could do that while listening to a rebroadcast of our Friday
night service. Now isn’t that something? The devil was actually telling me to
go for a walk and listen to the word of God. How can that be a bad thing?
I’ll tell you. He was trying to distract me. He is the
master of deception and distraction. What I had not realized yet was that all
this stuff that was coming to me in my shower time in the morning was coming
straight from the enemy. I thought it was the Lord! When I got home from church
I was still contemplating that walk. I had some things to attend to, and time
was running short. I was determined to go to my office and spend time in the
word. When I did, the Lord began to reveal His will to me. He showed me this
verse from Micah…
Micah 6:8
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
And
then I pulled this from the scripture card box…
Genesis
4:7
If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth
at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
AMPC
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if
you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you
must master it.
When I
saw the first verse in Micah, I didn’t get it – yet. But when I pulled the one
from Genesis, I got it. The enemy was messing with me about my food plan. He
was trying with all his might to get me to do something different starting tomorrow.
But I know how the Lord works. I knew He was telling me that He had shown me
what is good. The warning from the Genesis verse is obvious. The Lord
graciously showed me that the enemy was right at my door looking for the
opportunity to strike.
Whenever
there is a change being suggested like this, we need to seek the Lord on it and
then wait. We must not make any sudden changes to what the Lord has shown us
until we are 100% certain that it is really God asking us to do something
differently. God does not change His mind. He tells us to do something and He
wants us to stick to it. In the above passage, the Lord was helping me by
confirming that He has shown me what is good and right where my eating is
concerned.
Satan
knows God is getting ready to release big things in my life for our ministry
work and he is trying desperately to get me to fall. But God is on my side and
if God be for me, who can successfully be against me – hallelujah! Here is the
kicker about taking the walk. Why would the devil try to get me to take a walk,
even while listening to the word, which he hates? Because if I had taken that
walk, I would likely have missed pulling those verses. I would not have had the
time to do all that journaling and spending time in the word before it would be
time to take a call from Africa and then prepare dinner. I would have missed
what the Lord was trying to show me, and could have gotten up this morning and
started my day off in disobedience. That would have opened the door for the
enemy to attack.
And to
that I say, NOT INTERESTED DEVIL! Get behind me satan! You do not have in mind
the things of God. You have in mind the things of man. Just like Jesus said
when Peter had opened the door to the enemy, giving him an opportunity to work
through him to try to stop Jesus from proceeding with God’s plan of redemption
for all mankind. You see, the greater the work we are doing for the kingdom,
the greater the spiritual battles will become. It is nothing new under the sun.
It is certainly nothing to be afraid of either. We will fear no evil. The
greater One is living inside of us and Jesus gave us the authority to trample
on snakes and scorpions (all kinds of demons) and to overcome all the power of
the enemy so that nothing will harm us…
Luke 10:19
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents
and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any
means hurt you.
First the temptation to blow the eating plan, then the
distraction to take the walk so I would not hear from the Lord on this issue.
Oh, but thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph through our Lord Jesus
Christ! Hallelujah! I was on to satan’s evil schemes and I went to bed in
peace. And when I went to climb into my bed, I opened my bedside Bible to hear
from the Lord one more time at the end of my wonderful day. What did I turn to?
A page in Micah that had the very same verse highlighted in yellow, saying that
He has shown me what is good. What Jesus did was to give me not one, not two,
not three but four witnesses of His will for me in this situation. He is so
good and so faithful!
He had given my His word, the same message in two completely
different Bibles, and another one that spoke directly to the situation from Genesis.
He gave me the witness form Holy Spirit inside of me. I heard directly from the
Master on the inside; not an audible voice. He showed me what the scheme was
and how to avoid the trap satan had laid. The Bible makes it clear…
2 Corinthians 2:11
Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we
are not ignorant of his devices.
So, what should we do to avoid these traps the enemy tries to lay for
us? We watch and we pray. It is so vitally important. Praying in the spirit is
a real key to staying sensitive to Holy Spirit. The more Spirit aware we are,
the flesh minded we will be. If we obey what we know God told us to do until if
and when He tells us to do something differently, He will honor us and make
sure that we know when the assignment has changed.
In the meantime, we cannot allow our flesh tell us what it wants to do any
more than we can allow the enemy to tell us what he wants us to do. We have to
stay in the word. We have to work the word. Say it out loud. Meditate on it.
Listen and be quiet. Ask God when we are not sure – He appreciates that!
When we are actively watching,
praying, saying, and listening, we will not stumble. The enemy can throw all
the temptations at us that he wants to. We never have to give in to them. Jesus
didn’t. He was showing us how to fight – with the word. It really does work
when we work it friend.
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