The Real Enemy

One night the Lord reminded me that my responses in situations like these are a reflection of my knowledge of the truth . . .

Alethea's Mind

Don’t fight your husband; don’t battle with your wife

Don’t curse your mama; don’t look down on your dad

Don’t disown that child; don’t let that friend go

Don’t harbour that hate for the hurt they create

Beneath all the harsh words and tightly clenched fists

Is the master of smoke and mirrors, the trickster of life

He steps in and in comes discord with a cherry on top

He sows the seeds the weeds up every good crop on the block

He’s the father of lies and the source of all evil, he is the devil.

You hear her voice call you names, but he’s pulling the strings of her heart

You see him fill up the glass and drink it all up, but he’s the source of the urge

She is bullied for the colour of her skin; he’s right there in the middle of it

He’s the father of lies and the source of all evil, he is the devil.

So when he wants you to fight your husband or battle your wife

Look him in the eye and let him know you’re not deceived

He wants you to think they are the enemy for hurting you so

But that’s a lie, he’s the one behind calling all the shots

So ignore the human tool before you and get on your knees,

And direct all that anger on the one pulling the strings

Tell him

“That’s enough, satan, you’re not welcomed here”

“Get thee behind me, I have nothing to fear!”

He’s the real enemy, he always has been

Fighting against the good in all that we can be

Driving the wedge to tear us apart

Filling our hearts with hate and deceit

Don’t give in to his tricks, don’t let him win

He’s the real enemy, so focus on him . . . and let his tool be.

I have had this topic sitting in my drafts for a while. I knew what I wanted to write about but didn’t know how to go about it. Today, I trusted the Lord and just began to type, and I hope the message is as clear and we all get the point. This is very close to my heart because I have suffered a lot from the influences of the deceiver, especially in my marriage. We go through a rough patch and I’m tempted to throw all the arrows on the one physically standing in front of me – my husband. Or a random person on the street decides to test my ‘long-suffering’ only to realise that it isn’t that long after all. One night the Lord reminded me that my responses in situations like these are a reflection of my knowledge of the truth . . . and what is this truth?

Your enemy, the devil, is like a roaring lion, sneaking around to find someone to attack. 1 Peter 5:8

When my husband does something that doesn’t go down well with me, the enemy tries his best to make me think that my husband is the enemy trying to hurt me, and if I fall for his tricks, I end up suffering the effects of a rift.

On that night, I heard very clearly, after one of such episodes:

“He is not the enemy”

Those words opened my eyes and my heart and put everything in the right perspective, and I focused my anger on the one whose sole desire is to cause a rift in my home and sow all the seeds of discord he can afford. I looked into the eyes of my husband and said,

“You are not my enemy, you don’t mean to hurt me. I know who is responsible, and he has already lost this battle.”

If we will always acknowledge who the real enemy is, we will find ourselves responding to tough times in our relationships with more grace and mercy and forgiveness, knowing that we ourselves are not beyond fault and failures.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Matthew 16:21-23

Jesus knew the real enemy, so should you!

17 thoughts on “The Real Enemy”

  3. Alethea,
    Thank you for writing this. Yes, Satan is our real enemy. But, we do have physical enemies, too. Yes, our real struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against Satan and his many hordes, but the Bible is very clear that we will have flesh and blood enemies, too, who will hate us, persecute us, mistreat us, and who will do all kinds of evil against us, because they are following after Satan and his lies.
    That is why we are taught to love our enemies, to pray for them, to do good to them, not harm, and to say what is beneficial to them, not curse them. But, we are also taught to speak the truth in love to them, and to confront those who do us harm with their sins against us so that they can be turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so they can receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ.
    While it is true that sometimes people will hurt us without intending to hurt us, that is not always the case, for there are many people out there who are users and abusers and adulterers and liars and deceivers and manipulators who willfully do others harm. They fully intend to hurt others because they willfully and knowingly do what they know is wrong and what they know will hurt others, and they do this over and over and over again, many without any conscience.
    We are all responsible for our behaviors. Yes, Satan is behind all evil, but we each must take personal responsibility for the evil that any of us may do. So, I am just adding a word of caution here that we not assign all the blame to Satan, for we are to blame when we willfully do what we know will cause others to suffer harm. And, I am adding a word of caution, too, that we should not assume that when others hurt us that either they intended to or that they didn’t intend to, unless, of course, causing us harm is their pattern of behavior, and they knowingly repeat those same behaviors. The Bible calls this hate.
    So, the loving thing to do is to talk about what just happened, and to see what the intent was, if it is not obvious, and to speak the truth in love to one another, which is for our good, and not assume anyone meant no harm or that they are not our enemies, for we do have flesh and blood enemies, too, who are fully responsible before God for what they do. So, we should not give them a pass, but we should lovingly confront them with their behaviors and counsel them toward repentance and trusting God with their lives, but we should also forgive them and continue to show them love, but never to overlook the evil that they intentionally do, for that only enables them to continue in their evil.
    And, this is following the example of Jesus Christ, who is our model for how we should relate and deal with one another and especially with other believers in Jesus Christ caught up in sinful practices or who have willfully caused us harm. Love makes no excuses for willful sin, but it confronts sin, and it helps others to be delivered from their slavery to sin and to be restored to a right relationship with God and with others. So, just saying we need to not assume fault or non-fault on the part of others or give someone a pass who may, in fact, be fully intending harm, but we should speak the truth in love in hopes that the other person would be led to repentance and to a restored relationship with God.
    But, we should always forgive and never hold on to bitterness, but to respond always in love and compassion and do good to those who mistreat us.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks a lot, Sue, for this amazing exposition. I do agree with everything you have written, we do have people around us who willfully want to hurt us and in cases like those, we must trust the Holy Spirit to lead our response; the devil cannot always take the blame because we have our will to make our choices. Funny enough after I wrote this and shared it with my husband, he raised the same point you have made about blaming the devil, but I guess he understood the essence of this post because we have walked in the experience of the meaning together.
      This post though is more focused on those who do love us but hurt us in turn by things they do. It’s a call to walk away from rifts that draw us apart, as is the intention of the enemy to do. And I also believe it’ll help in drawing our attention away from deliberately fighting in the physical, like the random person who does something to hurt me, if I choose to brand the person as my enemy and respond in that light, I’ll end up being a very angry and vengeance seeking individual. So as I pray for those who do me harm, I address the evil within in turn. I hope it is somewhat clearer.
      Thanks again for taking the time to read and leave your thoughts. I appreciate it a lot

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Alethea,

        Thanks for the clarification. I see that your focus was more on how we respond to those who hurt us, whether intentional or not, and I agree that we must let the Holy Spirit guide our responses and not our flesh, thus we should not, as the scriptures say, trade tit for tat, i.e. evil for evil, even if evil is not intended, but we should return harm with love, with kindness and with forgiveness. I agree!! ❤ God bless you!

        Liked by 1 person

  6. I am happy you were able to write about the devil and instigator who creates problems for us or between us at times. He does these things to us. He loves to cause hate and strife. You are so correct with this post. Thank you so much Alethea !!

    Like

  7. I remember reading the book, Late Great Planet EArth right before I got saved, it scared me because I could see the power of the enemy of my soul. Knowing that I was either a child of the devil which I was when I read the book took my fear even deeper. So I started reading the bible and of course it show me I had a chose, I could choose to stay a child of the devil or become a child of the King, I chose being the daughter of the most high KIng. I have a nasty temper and sometimes my husband will say to me, that’s the Rankin coming out of you, Rankin is my maiden name and we all have tempers. Studying the Word has helped me realize it matters not what our last name is or our family line is. In face I think the devil likes for us to blame anyone but him. thanks for calling him out, putting the blame where it is. Where the flesh comes in is where we can chose. My flesh is weak but He is strong and only wants me to learn from my fleshly mistakes. The devil wants me to repeat my bad reactions or anger, or what ever bad it is that comes from the flesh. The devil has lost but our flesh is still power ful but it will lose someday too…oh my…to get that new body without the old man living in it. Heaven. Great post sister, great post.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you so much, Betty. That new body is one I have longed for, but since we’re here for this time, I pray the Spirit of God subjects this old one till it is the most submitted to Him. He is strong indeed, even when we are the weakest.

      Like

Comments are closed.