The enemy, again...

[Magenta]

Let God deal with Satan, while we focus on God.

Amen and amen!

 

[realchild4life]

Ok, brothers, here´s one more thread about the enemy.

Maybe some of you may find this strange, but personally, besides knowing how one can protect from him, I´d like to know how he does things to harms us, more that what he can do. After all, we are in the middle of a war!

The enemy tempts, lies, deceives, kills, accuses, oppresses, etc. Basically, "...the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8



So, my questions are:

1) - How does the enemy attack us?

- For instance, how does he tempts us to do sexual immorality? Does he implants the desire to have sex with another person that he also acted, making then easier to things happen? Or the only thing he does is to give us the "push" we need to sin?

- He rejoices with our suffering. So, how does he lies, accuses and oppresses us? By implanting thoughts in our minds?


2) - This may be the hardest to figure out...that situation we think: "Are this bad thoughts, sadness, etc, coming for me, or from the enemy?"



Thank you!


God bless you!

If the devil actually makes a visit you'll know after he plunges you into a deep chill and turns every one of your emotional faculties off.

But you do recover so long as you hold on to God.

 

[atwhatcost]

Thank for you answers, dear brother.

Still, I´d like to understand and get answers (if possible, of course) to what I also wrote above:


1 b) So, how does he lies, accuses and oppresses us? By implanting thoughts in our minds?


2) How can we distinguish if our bad thoughts, sadness, etc, comes for us, or from the enemy?



Thank you!


God bless you!

If you know it's a bad thought, that's from God.

As for sad? Sad is neither bad nor good. It is. My dad is doing worse and worse every day. This makes me sad. It is not evil, it is sad. I both miss my dad (the man he was, for he has dementia, so he may be alive, but he's less and less Dad), and I'm angry because of the mess we people made of this world to cause people to have to go through such things, but it is sad, because it is a sad thing. I cannot fix the world, I can't really blame anyone for this, I can't punch anyone, and it is very frustrating, thus it is sad. Neither bad nor good. Just sad. Punching someone would be bad/evil/sin. So I go to Abba, who will fix this, but not in a way that will make me happy.

 

[BarlyGurl]

Thank for you answers, dear brother.

Still, I´d like to understand and get answers (if possible, of course) to what I also wrote above:


1 b) So, how does he lies, accuses and oppresses us? By implanting thoughts in our minds? By lies, as in the garden, "god didn't really mean that", "God is withholding from you", "God is so gracious and merciful, it is okay if you do <fill in the blank>, there will be no consequences", "do it, who will know?"... like that.


2) How can we distinguish if our bad thoughts, sadness, etc, comes for us, or from the enemy? By developing discernment, you study the bible and CHOOSE to agree with what God says about matters.

If you have a problem and you are not sure, you pray and ASK him to reveal the answer through his word or via counsel of another, the counsel MUST align with the word of God. Sometimes sadness is our own emotion from circumstances... but we can examine it through the process above to discern if it is natural, oppression from the enemy, or something the Holy Spirit wants to correct in us.
Understand?

 

[Jesus4ever]

Thank for you answers, dear brother.

Still, I´d like to understand and get answers (if possible, of course) to what I also wrote above:


1 b) So, how does he lies, accuses and oppresses us? By implanting thoughts in our minds? By lies, as in the garden, "god didn't really mean that", "God is withholding from you", "God is so gracious and merciful, it is okay if you do <fill in the blank>, there will be no consequences", "do it, who will know?"... like that.


2) How can we distinguish if our bad thoughts, sadness, etc, comes for us, or from the enemy? By developing discernment, you study the bible and CHOOSE to agree with what God says about matters.

If you have a problem and you are not sure, you pray and ASK him to reveal the answer through his word or via counsel of another, the counsel MUST align with the word of God. Sometimes sadness is our own emotion from circumstances... but we can examine it through the process above to discern if it is natural, oppression from the enemy, or something the Holy Spirit wants to correct in us.
Understand?

Hi, sister!

Yes, I see. Guess what´s difficult is to be able to discern...!

But like I said, my main question is more about the "mechanism" itself.

What´s the "mechanism" he uses to oppress us, to accuse or lie to us?

Does he implant thoughts in our minds?
Does he "uses" other people that, in a conversation, may say things that will hurt us and/or will harm our faith?

Sadness/depression, for example, can this be his doing? If yes, what´s the mechanism he uses to attack us?
He wants to separate couples, sow discord, distrust, pain, for example. Again, what´s the mechanism he uses?

I think, however, that the we (in general) really give him a great help in his work, nevertheless...

 

[BarlyGurl]

Hi, sister!

Yes, I see. Guess what´s difficult is to be able to discern...!

But like I said, my main question is more about the "mechanism" itself.

What´s the "mechanism" he uses to oppress us, to accuse or lie to us?

Does he implant thoughts in our minds?
Does he "uses" other people that, in a conversation, may say things that will hurt us and/or will harm our faith?

Sadness/depression, for example, can this be his doing? If yes, what´s the mechanism he uses to attack us?
He wants to separate couples, sow discord, distrust, pain, for example. Again, what´s the mechanism he uses?

I think, however, that the we (in general) really give him a great help in his work, nevertheless...

Yes, I have a better grasp of what you are asking now. There is no singular "mechanism", We know from Genesis he "speaks" directly to us, we know from Job he has to be permitted and does use external circumstances and other people.
Now the lil' nuggets of understanding I think you are digging for are...
Strongholds, generational curses and vain imaginations
Strongholds are wrong (not in agreement with God) ideas and attitudes which we formulate and build our worldview on... the are the building blocks for how we conduct ourselves in the world.
Generational curses are wrong (not in agreement with God) thoughts or ideas (as strongholds are) but are particularly difficult to remove as they are rooted in the family (parents taught by grandparent etc.).
Vain imaginations are thoughts or ideas which originate from our fleshly sinful nature which do not agree with God.
In considering these things..... the importance of renewing our minds through study of the scripture becomes paramount... praise God for preserving His word and giving us so many venues to search the scriptures daily enabling us to test the spirits (of thoughts, ideas, attitudes, emotions, circumstances) against what the scripture says about <whatever the issue is>.

 

[Jruiz]

I see, brothers and sister!

But again, I still haven´t the answers I need to my questions above!

Please, bear with me:


1) What´s the "mechanism" he uses to oppress us, to accuse or lie to us?

Does he implant thoughts in our minds?
Does he "uses" other people that, in a conversation, may say things that will hurt us and/or will harm our faith?

Sadness/depression, for example, can this be his doing? If yes, how does he attacks us?
He wants to separate and people, sow discord, distrust, pain, for example. Again, how does he do that? Entering our minds and implant thoughts that will lead to that?


And, this is this is maybe the hard one to answer:

2) How can we know/distinguish if things that aren´t from God (confusion, pain, distrust, sadness, anger, sexual immoral thoughts, etc) come from the enemy, or from us?


Thank you!


God bless you, brothers and sisters!

Hebrews 1:14 says Angels are ministering spirits. Even though demons are fallen angels they're still ministering spirits...i believe they plant thoughts an ideas in your head. Thats one way they attack you...one time a demonic being told me to turn around ,the more i refused the more intense it got. Finally I turned around a saw a demonic being...sometimes its hard to tell your thoughts from theirs but if your getting repetitive thoughts that is not of you,it could be demonic...they are liars and they like to accuse you of not being good enough and bring up sins of the past that you already repented for...

 

[Jesus4ever]

Hebrews 1:14 says Angels are ministering spirits. Even though demons are fallen angels they're still ministering spirits...i believe they plant thoughts an ideas in your head. Thats one way they attack you...one time a demonic being told me to turn around ,the more i refused the more intense it got. Finally I turned around a saw a demonic being...sometimes its hard to tell your thoughts from theirs but if your getting repetitive thoughts that is not of you,it could be demonic...they are liars and they like to accuse you of not being good enough and bring up sins of the past that you already repented for...

Yes, I believe the enemy has the ability to plant thoughts also, BUT, he/they can´t read our thoughts. So, by logic, if you are talking, or asking something to God (by thoughts), and get answers, that can´t come from the enemy, as he doesn´t know what we are talking with God.

And yeah, that´s why I begun to pray in thoughts to God, because if I pray speaking, he will hear what I pray.

The big question here is: what comes from me (my flesh, my mind) and what comes from him...? The Bible also says our flesh plays a big role, because it´s weak. So, eventually, at some point, it´s hard for me to discern what´s from me from what´s from him. One thing is certain: my flesh is really weak and he really knows my weaknesses. But God is so good that He´s helping me incredibly to overcome that, as I´m walking toward His light. Praise Him!!!

 

[BarlyGurl]

Yes, I believe the enemy has the ability to plant thoughts also, BUT, he/they can´t read our thoughts. So, by logic, if you are talking, or asking something to God (by thoughts), and get answers, that can´t come from the enemy, as he doesn´t know what we are talking with God.

This is a "sort of" error, satan has had since the beginning of time to study mankind and we are well understood by the enemy. Further, when saying prayer in your mind is to God, you are saying that "talk" is strictly spiritual when that is not so as it can be fleshly also. Understand?

And yeah, that´s why I begun to pray in thoughts to God, because if I pray speaking, he will hear what I pray.

The big question here is: what comes from me (my flesh, my mind) and what comes from him...? The Bible also says our flesh plays a big role, because it´s weak. So, eventually, at some point, it´s hard for me to discern what´s from me from what´s from him. One thing is certain: my flesh is really weak and he really knows my weaknesses. But God is so good that He´s helping me incredibly to overcome that, as I´m walking toward His light. Praise Him!!!

This also a mistake... thinking your flesh is weak. The context of the scripture is that your flesh is weak as in not spiritually strong, it is born of sin and carnal. If you want to discover how STRONG your flesh really is... decide to begin practicing biblical fasting to mortify your body and strengthen your spirit man.... then you will discover how STRONG your flesh truly is.

 

[Jesus4ever]

This is a "sort of" error, satan has had since the beginning of time to study mankind and we are well understood by the enemy. Further, when saying prayer in your mind is to God, you are saying that "talk" is strictly spiritual when that is not so as it can be fleshly also. Understand?

To be honest, no, I don´t...! I did not want to say that simply by praying in my mind, that´s 100% spiritual. I know it isn´t. What I said was, since he can´t read our minds, the answers we get from praying in our mind, when asking questions, can´t be from him, since he didn´t know what we prayed...! Or did you want to say that the answer we have to the question we asked in our prayer (in mind), isn´t from God, but from ourselves?

This also a mistake... thinking your flesh is weak. The context of the scripture is that your flesh is weak as in not spiritually strong, it is born of sin and carnal. If you want to discover how STRONG your flesh really is... decide to begin practicing biblical fasting to mortify your body and strengthen your spirit man.... then you will discover how STRONG your flesh truly is.

That´s what I´m doing, sister. And God, with is mercy and love, is helping me to points I couldn´t really believe it would be possible. But still, yeah, my flesh is week. It´s only the path I started to do toward God and His merciful help that improved me so much.

 

[BarlyGurl]

I did not want to say that simply by praying in my mind, that´s 100% spiritual. I know it isn´t. What I said was, since he can´t read our minds, the answers we get from praying in our mind, when asking questions, can´t be from him, since he didn´t know what we prayed...! Or did you want to say that the answer we have to the question we asked in our prayer (in mind), isn´t from God, but from ourselves?


Yes... in clarifying this... I think that is accurate. There is this verse...Isa 65:24 which the Lord used to help me be strengthened and encouraged in the same manner that you are pressing in now. Sometimes the HS still does this... I will think about what my question is and how to go about "inquiring to the Lord" and no sooner to I clear my thought to ASK, the answer comes... it is like being interrupted.
Be encouraged... I commend you for striving... that is GOOD!