I was listening to a podcast recently, and the speaker compared Eve’s response to Satan’s words to Jesus’ response to Satan. The speaker went on from there, but I didn’t. I’ve been thinking about that for days, now, convicted that I am far too often like Eve and not enough like Jesus in how I respond to the lies of the Enemy.
Eve listened to Satan, she engaged in a discussion with him, and ultimately, she believed him when he said she didn’t really need to follow God’s command not to eat from the fruit of the tree. The results were catastrophic. We’ve all been affected by her choice. And Satan slithered away, victorious.
Jesus, on the other hand, refused to listen or engage with Satan. Even after Jesus had been fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus stood His ground. When Satan spoke, Jesus responded with scripture. Period. No trying to argue or reason or debate. Just “The word of God says…” and that was it. Satan slithered away, defeated.
When I am struggling, I “get in my head” a lot. I think of the “what-ifs”, I worry about hypothetical futures, I have discussions with myself about what may go wrong, what I’ll do if it goes wrong, how awful it could be…
But, I realized, those thoughts are NOT from God. They’re not based on Truth. Those thoughts are lies from the Enemy. Instead of allowing those thoughts to have real estate in my mind, I should evict them immediately, replacing them with God’s words.
Here are some verses that I’m using right now. Please share others that you find helpful.
- “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Mt. 6:34
- “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Phil. 4:8
- “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James 1:2-3
- “Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.” James 5:13
- “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38
