Our souls have an enemy. His desire is to get our attention and focus off of God and onto ourselves and this world. As believers we have a choice to make. Will we serve the Lord even if we don’t receive the material riches of this world? Will we be like the church at Smyrna? They were poor and persecuted, but the Lord had only encouragement for them. If they persevered, they would receive the crown of life. Will we be like the church of the Laodiceans? They had the material things of the world, but the Lord was ready to reject them for being lukewarm.
The enemy has three big weapons that he uses against our souls: the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Lust, being an inordinate desire for something that we shouldn’t have, will cause us to do very unusual, even destructive, things. Lust won’t consider the long term costs – only the short term gains.
The pride of life is how the enemy will give us a justification to do what we’ve already purposed to do in our hearts. For example, Adam and Eve had already made up their minds that they wanted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they needed a justification to do it. The serpent gave it to them when he told them that eating the fruit would make them wise, just like God.
How do we overcome the enemy of our souls? We humble ourselves – confess our sins, admit our shortcomings and ask for God to help. We will need to let go of the things that bring us comfort and satisfaction – God needs shake some of these things loose that we’ve been holding onto to build us up. We seek His face – we come into the presence of the Lord.
Key Scriptures: Revelation 2:8-11; 3:14-22, 1 John 2:15-17, 2 Chronicles 7:14
