But [Jesus] answered [Satan] and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”

––Matthew 4:4

Your attitude about evil reflects your stand against evil. The great men of faith understood this, and as God’s man, so must you. To help you with this, we need to think about evil and our fight with it in uncomplicated terms that are consistent with Scripture and practical to apply. We need to think better before we can fight better.

The “We’ve got Jesus, yes we do. We’ve got Jesus, how about you?” approach is as effective as it sounds. The Bible does not support it, though it might work in children’s church or Sunday School. In fact, the more emotional you are in warfare, the sooner you die.

So in the interest of living to fight another day, let’s replace emotional and unsuccessful strategies with intelligent and intentional ways of thinking about and fighting evil.  For starters let’s wipe the board clean of what we think we know about evil and resolve to stick to Scripture’s direction and plan for how we are going to prepare for the fight.

There was a time before September 11, 2001, when counterterrorist agencies possessed good intelligence about a group called Al-Qaida. We knew who their leader was and where he was, we knew where their training facilities were, we knew how to “touch” them, and we knew the United States was the object of their Islamofacist brand of hatred. And yet, with so many other higher-priority issues, international and domestic crises, and lack of “actionable intelligence,” we didn’t assign enough attention to this character Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. The world knows the rest of the story.

Granted, foresight is always 20/40, or worse. You can see some things, but not much of it clearly. You can discern a good portion of the picture, but the small details and facts are a little fuzzy.

On the other hand, 20/20 vision is a result of hindsight. And guess who has seen all of history, and has the ability to know everything there is about this world? That’s right, not you. The only way to see through perfect 20/20 lenses is to “put on” the Holy Spirit, who sees all and knows all. That is how we confront the enemy; that is how we advance each day in a wicked world. We learn from Scripture and how the Lord dealt with it. Jesus fought Satan with the Word of God and the truth of His kingdom reality. And so must we. Be sober-minded, invite the Holy Spirit to guard you each day, and enter the world as His warrior.

Father, remind me to never take on Satan and temptation without Your intel. 

 

 

Every Man Ministries