Beware of Satan's tactics in 2025, yes he wants you to sin, but that is at the bottom of his list. What he wants, is for you to question your indentity in Christ. Lose hope, walk away from your faith, doubt God and when you do, Satan has accomplished his mission. He will surely be out to destroy you.
While there’s no doubt that the devil likes us to commit sin and behave immorally, that certainly isn’t his end goal. That’s just a step along the way. He’s got his eyes set much higher. Falling into sin is bad; but it is easily fixable (see 1 John 1:9). If we lie, we confess, and He forgives us. If we steal, we repent and return the item, and He restores us. If we find ourselves addicted, we seek treatment (spiritual and physical) and God heals.
Immoral behavior doesn’t destroy us. It may slow us down for a little or it may sidetrack us for a season, but in the end, our God is much bigger than any sin – as St. Paul said, “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” (Romans 5:20).
So, if sin isn’t the devil’s goal, then what is? Go to Matthew 4 – the account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness after His baptism. It says: “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Matthew 4:3
We usually look at this temptation and think of it only in terms of physical hunger – Jesus was hungry, and the devil tempted Him to eat. But the issue here is much greater than food. If this was about just getting Jesus to eat, then don’t you think the devil would have been better prepared? Notice how the devil began his temptation, “IF you are the Son of God…” This wasn’t about food; this was about identity. He wasn’t just trying to get Jesus to eat; he was trying to get Jesus to question His relationship with the Father. Maybe you’ve heard something similar before: “If God knew what was best, then why are you still suffering after you obeyed?” Why did God allow your husband or your wife to die with cancer, why did He allow your child to die in an accident, why does God allow diabetes in your family, if you are so faithful and loyal to God; why does He allow these things to happen to you?
“If God loved you, then where is He now?” You’ve heard it before, haven’t you? I certainly have. Now Satan has you second guessing, doubting God, walking away from your faith. That is his goal, you can sin all day but if he can get you to stop serving Jesus Christ, then he is accomplishing his mission. Go back to Adam and Eve and you’ll see that that was the same temptation that the devil threw at them. After God gave them everything they needed and told them that they could live forever with Him if they avoided eating from one tree, the tempter came and said:
The only way to DEFEAT your enemy is to first KNOW your enemy. You can’t defeat an enemy that you do not know. Logic says that the more I understand my enemy, the more my chances for victory increase. We will not be consumed. We serve the God of Daily Bread. We are going to be prepared in 2025. So, with that said, here’s the question for today: what is the devil’s goal? And how does he seek to accomplish that goal? What are his weapons? So, if sin isn’t the devil’s goal, then what is? He has already started; he came into 2025 ready. While there’s no doubt that the devil likes us to commit sin and behave immorally, that certainly isn’t his end goal. That’s just a step along the way. He’s got his eyes set much higher. We are going to be so prepared for him.
We will not be consumed! We serve the God Of Daily Bread.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary THE DEVIL walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8
He wants to destroy your life – both on this earth and in eternity to come. He wants to utterly ruin your existence and make you more miserable every single day – leading up to eternal misery in hell. But how does he accomplish that? What are his short-term goals? What is he doing right now to get you one step closer to that goal? Is he trying to make you fall into immoral behavior? To lie, steal, cheat, and curse? Is that it? Or maybe he wants to get us all hooked on drugs, alcohol, or pornography? Is that it? Or how about anger and hate? Maybe his goal is to ruin our relationships and get us all fighting with one another. Is that his strategy?
Has God INDEED said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1) In other words, did God mean that? Are you sure He’s got your best interest at heart? How do you know? What makes you so sure you can trust Him?
Getting you to sin is a short-term victory for the devil, but the solution there is very simple if we just turn to the LORD and repent. But for long-term success, the devil knows that he needs to do more; he needs to get you to lose faith in God…to stop trusting in God’s Word His commandments, and His laws. That is exactly what he did to Adam and Eve, and it worked like a charm. He got them to second guess God’s Law and that was it for them.
The devil wins, and man loses. Jesus, on the other hand, showed how this war is supposed to be fought. He responded to Satan’s attempt by reaffirming His allegiance to God’s Law. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)
Now that’s how you do it! Trusting in God’s Law is the key to success in every area of life. The one who trusts God’s Law will be blessed; the one who doesn’t will always struggle – not because God is mean and just wants us to obey for the sake of obeying, but rather because God is CORRECT! He knows the path of life and He is kind enough to share it with us in the form of laws/commandments.
The truth is the reason for a lot of things we do or fail to do. Simply put, With No Scientific Babble Attached: “I Just Don’t Feel Like It”. I guess that’s why couples promise to keep their marriage vows: “as long as we both shall live “, instead of “as long as I feel like it.” Because in honesty, “feelings change” and can you imagine if marriages ended in divorce every time a spouse no longer “felt like it?” And truthfully, there have been times when you and I didn’t “feel like it” 20 times in one hour, one day, one week, one month and one year! Maybe that’s the reason why so many marriages, especially and unfortunately, Christian Marriages are ending in divorce at the rapid pace they are. You see, over the years we simply alter our vows from, “till death” to “till I no longer feel like it.”
Listen, your life depends greatly on what you do on those days when you simply feel flat and fatigued. Think about it: Who would have a job if they quit every time they no longer “felt like it?” Who would Pastor the church if every minister of the Gospel closed the church doors every day because they simply “didn’t feel like it anymore?” What would we do with our children if all the teachers decided not to show up at school because they “no longer felt like it? Where would our public transportation be if all the transit workers decided, “Today is just not a good day for me? My biorhythms are off this month. I’m staying home for a while because I just don’t feel like it. And dare we even imagine what the hospitals and clinics would be like with all the doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and nurses out for a 3 month long “I just don’t feel like it” break! How about if all the lawyers, police, fire department, correction officers, judges, janitors, and government officials, all decided “I need a break” and stay home on the couch for the next 6 months, because “I just don’t feel like it” In other words, if left unchecked, that “I don’t feel like it” can grow into a terminal disease that kills you and everything and everyone attached to you!
In chapter 1 Corinthians 4, I would have to suggest that Paul’s was extremely low at the time of this letter. I don’t know whether it was a bad month in his life or a bad time but listen to this and think about how he must have been feeling. He says, “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.” (vs. 11 NIV). Now, it may just be me, but Paul doesn’t sound like he’s feeling the greatest at this moment. I don’t think he was necessarily feeling like treating people gently and kindly…wanting to work on what needed to be done. Do you ever feel like that? “I just don’t feel like doing what I must do. I don’t feel like praying. I don’t feel like being very unselfish right now. I don’t feel particularly ‘churchy’ at this moment.” And could we honestly blame him? After all, at that very moment, he was hungry, thirsty, dressed in raggedy clothes, brutally treated, and homeless! Now if anybody had a right to a bad day and a bad attitude it was Paul!
However, here’s how he operated. It says in verse 12, “We work hard with our own hands…” (NIV) even though he was experiencing all of that, he continued to work, and the Bible continues to read, “…When we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure it. When we are slandered, we answer kindly…” (NIV). You say, “What in the world has kept Paul functioning so victoriously when he probably doesn’t feel like it?” Truthfully, we’ve all had days that were nowhere near this bad, and yet if we could’ve thrown in the towel and walked away, we would have. And many of us can be brutally honest and admit that we did just that. But in the midst of how Paul may have justifiably been feeling, he didn’t curse, he blessed, when persecuted, he endured it, and when slandered he answered kindly. I don’t know about you, but the question in my mind when I read this was “How In The World Can You Respond Like This, After Dealing With All Of That?!”
Well, I learned just a few verses up the vital key. It’s found in 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (NIV). There is the word that takes over where your feelings leave off – FAITHFUL. When you don’t feel like it, you must remain faithful to the call you answered.
Are you getting it? Regardless of feelings, you are charged to remain faithful! Maybe you’re in a time right now where you just don’t feel like doing what you’re supposed to do. You started when the feeling was there, but now you feel flat; you just don’t feel like following through on your schoolwork, your job, or that ministry or marriage that you were once so excited about. You’ve lost your enthusiasm, your zeal, your momentum. You don’t feel like reaching out to the people in your family or your community. Maybe you feel more like withdrawing into a cave somewhere. You simply don’t feel like finishing what you started. You don’t feel like keeping your commitment or you don’t feel like taking your time away with Jesus.
Another version says it like this: “…His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.” (Matthew 25:23 MSG). Can you imagine GOD of all people wanting to partner up with YOU and all because you were FAITHFUL when you didn’t FEEL like it?! If that’s not an incentive, I don’t know what is!
You see, whether the feelings come back or not, you keep moving faithfully toward your goal. Finish the project hang in there at the job keep pressing on in the ministry keep praying over your marriage. No matter what you feel like, remember the fruit of faithfulness is hearing His well done and becoming His partner! And please believe me, this is not just encouragement nonsense, it’s not easy receiving a diagnosis from the doctor that turns your world upside down; it’s stressful trying to maintain a marriage, with two spouses in leadership roles. Then you have family members and friends who need counsel, advice, prayer, and guidance, not to mention the ministry that expects you to teach them happiness and make them happier, and the truth is, if I listened to my biorhythms, I would have thrown in the towel on all of it years ago! Why? Because there are times when I JUST DON’T FEEL LIKE IT!
But like you, I don’t get to negotiate my faithfulness to God. I expect Him to do what He’s promised He’d do, and likewise, He expects me to do what I promised I’d do. And sometimes that requires being faithful even when I don’t feel like it. It means going to prayer when you’d rather go to bed; it means reading your Bible when you’d rather watch a movie; it means talking to God when you’d rather get on the phone and play catch-up with your friends; it means working on your marriage when you’d rather pack your tools away and quit the project; it means continuing to advise your children even when it seems like the advice goes in one ear and immediately falls out the other one. It means going to work when you’d rather go to the airport and hop on a plane to ANYWHERE ELSE! It means going to the gym when you’d rather go to Baskin & Robbin! It means paying your bills when you’d rather go get that car you saw in the dealership lot or that furniture you saw while window shopping on the internet! It means being obedient when you’d rather seek out another option!
Are you getting this? None of us are exempt! We all have moments when we don’t feel like it, yet God requires us His children AND His stewards to be found faithful always! I mean truthfully where in Scripture does it say Jesus went skipping up to Golgotha? Where does it say He was laughing while carrying His cross? Where does it say His obedience and faithfulness were not painful? Where does it say He sang praise and worship songs to the grave? Where does it say He stretched out His arm on the cross and loved every minute of it? Jesus had it harder than any of us ever have or ever will, YET He remained as much human as divine. He wept; slept; ate; drank; got hungry; was thirsty; had to pray; got frustrated with the people He led; laid hands on people no one else would; restored folks; healed folks; forgave folks; delivered folks; saved folks, and still He never discarded His humanity. And neither should you!
Press on in your faithfulness to your assignment even when you don’t feel like it in your flesh! HOWEVER, you still need to know when to slow down, when to rest; when to sleep and eat, and certainly when to say no, without excuses, apologies, or reasons. But even when you take a break, your break shouldn’t be so long that the Holy Spirit must come and reset a brand-new fire under you to get you back up and back to work in the Kingdom!
“In place of our exhaustion and spiritual fatigue, God will give us rest. All He asks is that we come to Him…that we spend a while thinking about Him, meditating on Him, talking to Him, listening in silence, occupying ourselves with Him – totally and thoroughly lost in the hiding place of His presence.”
Being ignorant of the enemy’s schemes only leaves us vulnerable to his tactics. Being spiritually illiterate doesn’t mean the enemy will leave us alone. It means we are more likely to make critical mistakes due to a lack of full understanding. Ignorance will hurt us and leave us confused, dejected, and deceived. God did not call us to be spiritually blind; he called us to be spiritually alert.
Jesus did not live in reaction to the devil. He lived in response to the Father. We should be aware of Satan but not impressed by him.
God is watching to see who is obeying Jesus Christ, and who has surrendered to evil. “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now, ‘If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?’” (1 Peter 4:17–18).
Zephaniah 3:5, “…Morning by morning He dispenses His justice, and every new DAY He does not fail…” (NIV)
We should be mindful of Zephaniah 3:5. It’s just seven reassuring words, but in those words, God points us to the way He wants us to handle things called Our Life! It simply says, “…Every New DAY He Does Not Fail. God is saying to you Today, “Instead of trying to do Weeks, Months, and Years, would you please do yourself a huge favor, and simply do Life in the 24-hour Increments that I’ve wired you to handle! I’ve even given them a special name says God, I call them “DAYS”!
Think about it: If GOD Even handled HIS creative work by “DAYS”, what makes you think you can handle them by Weeks, Months, and Years?! “And on the Seventh DAY God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the Seventh DAY from all his work which he had made.” (2:2).
Do you see the Pattern here? Learn how to handle your LIFE in “DAYS”! When we try to drag Yesterday, with its baggage and its failures into Today, we become stressed, overwhelmed, feeling incompetent, even bitter, angry, and resentful! When we try to drag Tomorrow into Today, with its worries and its fears, we run ahead of His resources, which are issued each new DAY for that DAY!
In a Nutshell: I’ve got Wednesday’s resources for Wednesday’s needs! When I start worrying about Thursday, or a week from Thursday, I’m on my own and I’m going down…FAST! God knows how to balance Your Grief with His Goodness! He knows just when you need encouragement, and He sends it! He knows just when you need a hopeful sign, or comfort and rest, or an extra shot of strength, or a miracle at the last minute! And He sends them all right on time! God knows when you’ve had all you can take and He raises His almighty hand and says, “Enough! No More!” He’s promised to NEVER let you have “more than you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13). “Because of the Lord’s great love,” you are “Not Consumed.” And You NEVER Will Be!
You serve the God of DAILY Bread; the God of the “strength that will equal your DAYS” (Deuteronomy 33:25). The God of whom you can say Every New DAY: “This is the DAY my Lord has made…” (Psalm 118:24). Not the day my condition has made, or my boss has made, or my frustrations have made, or my disease has made, or my spouse has made. My LORD Made This DAY And He’s Promised Me Everything I’ll Need To Live In It, Therefore I Will Rejoice and Be Glad in It.
Change Your Mindset and Teach Yourself How to Stay in a One Day at a Time Mentality! Keep Your Mind on God, Because He Has His Mind On Everything Else, Including You and All That Concerns You!
Where is God and what is He doing? I know that question. I’ve often asked Him in the middle of my bewilderment seasons. What I didn’t realize was how God is always at work behind the scenes. Even when you can’t see Him. Sense Him. Hear Him.
Are you going through a difficult season? Maybe it’s a hormonal teenager, or maybe you’ve hit a rut in your marriage. Maybe it’s something in your financial life? No matter what it is, you feel like your life is a frozen field on a cold winter day. You peek out the windows at first light to see that it is still dark, and a blanket of snow still covers the ground. Life looks dreary, cold, dead, and bleak.
But what we don’t see is what’s happening underneath, hidden in the ground. Under that blanket of snow, nutrients are being broken into the soil. Roots are growing deeper, and seeds are germinating.
It’s a reminder that God is working behind the scenes all the time on the future. These seasons remind us God is always at work no matter what I am seeing or not seeing. And certainly, God is at work no matter what I am feeling. God doesn’t change with the circumstances—He is the changer of our circumstances. Even when we can’t see God—we can remember He is faithful and true to His promises. He is always working.
God is always at work, no matter what I am seeing or not seeing, and certainly no matter what I am feeling. God doesn’t change with the circumstances. Just because things around me are changing or seem uncertain, I need to remember that God is faithful and true. He is always working.
Yet, He was still at work. Even when Abraham and Sarah couldn’t get pregnant, God was at work. Even when Jacob feared meeting his brother Esau again, God was at work. Even when Joseph was sold by his brothers and then was falsely imprisoned, God was at work. Even when Pharaoh ruled the Israelites and tried to weaken them by killing all the newborn boys God was still at work. Your God is the same God of the Old Testament. These stories show us who God is. He is the same God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the Israelites.
Dozens of times in the Old Testament, God tells Israel to remember that they used to be sojourners in Egypt. Why?
Because we tend to forget God and be selfish when we forget where God has brought us from. Remember believers: we used to be lost. Love others. Be compassionate. KJV Deuteronomy 5:15 And remember that thou were a servant in the land of Egypt and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm: therefore, the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day Jesus said, “come to me ALL who are weary.” He didn’t put a contingent on it for those with leprosy or any other diseases. He even touched non-Jews, tax collectors at that time who were concerned unworthy. Woe unto us when WE decide for ourselves who Jesus will touch. We will not be consumed, He Is The God Of Our Daily Bread!
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