RESIST THE DEVIL’S NAGGING!
Satan has been busy since the garden. He took down our first father and mother in a perfect world with no lack nor hunger. How was he able to achieve that? What would make a person in the middle of a garden full of food and no problems whatsoever to disobey God? His name is Satan, and he still does the thing he did thousands of years ago in the Garden.
You can be perfectly okay, having all you need, and yet the devil will still come to make you discontented. He doesn’t need bad circumstances, lack or anything else to win. You just have to be a living being who has the devil in your space for him to barrage your mind with thoughts. He has the power of persuasion; he stays at it until you either give in or fight him off just as you were intended to do. The major way Satan defeats God’s children is by pestering.
Do you remember Samson’s story?
“Samson, Samson, tell me the secret of your great strength,” Delilah asked him.
Even if Samson thought she was joking, what about when she went ahead to do the things he told her could destroy him? – bringing soldiers, weaving his hair, and every other thing he said.
Samson could take down 1,000 soldiers with a jawbone but he could not resist this pestering. We often think of the devil as this being who always goes for power tussles against Christians. That is where we get it wrong. It is in fact in such circumstances that Christians win a lot because they can easily cast out a demon or bind a spirit or exercise their authority in other ways. It is subtle temptations and suggestions which we treat lightly that we often miss.
Satan’s major battles are with deception; slow, subtle, and quiet. It is in the persistent suggestions, “Pluck it! Pluck it now! Pluck it”, and when you do so, he says, “eat it!” and that is how he gets you in his trap and defeats you thoroughly.
How to escape: Do not start a conversation with him at all.
God said do not eat the fruit, so do not hang around the tree. For instance, if you do not want to fall into sexual immorality, do not continue that chat at all.
Do not kickstart anything in disobedience to God and expect it to end well.
