Believe it or not, the devil is not your greatest problem in life. Although he can tempt and launch deceptions at you, the fact is, he cannot make you do anything. Yet we so often blame the devil for our missteps and misfortunes, when all other excuses have escaped us and we have no one else point the proverbial finger at. Like Eve responded in the garden when God asked, how could you have done such a thing?...
We respond… the devil made me do it!
What stands in the way of where we are now, and all of what God has for us in life – the dreams He has placed in our hearts, and the goals we seek to achieve – if not the enemy? The truth is, our real problem is much more powerful than the devil – it’s the person in the mirror! (Romans 7:15-25).
We are our own worst enemy.
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What Is Going on Inside Us?
As Paul confessed…
“What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge” (Romans 7:15-25, MSG).
Paul states the problem is not the devil, but rather what’s happening in him. He’s got a war going on within him, which gets in the way of where God wants to take him. But I think we can all understand this struggle. Like when we snap at a rude store clerk, or burst into road rage when someone cuts us off, almost causing an accident, or react with anger at our spouse because of something that happened earlier at work.
Or any of the hundreds of things that we may find ourselves saying or doing, damaging our witness when we least expect it. And they leave us asking the question… where did that come from?!
Do you remember what Jesus said?
“What comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It's from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That's what pollutes” (Matthew 15:16-20, MSG).
It starts in our hearts.
What most of us try to do is filter or modify our behavior. We learn to condition ourselves to avoid doing certain things that bring undesirable results. But, as we all know from personal experience, that’s just not enough.
We have all had times in our lives where the filter has broken down, and even though we intended to not do something, we found ourselves doing it anyway. Or in the words of the Apostle Paul: “I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.”
So what do we do? How do we defeat the internal saboteurs so that we can walk in everything God has for us? So that we can move beyond struggling against the same issues over and over again?
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Solomon’s Advice: Guard Your Heart!
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Let me tell you what that means: we must abandon our attempts at behavior modification, and focus instead on heart modification!
God has given us the responsibility of guarding our own hearts in order to maintain our witness to the world. With that in mind, it’s important that we revisit and master the fundamental spiritual disciplines necessary to protect ourselves from falling!
1. Maintain Intimacy with God through Daily Prayer
Have you ever asked yourself why pray? Why did Jesus say in Luke 18:1: “Men ought always to pray and not to cease…”
Notice what the giants of the faith believed:
"You can do more than pray after you have prayed; but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed." A.J. Gordon
"Prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, ‘Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!’" (J. Hudson Taylor)
"Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees." William Cowper
"Four things we should always keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer." E.M. Bounds
“Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me." C.S. Lewis
Of all the reasons we ought to pray, I believe that this one from C.S. Lewis is the reason Jesus said, “men ought always to pray and never to cease.”
Perhaps Jesus was thinking of that future day when He would wrestle against His own humanity in the Garden of Gethsemane on the way to the cross. A day when He would pray:
“Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).
These kinds of prayers do not change God; they change us. They slay self-will and empower us to submit to the plan of God.
"Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons, and widens all straits by which God's saints have been held." E.M. Bounds
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2. Study the Word of God Diligently
In the past I have asked myself, does reading the Bible really help guard my heart? And here is what I discovered.
When I read my Bible daily, my heart is wiser, and I find that I make better decisions. Instead of verbal monsters suddenly appearing and taking control of my mouth, pearls of Godly wisdom appear in the form of Bible verses.
Even when I’m pressed for time, or when life happens (a store clerk is rude to me, a person cuts me off, or my wife irritates me), I have noticed that from my heart comes the fruit of the Spirit of God:
Love instead of anger
Joy instead of sorrow
Peace instead of worry
Patience instead of impatience
Kindness instead of cruelty
Goodness instead of indecency
Faithfulness instead of laziness
Gentleness instead of roughness
Self-control instead of self-indulgence
When I read my Bible daily, I’m less susceptible to temptation. I feel closer to God and more confident of His loving care. I’m more apt to trust in His plans rather than create my own, and I seem to do the “right thing” more instinctively.
When I read my Bible, I’m filled with positive intentions, prevailing intuition, productive inspiration, peculiar instinct, powerful imagination, and personal integrity. My days seem longer, and my stress is lighter.
In short, when I read my Bible, I experience this truth:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20a).
Clearly, Jesus knew of the power of the Word when He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
There is just nothing more important for guarding our hearts than becoming immersed in God’s word, daily.
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3. Activate the Incredible Power of Worship
“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord…” (Ephesians 5:19).
The next important way to guard our hearts, especially in these trying times, is to understand the power of worship.
One of the things that the enemy uses to grip and twist our hearts is despair, or hopelessness. And when that monster tries to lodge itself in our hearts, it’s not pretty.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick!” (Proverbs 13:12).
But God has given us a tool to drive out disappointment and destroy despair, turn depression into enthusiasm, and doubt into faith. It’s called worship, praise, speaking to yourself in a psalm or a hymn, and in spiritual songs. It’s called singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord!
If you ever get to the point of feeling so defeated that you simply can’t pray or read your Bible, then turn on worship music and let the praises of God fill your office, your car, your house – wherever you find yourself. It sounds too easy to be true, but I promise that you will see depression, discouragement, doubt and hopelessness release its grip on your heart through the encouragement and inspiration generated through worship.
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4. Process Pain by Journaling
“Then the LORD replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it’” (Habakkuk 2:2).
When we write things down, it empowers us to “run,” or go through life with strength, peace, power and vitality. The prophet Isaiah really nails what this means, by comparing the believer to the eagle:
“…those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
Do you know what an eagle does when he gets caught flying in a storm? He “mounts up” higher and higher until he is soaring above the tumult of the storm.
That, my friends, is the connection between writing/journaling and living a victorious life. Journaling helps us to process our raw human emotions and live victorious through God’s strength, power and peace, so much so, that when the storms of life hit, we soar above them instead of being knocked around by them.
And although there is not a verse that specifically instructs us to journal, we have been given an entire book of the Bible which is literally the journal of one of the Bible heroes: King David!
Journaling has a profound effect upon our hearts; it helps us to empty out the pain onto paper, rather than onto other people. It’s available when there’s no one else to talk to, the issues are too personal, or when your heart is about to burst.
Journaling allows us to get real with God and let Him know what’s really going on deep in our hearts. It can move us from a state of overwhelm, to a place of rest and trust in God.
And as you read the psalms, notice that David was not always theologically “correct;” just open, raw, and honest in the pain he experienced. And what was the result?
“God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes” (Psalm 18:20, MSG).
Let God Rewrite Your Story
Do you like what comes out of your mouth from your heart? Do you like the fruit you are producing? Do you want to have a different story playing in your life by this time next year? Then guard your heart from the enemy’s attacks and begin to open it to God by praying, reading the Word, worshipping, and journaling.
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