• Colossians 3:23: “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (NKJV).
• Romans 12:11: “Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor; be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord.”
• 2 Timothy 1:6: Paul told Timothy, “Stir up the gift of God which is in you” (NKJV).
We are to stir ourselves up—to fan the fire of God in our hearts and not let it go out! How do we stir ourselves up? We should talk to ourselves about how blessed we are to know the Lord, how blessed we are to have Bibles, how blessed we are to have one Christian friend in our lives, how blessed we are to have something to do that is worth doing. We all have many blessings and we need to take notice of them. We should not just get so accustomed to having them that we no longer appreciate them.
3. Satan will try to wear out our spiritual lives by stealing our prayer time and our time in the Word. He will attempt to steal our prayer time because he does not want us talking to God or listening to Him. He will also try to keep us from getting in the Word because if we do not spend any time in the Word, we will be weak and spiritually impotent. Another of his time-stealing strategies is to cause us to waste our time by putting people or activities in our lives that drain us. He tempts us to get involved in things that God has not asked us to get involved in, things that bear no fruit and ultimately frustrate us. Satan wants us to be busy, but God wants us to be fruitful.
4. Satan will try to make us weary in well doing. It is so important for us to keep steadily focused on God and His work. This will keep us from becoming disheartened when others who are not doing right seem to be prospering. Galatians 6:9 says: “And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.”
So how can we keep from being people Satan can easily devour? The answer is in the beginning of 1 Peter 5:9 which reads: “Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset].” There are two things I really want us to see here: (1) being out of balance can open a door for Satan to attack us, and (2) we are supposed to resist Satan at his onset. That means the moment we perceive an attack from Satan, we need to resist him immediately!
In its entirety 1 Peter 5:9 says: “Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset—rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined], knowing that the same (identical) sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood (the whole body of Christians) throughout the world.” Why is it important, when we are going through hard times, to realize that other people are going through hard times, too? Because one of the things that Satan wants to do is back us into a corner and have us believe we are the only ones going through this trial. Instead of thinking, Why me? it helps to realize, Hey, I’m not the only one going through stuff. This does not mean that we should be happy that other people are suffering, but it does help to realize we are not alone in our afflictions. No matter how much we may be hurting, someone else has a worse situation. We need to avoid having pity parties and feeling sorry for ourselves. We need to resist the devil at his onset and to keep resisting.
WATCH AND PRAY
Just before Jesus went to the cross, He said to the disciples who were with Him (and having trouble staying awake!): “All of you must keep awake (give strict attention, be cautious and active) and watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation. . .#8221; (Matthew 26:41). Those words “watch and pray” are crucial for us. We must pay attention to what is going on around us and pray immediately when we sense something is not right or we see a need. Our motto should be “Do not delay, pray right away!”
As I have written previously, prayer is an offensive weapon against Satan, a weapon that destroys his plans and schemes against us and those we love. We need to be especially watchful and prayerful about our relationships. God brings wonderful people into our lives—people to encourage us, people to help us fulfill God’s call on our lives, people we are supposed to help, and people we can just enjoy. But the enemy can also bring into our lives people who will be wrong for us, who will hurt us, disappoint us, betray us, drain us, and use us for their own advantage.
We need to be especially watchful and prayerful about our relationships.
Watch Out for Wrong Spirits
The enemy sets up traps to wear us out and distract us from God’s plan. Many of these traps come in the form of wrong spirits operating through people, and I would like to spend the rest of this chapter exposing some of them. One of the Bible’s best examples of Satan’s wearing-out tactics through people is found in Acts 16: 16–17, which reads: “As we were on our way to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who was possessed by a spirit of divination [claiming to foretell future events and to discover hidden knowledge], and she brought her owners much gain by her fortunetelling. She kept following Paul and [the rest of] us, shouting loudly, These men are the servants of the Most High God! They announce to you the way of salvation!”
The first thing to notice about this passage is that Paul and his ministry partners were on their way to pray. The enemy does not like prayer and he will try to keep us from praying every way he can. Notice also that what the slave girl was saying was true, but it was terribly annoying because she had a wrong spirit. What she was repeating over and over was irritating, not edifying.
We need to learn to pay better attention to the discernment that God gives us inside and not to look at everything as it appears to the natural eye. At Joyce Meyer Ministries, we have hired people who had all the necessary qualifications and said all the right things, but also had something about them with which I just was not comfortable. In the beginning, I hesitated to trust my discernment at times because I did not want to turn people down for a job just because I had an unsettled feeling about them. But I have learned over the years that I need to trust my instincts. Because the Holy Spirit lives in me, I have sanctified instincts! That does not mean I get everything right all the time, but it does mean that I can trust the Holy Spirit to guide me.
When Paul had this encounter with the slave girl, for some reason he did not deal with the problem right away. The girl with the spirit of divination continued to speak. Acts 16:18 says, “And she did this for many days.” When Satan decides to aggravate us, he will keep it up and keep it up and keep it up and keep it up and keep it up until he is successful—or until he is stopped. Verse 18 also says that Paul became “sorely annoyed and worn out” under that pressure. The devil had sent that girl to aggravate Paul, quite simply to wear him out. She was a tool in the enemy’s hand and he used her to try to hinder, harass, and distract Paul from doing what God called him to do.
Throughout our lives, the enemy assigns people to do to us what that girl did to Paul—to aggravate us. Those people may be our neighbors, our coworkers, or our family members. They will most likely be people with whom we have regular, even frequent, contact.
This does not mean that we are to tell everyone who aggravates us to get out of our lives. At times, God Himself puts us around people who annoy us in order to teach us to walk in love even with those we consider unlovely. There is a difference between someone who aggravates my flesh and someone who aggravates my spirit. I believe one of the reasons Paul put up with the woman for so many days was that he was seeking discernment about the true source of her actions.
In Paul’s case, he finally turned to the girl and said, “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her! And it came out that very moment” (v. 18). Please notice that he did not deal with the woman, but with the evil spirit that was working through her.
Sometimes when we pray for someone or begin to rebuke an evil force working through them, they act worse before they act better. Why is this? The answer is very simple: the devil does not give up easily. This happened to Paul after he rebuked the spirit of divination. It was not until sometime later that he experienced great victory. The people who owned this slave girl became angry after P
aul rebuked the evil spirit because they realized she had lost her ability to make money for them through divination. They went to the local authorities and told them that Paul and his colleagues were “encouraging unlawful customs” (see Acts 16:21). The next thing Paul knew, they were beaten and thrown in jail!
Paul seemingly did the right thing, but his situation got worse. We all have times when we feel like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who made a right choice by going into the fiery furnace rather than to worship anyone other than God. They did what was right and yet the furnace was turned up seven times hotter. However, in the end, they came out unharmed, received a promotion, and God’s kingdom grew as a result of others watching God deliver them (see Daniel 3:10–30).
Acts 16:25 says that while Paul and Silas were in jail, they were “praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the [other] prisoners were listening to them.” Envision the scene: there were Paul and his comrades, handcuffed and shackled, maybe even in stocks—and they were singing praises to God. Acts 16:26 reports what happened next: “Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the very foundations of the prison were shaken; and at once all the doors were opened and everyone’s shackles were unfastened.” Then the jailer, who was sleeping on the job, woke up and was so startled and amazed that the prisoners had not escaped that he wanted to know what he needed to do to be saved. As a result, he was born again and everyone in his household heard the Gospel.
If we will remain steadfast and
not give up, God will always
work something good out
of every bad thing the devil
tries to do.
If we will remain steadfast and not give up, God will always work something good out of every bad thing the devil tries to do. If we resist Satan and keep trusting God and remain steadfast when the devil is trying to wear us out, God will turn the enemy’s schemes against him. God will bless us, and He will get glory for Himself. Paul and his friends were irritated, annoyed, worn-out—and nothing was going as planned. But they kept a good attitude and strengthened themselves by praising and worshiping the Lord. They prayed and their situation got worse, so they kept praying. Then God turned that thing around and Satan was defeated. Satan made arrangements for them to be stuck in jail, so God made arrangements for the jailer to get saved. That’s an example that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose and keep praying (see Romans 8:26–28).
Watch Out for Felix
There is another way the enemy tries to wear us out, and it is through what I call the “Felix trap.” Acts 24 tells us that Felix was the governor of the region where Paul was ministering. Felix seemed to be interested in what Paul was saying; he appeared to want to learn from Paul. But below the surface, Felix was greedy and was hoping to get money from Paul (see verse 26).
There are pretenders, who like Felix, come into our lives and say they want help, but never seem to make any progress. I have seen this pattern more times than I can count! The enemy sends such people into our lives to drain us of everything we have and to wear us out, and they have no intention of changing. They want to talk about their afflictions, but they do not want to get over them. They want to rehearse their problems, but they do not want to get well. Like Felix, they have wrong motives. After they wear one person out, they will start all over again with somebody else.
We have to grow in our discernment about people because Satan plays on our love for God and on our desire to help people and to be used by God. Many times we feel guilty if we say to someone, “Do you know what? You really don’t want help; you’re just using me. So just do whatever you’re going to do, and if you ever get to the point where you really want to be helped, then come back.” But we think: I can’t do that. That wouldn’t be good. That wouldn’t be merciful. Jesus would have done it! Do you know what He said to the crippled man who was lying by the pool of Bethesda? “Do you want to become well? [Are you really in earnest about getting well?]” (John 5:6). The man responded, “Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me” (v. 7). Jesus did not hang around feeling pity for that man. After He asked if he was really serious about getting well, He said: “Get up! Pick up your bed (sleeping pad) and walk!” (v. 8). Jesus was basically saying, Come on, I’ll help you, but do a little something for yourself too. Pick up your sleeping pad; don’t just drain Me dry while you do nothing but complain.
Let me encourage you to pray and ask God to help you sharpen your discernment so that you will not innocently allow yourself to get entangled in other people’s messes without really helping them because they don’t really want help. When that happens, Satan is using them to drain you and wear you out! By saying this, I am not implying that we should forsake patience. We need to be patient and long-suffering toward people. But if we read the entire story of Felix, we see that Felix kept talking to Paul, day after day, week after week, with the same issue, and after two years he was unchanged. Read this account in Acts 24:26–27: “At the same time he hoped to get money from Paul, for which reason he continued to send for him and was in his company and conversed with him often. But when two years had gone by, Felix was succeeded in office by Porcius Festus; and wishing to gain favor with the Jews, Felix left Paul still a prisoner in chains.”
After continuing to send for Paul and taking much of his time, Felix just went off and left Paul in jail. All the energy Paul invested did not do one bit of good because Felix did not really want any help to start with.
Watch out for the “Felixes” in your life. Be discerning and pour yourself out to those God truly sends you to help. Pray that God will help you recognize and understand why certain people cross your path and how you are to handle those relationships. Ask Him to increase your spiritual sensitivity so that when the enemy sends someone to drain you dry, you do not make a significant investment in that person’s life and merely waste your time. As you pray, ask God to give you what I call “divine connections.” These are people sent by God who will either help you in some way or people you will be able to help. They are people who can either add to your life or benefit from your friendship. God has called us to help people, but He has not called us to waste our time. Pray that you might be a good steward of your resources, including your time.
Watch Out for Delilah
There are also “Delilahs” who are sent to come against us, so we need to pray for the ability to recognize them. Judges 16:16–17 tells us that Delilah continually pressed Sampson to reveal the secret of his great strength so she could have him defeated. It says he was “vexed to death” by her pressure. Sampson finally gave in to her vexations, told her his secret, and was overtaken by his enemy as a result.
Let’s just say that the devil sends some woman to tempt a married man who has a wonderful family. Infidelity rarely begins with two people saying, “Hey! Let’s have an affair!” No, it happens gradually. It may begin in the workplace with a few compliments, then more compliments. Soon the woman begins to hang onto the man’s every word, and she hangs around him more than is professionally necessary. Then this man will begin to notice that she is a little younger than his wife. Maybe his wife has had several children for him and the lady at work has not had any children yet, so her body is in better shape and she is not tired most of the time. Soon the two of them are having coffee together during break time. Then she asks him for a ride home when her car is in the shop. Then she wants to thank him for the ride, so she invites him into her house for a delicious piece of homemade pie. . .and, well, you can imagine how the situation could unfold.
The minute an inappropriate thought comes to us, we have to say, “No! I’m not going there!”
This kind of situation takes place more than we would like to think. It is not gender specific—it also happens the other way around when a man tempts a woman—but whatever the case, it usually starts so subtly and becomes
very destructive, which thrills the devil. That is why we have to resist the devil at his onset. The minute an inappropriate thought comes to us, we have to say, “No! I’m not going there!” The “Delilahs” in our lives come in attractive, seductive, desirable packages and they seem so innocent, even good. For this reason, we need to be in continual communication with God through prayer, constantly checking in with Him to find out what He would have us do in specific situations and with specific people.
Watch Out for Peter
The enemy will not only send people to annoy you and drain you and people to tempt or seduce you, he will also send people to directly oppose what God wants to do in you and through you. That even happened to Jesus, when the enemy used Peter, one of His closest friends. In Matthew 16, Jesus had just told Peter and the rest of His disciples that He was going to be killed and then be raised the third day. Peter, not yet understanding that the full plan of salvation would require Jesus to die on the cross, said: “God forbid, Lord! This must never happen to You!” Jesus didn’t waste any time. He turned away and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are in My way [an offense and a hindrance and a snare to Me]” (Matthew 16:22–23). Jesus corrected Peter right on the spot so that God’s plan of salvation would be fulfilled and Satan’s plans defeated.
As difficult as this can be, the enemy will do his best to use people we love—and people who love us—to keep us from doing God’s will. They do not mean to hurt us, they simply do not understand. When we hear God speak or sense a call from Him, we need to remember that the people in our lives have not always heard or felt what we have. It may not make sense to them, so they try to influence us not to do it. Satan loves to strike us where it hurts the most. He is not going to come against us just through strangers or through people who do not mean anything to us. He is going to come against us with something that hurts. Why? Because he does not want us to make progress. He is afraid of us! He knows that if we are willing to completely obey God, we become dangerous to the kingdom of darkness!