12/30/2023
“The flesh is the open door for the enemy to cut down the spirit.” 🤯
-James Kawalya
Offensive, anger, rage….these are the things Satan uses to distract us and become focused on ourselves. Once he triggers these emotions, Christians then have a hole in the hedge of protection in the spirit. We become our worst enemy. We become our own god and act in accordance with how we feel. Maybe the response is to retreat, explode, or run away…regardless of the response, the result is that we lose.
The person looking back at us in the mirror is dictating our behaviors and life, do you trust yourself enough? We say things like, “Our feelings don’t dictate our behavior.”
Ultimately that is a weak explanation of the magnitude of that kind of behavior. It is a very soft, subtle way of saying, “Act on flesh, compromise the spirit.”
If there is a place where we even have the shadow of sin, or the rule of flesh in our soul, then it can result in a weakness in our armor. The enemy knows this and already acts with this in mind. That is why he attacks things of the flesh- like purity, safety, physically, and sexually and uses these as gateways to our soul. Satan cannot gain entry to our soul without an invitation. In America, we give him a lot of invitations through entertainment and what the culture says is ok. This is one reason why many around the world call America the Great Evil.
An act of violence or trauma can also unlock a space in our soul where the enemy tells us God cannot protect. He then moves in this pain and so do we. The result is that we allow Satan more space, and the effect is that we ultimately cannot handle the darkness of the enemy’s presence. It hurts. So the we begin the cycle of masking the pain with what the world has to offer which results in addiction and abuse.
Isn’t it ironic? 🎶 Satan speaks the lie that the Lord cannot protect us, so we believe we must protect ourselves. Yet, the opposite results from this and the pain grows. Instead of running after the Lord, we self medicate with the world.
Remember the three enemies: flesh, world, and Satan? All are at work in this equation. The solution is to allow the decay of our flesh and brokenness in our soul to radiate the light of Christ. We have to understand that the only true soul healing must come from our Creator. He is the antidote to this mess. We must clean out every area that could be even the shadow of sin within ourselves to ensure we do not respond in the flesh. This shadow could be our perspective of a situation. It is the aftermath of the sin or trauma that hides and “doesn’t take up space.” It becomes the bait from Satan and begins the war in our minds. Satan is coming to destroy your hedge and steal your peace from God. But….light exposes darkness, and the shadow of sin can become the shadow of Christ.
We should ask ourselves and Holy Spirit to reveal what evokes our flesh to respond quickly…when we have the answer, start there. The Lord will reveal the hole in our armor. CS Lewis says it like this, “The more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”
My 2024 quote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” Let’s stay humble friends even in the shadows. 🤍
