Before I said good-bye for the summer, I had one last interview online. Beth Jones interviewed me about the chapter I wrote for her book about spiritual warfare, The Hands of a Woman: Everyday Women in Everyday Battles. To be honest, I was so exhausted by this point due to a long and agonizing trial that I didn’t even prepare for what I would say. This is the first time I’ve gone online live without having a thoroughly prepared outline. I cried out to God the day before the interview, and I jotted down two things about the trial that was just coming to an end in my life. Other than those scribbles, since the entire talk was supposed to be an interview anyway, I just told her to ask me about prayer, since that’s one topic I have a passion for.
I dedicated the show to God, like I always do before workshops, and asked for Him to help me say what He wanted me to say. The interview lasted a full hour, and Beth Jones asked me some unexpected questions that I was only too happy to answer. It was the most relaxing interview I’ve ever had in my life, and some strong truths about spiritual warfare came out:
- The enemy can plant thoughts into our minds, and these thoughts come to us in the form of an “I” statement so that we think that it’s coming from our own thoughts. Thoughts of suicide, for example, come from the enemy who wants to destroy us.
- If we call upon God through prayer in the name of Jesus, incredible things can happen. I share a personal experience about this during this interview.
- Don’t focus your mind on the demonic. Talking about the demonic only leads to fear which is not from God. Instead, focus your mind on Christ.
- Hormones sometimes cause women to be emotional about things, and if they stew about certain situations, the truth becomes distorted and is no longer the truth. Satan is the distorter of truth, and he loves it when women do this, because it causes strife.
- Despair is another tactic from the enemy to incapacitate Christians to make them unproductive for the kingdom of God.
- Satan uses logic to convince us to do something contrary to the will of God. For example, suicidal people believe that the world would be better without them, and that they are doing a good thing to rid the world of themselves. In the chapter I wrote for this book, I share another time when Satan used logic to drive me nearly to insanity, although I do not share this in the interview itself.
- Use Scripture to combat the enemy.
- We shoot our own wounded in the church. We attack each other as brothers and sisters in Christ instead of drawing closer to God. This is one of the primary tactics of the enemy to incapacitate the church and destroy it.
- If we don’t plug into other people in the church, we cannot function in the body of Christ, and our spiritual growth will be stunted. So many people use logic or excuses to stay away from the church (or leave immediately after the service without connecting to anyone) because they’ve been burned. This is exactly where Satan wants us.
- Satan sees the people who are effective, who are actively ministering in the church, and strategically takes those people out. He will do anything to incapacitate those people.
- Pride is rotten. If you become good at your spiritual gift, you will be tempted to become prideful (because people are praising you right and left). The pride will cause you to stop relying on God, and you will rely on your own cleverness and become less effective for God’s kingdom. Pride is definitely from the enemy, since that’s how he fell with a third of the angels following him. Satan was thrown down from heaven because of pride. Pride is the core of all evil and is the root of all sin in the church.
- Prayer is one discipline that the enemy will do anything is his power to distract you from, because he knows how effective prayer is.
- Being quiet during prayer to listen to God, especially when you’ve asked Him a question, is one way to walk powerfully by the Spirit and know what His will is.
- Actively getting rid of sin in your life will also make you more effective. Satan wants us to think that we are stuck in our sin and can’t ever get out, but that is a lie. The entire Christian life is miraculous, an inward transformation into the image of God. To assume that you can’t break out of a habit just because “it’s part of your personality” is a deception that the enemy wants you to believe.
- Satan leads us to believe that we won’t have problems if we are Christians, that life is not supposed to be hard. But the truth is that life is actually harder for Christians (except for the presence of God who helps us through it), because transformation into the image of Christ involves pain. There’s no way around it. Scripture says that we will have tribulations in this life.
- Apathy is another tactic the enemy uses to cause us to be ineffective. If we are lukewarm in our walk with God, He will spew us out of His mouth. God would rather we be cold (or against Him) than to be apathetic, which gives God a bad name.
I invite you to listen to the interview: (To download audio, right click “Save as,” and choose “Desktop.”)
Wow, some very eloquent points!
These points were learned through painful trials.
Sounds like a great interview! I think your points are excellent! Thanks for sharing the interview!
Glad it was helpful!