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Defeat the enemy

Self Pity Can Bring Your Progress To A Standstill

by Corine Channell February 11, 2023

pittySometimes I feel sorry for myself. No. Let me rephrase that. MANY times I feel sorry for myself. I try not to, knowing that it is anti-everything mentally healthy for me. However, sometimes I entertain it. I have recently learned from an unusual source that self pity is actually deadly.

PITY PARTY FOR ONE

First of all, let me say that most of the time we feel sorry for ourselves there is a legit reason. Sure, lots of time we can moan and groan about things that are trivial but mostly the things we secretly mourn over are real to us.

In the animal kingdom if an animal is consumed with self pity, it would kill him – literally. When an animal is in pain (birthing pain for instance) if it cries out, that is a direct signal to predators, as if to say – HEY, I am in pain over here; follow the sounds of my cries and you can find me and kill me. Really, that is pretty much how that would work. This fact got me thinking about my own pity parties.

Pity parties are generally solo. In fact, they get much worse as we don’t share our pain with anyone who in all actuality could help us overcome it. We sit at our own tiny table set with tiny dishes and we stew in our own despair. This is sad, yes. It really is and I am NOT diminishing our legit pain that is consuming us. However, it might help us to understand that self pity is REALLY dangerous.

SELF PITY IS A TRAP

Self pity makes you a target. It is a bullseye. Self gives you a certain scent that is attractive to the predator of your soul. It also might bring your progress to a standstill, leaving the finish line in danger of abandonment.

When I am feeling sorry for myself because of my own reasons that are real to me, I immediately succumb to a trap. I have taken my eyes off of a whole list of other options – in that moment or moments of ‘woe is me’ I have dismissed faith, hope, purpose, courage, selflessness, and God Himself. I have made the immediate feelings of despair greater than the will to overcome it, or the other more positive options.

There truly is something to be said for positive thoughts, inspiring scripture readings, anointing oils, worship music and reaching out to other people. This is my strategy against self pity. I have a hard enough time walking out my life without intentionally choosing to give satan the ability to find me! I would prefer to stay hidden from his wiles and his evil plans.

Self pity makes you feel rotten. Really it does! The more you entertain it, the darker the day gets. It is all consuming and destructive to our soul. It calls out to our enemies named hatred, jealousy, fear, shame, guilt, and hopelessness. The sorrier I feel for myself, the more these enemies start their whispers. The more I listen to their whispers, the more they become actual voices and they eventually get so loud I can’t hear the truth anymore.

LET’S TALK ABOUT JOB

Let’s think about Job in the Bible who really had much to feel sorry for himself about! In his own words, “I loathe my own life; I will give full vent to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1) In this little verse we feel his pain, his justification of that pain, and his choice to wallow in it. To be quite honest, if anyone ever had legit reason to wallow in self pity, it was Job. He lost it all – his kids, his house, his health – everything. Realistically, none of us would or could be all happy about such loss and do a happy dance in the midst of any tragedy.

“Thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the LORD hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.” (Jeremiah 45:3) Ever felt that way? I have! And resigning myself to such woe is all consuming and destructive, and taints the most important part of your journey – the ending.

Think about it like this – something bad happens. You react and respond with pain. This is normal because at our best and our worst, we are still human. There then comes that moment to go further and deeper into the darkness of our pain. It changes from reaction and response to choice. “The testing of your faith (choice) produces endurance.” (James 1:3) There is a saying we all know and recite it frivolously in memes, but in all reality it IS truth. “What doesn’t kill ya makes you stronger.” True Story.

LEARN TO ENDURE

If an animal can learn to endure extreme pain in order to prevent worse from happening, knowing that predators will quickly show up to destroy it and their family (keep THAT in mind), then we as humans need to also learn NOT to let self pity have unbridled reign over us. It really matters. It really does. Will it happen overnight or every time we are in pain? No, but with the tests and the passing of the tests, comes strength.

If we can grasp that self pity opens the door to much worse, at least it is a place to start. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances….what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4: 11-13)

Every Valentine’s day or any special occasion, Jack bought me a bunch of Gladiolus flowers. It became a sweet thing. I remember what I loved most about them was their sweet scent. Gladiolus tristis is prized for its sweet fragrance. I want that in ME. I want to have sweetness coming from my life to those around me, NOT the stench of self pity.

Let the predators of our soul only smell the sweet scent of the grace and mercy of Jesus coming from our lives, as HE becomes our fierce defender and our protective covering. May they go screaming into the night.

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This Is All You Need To Know About The Enemy

by Kyle Winkler May 18, 2022

written by Kyle Winkler

Thoughts of encountering a lion in the wild are enough to induce paralyzing fear into most of us. Yet those most familiar with the lion’s ways, like its peers in the animal kingdom, know that behind a lion’s ferocious exterior is good reason not to be so afraid.

That’s because a lion has a relatively small heart and lungs in relation to the rest of its body. This makes it one of the slowest runners in the animal kingdom, which affects how it hunts. Since it’s likely to outrun it, the lion doesn’t chase down its prey, it stalks it.

Stay Alert!

Why am I exploring the predatory behavior of a lion? Because according to the apostle Peter, understanding how a lion hunts is crucial to knowing how to shut down the devil’s attacks. Writing to battle-weary Christians, he warned, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8, NLT).

Today, most of us only know lions from what we see in captivity. That’s why modern readers miss much of the meaning of Peter’s analogy. But not in Peter’s day. Back then wild lions still roamed parts of the Middle East. To them, a lion wasn’t a rare or even somewhat mythical creature—it was a very real threat they needed to be aware of—just like the devil.

The Roar

Following Peter’s warning to stay alert, he gives the first clue about what the enemy does. It’s in his name, “devil.” As I detail in my book, Shut Up, Devil (from which this article is adapted), the name “devil” in Greek means “slanderer.”

Surely, you’ve heard of “slander.” It means, “The action or crime of making a false statement damaging to a person’s reputation.” To slander someone isn’t only to tell a lie to someone, but about someone for the purpose of hurting them. The statement alone is enough to cause damage, regardless of whether it’s true. The devil knows this better than anyone.

This is why Peter compares the enemy to a “roaring lion.” Wildlife experts contend that most of a lion’s roars are mock roars that are meant only to intimidate its victim. Beyond its volume, however, the roar itself has little substance.

It’s the same with the enemy’s slander. The devil is always shouting about your faults, failures and inadequacies. While his accusations may be nagging thoughts that only you can hear, they can reverberate like roars in your mind until you cower to them.

Yet like a lion’s roars, you need to know that the devil’s words have no merit either. That’s because as a Christian, you are a new person in Christ who is defined by His character (2 Corinthians 5:17). This means that even if an accusation contains some truth about something you did in the past, it has no bearing on who you are today. Because God calls you new!

The Attack Of The Enemy

As I mentioned earlier, a lion’s small heart and lungs relative to its body size means it can’t chase down its prey the moment it sees it. Instead, it observes its weaknesses to determine the right time to attack. Armed with this information, when the time is right, the lion hurls itself in the air, aiming for the head … then for the mouth. Its victim dies by suffocation.

Are the parallels between the behavior of a lion and the devil firing off in your mind yet? It’s so rich! Once the enemy determines his plan of attack, he launches after your head, or at least, what’s in it—your mind.

Since the mind is the control center for our lives, this is an extremely effective strategy. If not countered, the enemy knows that a single negative notion dropped into your head works its way down from there.

The second stop is your mouth. Not literally, but spiritually. In the Bible, the mouth symbolizes your words, which represent your beliefs about yourself. As Jesus said, “What you say flows from what is in your heart” (Luke 6:45).

You must understand that the enemy does not attack merely for the fun of it. Torment or pain and grief are not enough for him. No, the devil wants to get to the heart of you. He wants you to question everything God says about you so that you do not believe it. His intention is to paralyze you with toxic emotions and behaviors that result from agreeing with his slander.

Fear Not

At this point, I hope the exploration of the enemy acting like a lion has not frightened you. Peter did not make this analogy to spark fear, but to teach us how to shut down the devil’s schemes in our lives.

As I explore in my book, Shut Up Devil: Silencing the 10 Lies Behind Every Battle You Face, though you might not be able to keep the enemy from prowling or roaring, you can keep him from getting into your mind, and therefore, out of your emotions and behaviors.

Begin by intentionally thinking and speaking a truth based on God’s Word. Here’s a great one for starters: “I am not defined by my past regrets, present struggles, flaws or failures, but I am defined by the identity of Christ.”

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May 18, 2022 0 comment

Faith

Do this Every Morning When You Wake Up to Defeat the Lies of the Enemy

by GOD TV June 14, 2018

written by GOD TV

Do this Every Morning When You Wake Up

“Omg I’m so ugly..my life sucks.” I can’t say I was surprised to hear this coming from a pre-teenage girl with her face buried deep in her phone screen outside a makeup store, but today, those words haunted me. In a world where we’re flooded with mixed messages about who we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to look like, it’s so easy to feel inadequate, both physically and mentally. “If only I looked like them. If only I had that job.” But then it gets deeper. “I’m not good enough. I can’t do it. I can’t achieve anything. I am worthless.” You may read these and think, “Who really says that?” But don’t we all feel that way at certain times? These thoughts are LIES from the devil, and speaking them and believing them give him power.

So many times in my life, I’ve felt that I didn’t fit the societal mold and therefore, something was “wrong with me” or “my life sucks” or “I won’t ever be successful.” Lies. Lies. Lies. But then I learned the power of speaking God’s truth over yourself. Words are directly translated to your mind. Whenever you say something enough times, the brain begins to process it as fact. That means you can lie to yourself for long enough that your brain actually starts to believe it, and your body follows suit.

That’s why it’s so important to speak truth into your life.

The enemy is working overtime to get us to believe the lies that we are nothing, because when we believe that, we not only lose our authority over sin, we reject the identity that Christ has given us. That’s exactly what the enemy wants – mistaken identity.

So how do we combat this in a world full of mixed messaging and false advertising?

It’s pretty simple: TRUTH. Every single morning when I wake up, before I even look presentable I speak the truth of God’s Word over my life. My hair is a mess, I look like I’ve just been hit by a bus. To the world, I look like a disaster. But that’s the amazing thing about God, He sees for who He says we are and not for who the world says we are not.

Here are some Biblical truths to speak over yourself every day to defeat the lies that surround you:

I am a child of God.

But to all who have received him–those who believe in his name–he has given the right to become God’s children … (John 1:12).

I am no longer a slave, but a child and an heir.

So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are a son, then you are also an heir through God (Galatians 4:7).

I am a friend of Jesus.

I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father (John 15:15).

God leads me in the triumph and knowledge of Christ.

But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and who makes known through us the fragrance that consists of the knowledge of him in every place (2 Corinthians 2:14).

I have boldness and confident access to God through faith in Christ.

… In whom we have boldness and confident access to God because of Christ’s faithfulness (Ephesians 3:12).

The peace of God guards my heart and mind.

And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

God supplies all my needs.

And my God will supply your every need according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).

I have been made complete in Christ.

… You have been filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority (Colossians 2:10).

June 14, 2018 0 comment