HOW THE DEVIL PLANS ON ATTACKING US.

THE FOUR STAGE PLAN OF ATTACK OF THE DEVIL

The devil hatches a four plan strategy to attack us, he wants to disrupt every phase of our lives to see if he can destroy us. We must know that the devil has no control over minds, he does not live in our conscious, just like other angels, the devil has no authority to access what were are thinking about. 

It is only GOD who can understand what were are thinking about. The devil only bases on

what we read, the people we engage with and our past sequence of life to try and forge or predict how our future will look like, he comes and instills fear in us so that we lose our faith in GOD.

The four stage plans of attack that the devil uses on us include; Deception, Division, Diversion and Discouragement.

1️⃣ DECEPTION

In our everyday life, we have encountered people who are intelligent, concealed, powerful, and destructive and all they want to do is to intrude our lives in such a way that they are harmful and destructive. Such attacks fracture our lives in such a way that we are pulled away further awa from GOD and, and the further we are removed from GOD, the more we lose our sense of identity.

We are all created in the image and likeliness of GOD, we have the desire for GOD. The devil uses its ordinary activity to drive us away from GOD. Their plan is to always isolate people and make them susceptible into believing the lies he is presenting before us, he wants the lies to become the truth in the lives of those they are presented to. 

For example, have you ever found it difficult to get along with someone?, being judgmental and critical about others, being (getting tired of your longtime friends that you just feel it would be best if they just disappeared away from your life), difficulty in paying attention to ordinary conversations, being inclined or attached towards; hostility, violence, lust or even the desire to exploit others for your own satisfaction? 

Many times we ask ourselves where all these come from. In Romans 7:18-20; we find ourselves doing the evil we do not want to do, our will is to do good but it is rather evil that comes out of us this is because of the evil that dwells in us. We often know the right thing to do but we find ourselves doing the opposite. The devil inverts reality, he turns things inside-out, upside-down, he wants to pull us off track and then proceed to presenting his lies as truths, let's look at how the devil deceived Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, " you will not die, you will be like GOD ". 

Jesus being tempted by the devil in the desert.

The devil is a liar and the father of all liars as we read in the Gospel of St. John 8:44. All these deceitful promises have to do with the future; Gratitude always looks to the past, love looks to the present moment but fear looks towards the future. The reason as to why people go to witch doctors, medians is because of fear of the future, people always want to be in control, they want to have some bit of knowledge about the future, they want concrete answers, we don't create room for hope and trust in GOD. The end result is that the devil misleads people and they find themselves in the midst of scandal and depression. People are buying into the lies of the devil and they as well try to justify them leading us to the second plan of attack of the devil.

2️⃣ DIVISION

This arises as a result of us buying into the devil's lies and we begin to think that his lies are the truth. The devil desires to divide people from GOD, from other people and even from themselves. The devil works against our very redemption in Jesus Christ which reconciles us to GOD and allows us to share in the unity of the Holy Trinity. He wishes that all of us collapse with him in the eternal death and everlasting separation from GOD. He does this by drawing us into a world of deceit and untruth. 

Job having an argument with one of his friends.

In John 17:21-23; As Jesus was praying the night before he was arrested, he prayed that we may all be one as he and the Father is one. The devil's attempt to dividing us represents the counterpoint to Jesus' triumphant work of healing, reconciling and unifying. Jesus always wants to bring things together but the devil wants to make everything fall apart, he doesn't want to bring a sense of unity in our day to day lives.

Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane.

He wants us to become overwhelmed as though something is beyond our reach so that we may give up, he also stirs up our fears so that we feel frightened and withdraw. He makes us compare ourselves to others to an extent where we overestimate the abilities of others and underestimate our own abilities so that we look bad in comparison. 

He sets us up against each other, anger, resentment, contempt, greed, make us

impatient so that we can feel agitated and unsatisfied. He can short circuit us with the addictive behaviors like drugs and other forms of addiction like alcohol abuse, addiction to pornography, divorce and many other forms of addictions.

In Mark 8:35, Jesus emphasizes that; "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loves his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it? In order to give our lives to GOD, we must have something to give, that if the sense; of unity, integrity and coherence about them. We need to have our lives in or hands if we are going to be able to give it to GOD. The devil does not want us to bring the broken prices of our lives

together, he knows that if we remain fractured then we won't be able to surrender ourselves to GOD. This brokenness then leads to the 3rd plan of attack.

3️⃣ DIVERSION

He (devil) denies that we divert ourselves from the pathway of GOD. He moved and diverted the people of Israel who were on their journey to the Promised Land from the worship of the true GOD to the worship of false gods. (Exodus 32:1-2). It still a weapon that the devil uses against us today, substitution of the product of our creation for the uncreated GOD.

The Israelites worshipping the golden calf.

He wants us to lose our focus and sense of purpose and direction and diversion can act in a very subtle way. We can be off the path of GOD and off that path for a very long time and not even realize it. 

The following are some of the examples of diversion, we become absorbed in a task, we fail to see the larger purpose and direction to which GOD is calling us, and we are distracted.

In Luke 10:38-42; Martha was focused on serving rather than doing the most important thing of listening to Jesus, she was absorbed in a task and ended up being filled with jealousy, anger and many other things.

Jesus, Mary and Martha.

Another type of diversion is by way of contempt, we know what we are supposed to do and yet we are repelled with the task at hand, something pulls us away from what is supposed to be done, think of the story Jonah, he had a task to accomplish in Nineveh where God was sending him to go and preach to the people of Nineveh to turn back from the evil ways and return to the Lord but he allowed himself to think", I'm not going to do this" and attempted to run away only to find himself in the belly of a big fish for three days. 

Another form of diversion is by way of the complete opposite direction, instead of getting slightly off-course, the devil gets the person to move in a completely different direction, when this happens, the original mission gets completely disrupted for example David and Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 11:1-27

King David starring Bathsheba bathing.

Another form of diversion is by way of relativism, this is a sense that nothing really matters, there is no stable truth, no grounding and there is no specific direction that is right or appropriate, the end result of this is that one's life becomes disconnected, messy in pieces lacking of form and coherence.

Another form of diversion is by way of addiction, we allow something to take the place of GOD in our lives something that demands devotion, attention, cultivation and sacrifice. Take an example

of the prodigal son, Luke 15:11-32

The Prodigal son returning home to his father 

Another form of diversion is by distraction, the devil wants to distract (interrupt our

communication with GOD “(Prayer), Four types of distractions that affect our prayer life; 

📍 Anxiety and fear about the future that causes us to abandon our prayer life.

📍The offences that we have suffered in the hands of others, we find like we have been victimized therefore find it hard to pray.

📍Comparing who we are and what we have, compared to others.

📍Being centre on the pleasures of the moment, too much of this can cause us to fall into self-absorption which is a danger, let us look at Lazarus and the rich man as we read in the gospel of  Luke 16:19-31.

 Lazarus and the rich man.

4️⃣ DISCOURAGEMENT

This happens to be the most dangerous threat to the spiritual life. It is evident in the tiredness

that marks the face of so many people and manifests itself in the people we see with no affectivity on their faces, so many people walking around the streets, in restaurants, in supermarkets and even in churches on Sundays. In a certain divine comedy Dante's Divine comedy, there is a sign that is hang above the entrance of hell saying, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here". These words ring true for those who have been swept into the dark and dip hole of discouragement.

The gate of hell according to Dante Inferno.

Discouragement leads people to make decisions to stop trying, to lose all hope," to pull back, to do something else or even just to come to a halt (standstill). These things are of such great interest to the devil because he knows that discouragement ultimately will derail us on our journey to GOD. 

In Christian tradition, discouragement can be seen as," Acedia" which translates, "I don't

care", These comes along with things like laziness, sloth especially in regards to religious obligations and practices, it can be the result of things like tiredness, feeling overwhelmed, intimidation and disappointment. 

An illustration of acedia and sloth.

When people have journeyed through the stages of the ordinary activity of the devil, I believe that they arrive at cross-roads, When we have bought into the lies of the devil, we find our lives broken, we are no longer on the path GOD has laid out for us, we are discouraged. We find our lives meaningless and without purpose. At the cross-roads,

we have two routes i.e. Discipleship and death. 

An illustration of crossroads.

At discipleship path way, we can arrive at spiritual awakening and we can re-commit ourselves to GOD.

At the other path is death, think of the growing trend of suicide, this is commonly brought by when people are discouraged. How can we

overcome this? The gospel provides us with passages encouraging us not to be afraid, it

encourages us to fear GOD and not the devil, and it also assures us that we shall have trials and tribulations but we should not be dismayed or discouraged, we should always trust in the LORD alone. 

The fear of GOD means we are amazed at GOD, we are able to see all the blessings in our

lives and all the wonderful things that GOD is doing in our lives even in the midst of our

disappointments, sufferings, sicknesses, when we are tired we still see how GOD is working in our lives striving to bring purpose and meaning to our existence. We need to stay confident, stay on the course, have confidence in the Holy Spirit who leads and guides those experience the attacks of the devil. 

In John 14:6, Jesus reminds us that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one

can come to the father except through Him".. We should always run to the feet of Jesus whenever we feel weighed down by the weight of our daily crosses. We should always invoke the Holy Spirit to guide and enlighten us in our daily activities and we should always be grateful and thankful for everything that the LORD is doing our lives, we should reduce on the number of times we go complaining about others to GOD , for GOD loves every creation of his, whomsoever you are looking at to be valueless and meaningless might actually be too precious in the eyes of GOD for

the Bible tells us that, "The stones that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."

              

            Jesus teaching on the mountain.

We can always refer to some notable characters in the Bible for example the Prophet Jeremiah, Moses, Isaiah, David, St. Paul in particular who at first persecuted and killed thousands of christians in Rome and St. Peter who was one of the weakest in faith among the Apostles. The apostles all had weaknesses let's look at them as people of our current generation, how the world despises fishermen, we take them to be people of less value and the tax collectors of then who

were referred to us sinners. GOD will always lift those who put their entire trust in Him.

It is our relationship with Christ that gives ultimate meaning to our existence and without that relationship with Christ, we find ourselves completely a drift. So brethren, make sure you do not fall a culprit and always remember that the devil never rests, St.Peter tells us that he's roaring like a lion, seeking for flesh to devour.

Let's keep our faith in the LORD strong and unbreakable to resist our enemy the devil.

"It is the LORD who matches before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you, so do not fear or be dismayed" Deuteronomy 31:8.