Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. God Is With Usīe strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Remember the scene in Braveheart where Robert the Bruce’s evil father is whispering lies to him about treason and compromise? He says to Robert what the Enemy says to us in a thousand ways: “All men betray all men lose heart.” How does Robert answer? He yells back, I don’t want to lose heart! I want to believe, like does. When Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our hearts, it’s not saying, “Lock them up because they’re really criminal to the core” it’s saying, “Defend them like a castle, the seat of your strength you do not want to give away.” As Thomas à Kempis says, “Yet we must be watchful, especially in the beginning of the temptation for the enemy is then more easily overcome, if he is not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but is resisted without the gate at his first knock.” The traitor within the castle will try to lower the drawbridge, but don’t let him. Walk into a dark house late at night and suddenly fear sweeps over you or just stand in a grocery line with all those tabloids shouting sex at you and suddenly a sense of corruption is yours.īut this is where your strength is revealed and even increased - through exercise. Satan doesn’t just throw a thought at us he throws feelings too. It will feel like holding on to a rope while you’re being dragged behind a truck, like keeping your balance in a hurricane. This will not be easy, especially when all hell is breaking loose around you. He answered with Scripture and we’ve got to do the same. This is how Christ answered Satan - He didn’t get into an argument with him, try to reason his way out.
Dodge the blow, block it with a stubborn refusal, slash back with what is true. When we are under attack, we’ve got to hang on to the truth. Only it takes place, initially, at the level of our thoughts.
That’s exactly what is going on in the unseen around us. In any hand-to-hand combat, there’s a constant back-and-forth of blows, dodges, blocks, counterattacks, and so forth.
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