Our thoughts profoundly influence the direction of our lives. Ladies, what we think determines what happens with us, and Satan is always trying to toy with our thoughts and emotions. There’s a war being waged, and it’s right between our ears. We’ve heard it said time and time again that the mind is the control center; the enemy’s messing with our minds, so we’d better get ready to do battle!
We can struggle with forgiveness, which is one area that the devil directs his evil suggestions. We can think, “I’m never forgiving her for what she did to me.” We can hang on to past hurts
and keep score of how many times someone did us wrong. This is just what he wants.
We play right into the devil’s hands when we listen to him instead of to what God says about forgiving others. Satan is devising his schemes and wants to outsmart us; walking around in unforgiveness only hurts us and keeps us from healing emotionally. Our mindset is important. We need the mind of Christ, because forgiveness keeps us one step ahead of Satan and foils his plans.
Over the years I’ve realized how important it is to protect my mind from enemy attacks. I want to share this with you; if I’m not careful, I can find myself dwelling on something negative, nursing and rehearsing it. This gives the enemy access to where he’s not allowed! When I catch myself doing this, I pray, meditate on Scriptures about forgiveness, and remind him that he has already been defeated.
Sisters, Satan is always devising new schemes against us. He’s constantly working on ways to get us to hold grudges and operate in unforgiveness. He wants us to focus on our partner, our boss, our children, on that other person, on anyone or anything other than the one responsible for all the persecution: him. This battle is not against flesh and blood.
To beat the enemy at his own game, we have to fight fire with fire, which means we have to take the fight to the spiritual realm. We don’t just sit there like good little girls the way the world teaches us; we go on the offensive and get aggressive. We use God’s Word as a weapon to pull down and destroy the stronghold the devil builds in our minds.
Satan is sneaky and devious. He lies to us just the way he did with Eve when he convinced her to eat of the forbidden fruit. He twists the truth by making sideways suggestions to us, hoping we’ll be gullible enough to fall for his tricks. We don’t have to put up with this.
The good news is that as women, we’ve been empowered to see what he’s doing and stop him. No more suffering in unforgiveness, no more depression, no more struggling with feelings of
inadequacy. We have the ability to stop his fiery darts and render them powerless. We can now outwit him, and keep him right where he belongs—under our feet.
