Leah Grace This past week and a half was full of attacks from the enemy, both in my body and my mind. I had a lot to work through, and it wasn’t easy.
At first, I tried to resist… a little. I knew what was coming against me and ignored it at first, believing the way I felt would go away, but as soon as it started to get a little worse, I quickly resigned. I stopped resisting and just decided that “whatever happens will happen,” and gave up…
Until I was given a little pep talk by someone I’m very close to. I was reminded that James 4:7 says, “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
But I wasn’t feeling it. The only thing I was feeling was miserable, so I just smiled and nodded as pleasantly as I could.
And then, about a half hour later, the words sunk in and I had an epiphany. The enemy would think I was an easy target if every time I was hit with something that came against me, I succumbed with hardly a fight.
I realized that the enemy was testing me, trying me; throwing everything he could at me then watching closely to see if I would cave and play into his hand—or resist.
When I discovered exactly what was happening, it was game on. I started doing the opposite of what I wanted to do when something came against my peace, just to prove to the devil that I wouldn’t be defeated, but I didn’t resist in my own power. I resisted in the strength of the Holy Spirit. I also spoke scriptures out loud, declaring the truth of God’s word over my life.
And you know what happened? I got victory. Things started to shift for the better in my circumstances, and I’m stronger in my faith now than I was two weeks ago. I don’t write this post to puff myself up in a self-righteous way or say, “You all need to be a little more like me.” I’m writing this with a desire to encourage you as you walk through your own battles this week.
The devil is only able to work in our lives when we let him, and although we have every right to kick him out, he tries to make us believe we can’t. Other times, he tries to make us believe that we have no say in what happens in our lives or how we feel—like God is sovereignly controlling everything that goes on and our prayers achieve nothing.
But our prayers make all the difference in the world.
Verses like Mark 11:24, James 5:16, John 15:7, Matthew 26:41. Psalm 145:18, and countless more talk all about the power of prayer.
We give the enemy permission to do his worst when we decide that no matter what, we are just going to accept whatever comes our way.
But not everything that happens is God’s will, and I talked about that in this article.
Today I encourage you to be in God’s word and in prayer, so that you can immediately recognize what in your life is from God and what is not. Then, once you see what’s not from God, you can use the scriptures to come against the devil and his works!
God promises us victory in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57), and we can—and should—show the world what it looks like to live as people of God who have authority over the enemy.
P.S. If you would like a place to start with lots of scriptures to declare over different areas of your life, the podcaster Emily Preston has a little booklet called Confessions for Life that is full of Bible verses. The free pdf can be found here, and a free physical copy can be ordered here.
Lastly, if you would like to read more blog posts like this, you might like…
