Faith Under Fire
From the very beginning, Satan has tried to tempt humanity away from God. He works hard to keep people from knowing the truth about God (2 Corinthians 4:4). Even after a person miraculously comes to faith in Jesus, his battle continues.
You have a spiritual enemy who seeks to discredit and disable you. He aims arrows at you: half-truths and mistruths that discourage and distract, accuse and attack. He whispers accusations about ways you’ve messed up and fallen short. He tells half-truths: things that seem reasonable but sow doubt in God’s promises. He tells us we’re not wanted, not forgiven, and don’t belong. There’s a reason Paul says his darts are “flaming”—they burn.
But just as we first were saved by faith in Jesus, we must continue in that faith by raising up what the apostle Paul calls “the shield of faith.” It means we defend ourselves again and again by choosing to trust in what God says about Himself and ourselves, rather than the lies of the enemy.
Raising up the defensive shield of faith is the best and only defense against the attacks of the evil one. Dart by dart and lie by lie, we name the lies and choose to trust in God’s truth instead.
When the enemy tries to shame you, remember 1 John 1:9 NIV: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive …”
If he tries to turn your attention towards ambition, pride, or lust, recall Jesus defying him in the wilderness (Matthew 4:4).
“Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and twenty cubits the breadth thereof, and ten cubits the height thereof. Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. And under it was the similitude of oxen, which did compass it round about: ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about. Two rows of oxen were cast, when it was cast. It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east: and the sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward. And the thickness of it was an handbreadth, and the brim of it like the work of the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies; and it received and held three thousand baths. He made also ten lavers, and put five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them: such ...