Wage war, because Jesus loves you, and He is sufficient.

God loves you.

Sounds simple, right?  But how fully do you believe it? How frequently do you live in light of that?

I’m starting to learn how much I fail to grasp this essential truth in my daily life.  And Satan has a field day with it. 

Not only is it of utmost importance for me to understand that God loves me, but I must also be aware of when I am not believing it. I must know when I need to speak Truth to myself.  The enemy is always seeking to steal, kill, and destroy; he is merciless, unceasing, and makes the most of every opportunity for the advancement of sin.

Which is why I need to be on guard.

A good opponent always knows his enemy.  Sports teams spend hours studying film; generals study other armies’ battle strategies.  You must know your enemy to be able to anticipate him.  We must recognize when our enemy is attacking; we must recognize his lies, his schemes, his tactics.  There are several ways to do this, but I am only going to cover a couple today. 

First, we must familiarize ourselves with his previous attacks. The Bible describes several to us, and we have seen his schemes in our own lives. We must study Scripture to learn the enemy’s schemes in order to defeat him. Likewise, we must reflect upon our own sin and stumbling to determine where we gave the enemy a foothold.  Combining these two methods will give us an upper hand in recognizing attack.

Additionally, we must learn to recognize situations that open us up for attack, as well as lies that the enemy tells us.  Then we can recognize when we’re under attack!  Why is this so important?  If we don’t realize we’re under attack, we can’t fight back!  It sounds simple enough, right?  We’ll see.

I was reflecting on this Truth this morning, and the Lord really opened my eyes to battles I don’t even try to fight, areas that I fail to wage war.  One in particular is insecurity.  Girls especially, I’m sure, have all had that moment where we look at someone and think to ourselves, ‘There’s no way I can compete with that.”  Whether it is with someone we like (who likes someone else), applying for a job, a scholarship, admiring someone’s talent- whatever the situation may be, we have all felt vastly inadequate. 

One particular situation that I struggle with is beauty.  I see so many girls walking around who are either naturally beautiful, or they wear scandalous clothing to attract guy’s attention.  On my good days I’m not phased by it; on my bad days, I wallow in self-loathing and self-depredation.  I think to myself, “There is absolutely no way that I can compare to that!”  But that is a lie, straight from the pits of hell and whispered by the devil himself.

So the first step is to acknowledge that it is a lie.  I MUST examine my thoughts to be sure that I am dwelling on Truth like the Bible instructs us to.  Second, I must replace the lies the enemy wants me to believe with the Truth God has revealed to us in His Word.  When I hear the enemy whispering lies that I am inadequate, ugly, and unworthy of affection, I must know the Word of God and use the sword of the Spirit to wage war.  As this thought crept in my mind this morning, I had to rebuke it, and quote 1 Peter 3:1-6.  My beauty is not from outward adornment, but from the presence of God dwelling in me. My redemption and worth is found only in the Cross of Christ- not the lustful look from some man’s eye.  It is shameful the sin that I seek out.  It is shameful that I seek the attention and praise of man at the expense of honoring God.  May I dwell so richly in His Truth that this is no longer an issue.  Until then, I’m just a work in progress waging war on my sin by the power of the Word.