4 Strategies the Enemy Will Use Against You

The enemy may be cunning, but he’s not creative. He’s been using the same schemes to harm believers since the fall of man. The more aware we become of what his strategies are, the more we can protect ourselves from spiritual warfare. In today's video, I’m sharing with you 4 signature strategies the enemy always uses and how to overcome each one.

1. Deception

The first strategy the enemy will use to attack you is deception. The enemy wants to get us to believe a lie because as Jesus tells us in John 8:44, Satan is “the father of lies.” So the enemy’s main strategy to deceive us will be to lie to us. But we must also understand that the enemy doesn’t always have to flat out lie to us to get us to believe a lie. He can do this through perversion, confusion, and temptation. The end result is all the same. If we believe a lie, we are drawn away from God and His way of truth. We combat deception by knowing the truth. We know the truth by acquainting ourselves with the truth. That truth is found in God’s Word. The Bible calls God’s Word the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) because God’s truth cuts down the lies of the enemy. We must study the Bible if we don’t want to be deceived and live God’s Word to experience victory in His truth.

2. Discouragement

The second strategy the enemy will use against you is discouragement.

more potential in you than you see in yourself sometimes. He’s trying to discourage you through accusation, shame, and condemnation because he knows if you knew how powerful you were in Christ, you’d be unstoppable. But you can’t access the power of Christ to overcome if you're not focused on Christ. The enemy’s attempt to discourage you is for the purpose of getting your eyes off God which is where your strength comes from. He wants you to have a pity party about where you lack and what you’ve done wrong and how unqualified you are. Oh poor you. No. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus and we experience His victory when we are in Christ, not overly focused on ourselves. As Joshua was about to go into war as he led the Israelites into the promised land, God commanded him not to be discouraged because He knows discouragement does not lead to victory, God does. So focus on God and encourage yourself in Him. 

3. Division

The third strategy the enemy often uses to attack us is division. He uses dissension, isolation, and unhealthy competition to divide God’s family and isolate you from the people you need in your life to experience victory in Christ. There is strength in numbers and even the enemy knows a house divided cannot stand. So he does everything in his power to get us to fight one another and deprive us of the desire to be in a community where we were made to flourish and grow in ways we can’t on our own. As we strive to live in peace with our brothers and sisters through humility and mutual submission, we gain strength and power against the enemy. As we seek community and accountability, we overcome the enemy’s tactic to divide us and find victory in Christ.

4. Distraction

The fourth strategy the enemy uses against us is distraction. The enemy can’t take away the purpose God has on your life, but he sure can distract you so you never realize that purpose. Whether it is busyness, worry, pride, greed, drunkenness, comparison, or envy, the enemy wants our eyes off God. If he can get our gaze to look another way, he knows our feet will follow. It’s important for the daughters of God to wake up to the distractions of the enemy. We need to be sober minded so we can both see and overcome his attacks. When we live distracted, we’re allowing outside forces to think and will for us over God, but we are called to walk by the Spirit. This means we need to be led by God, but He can’t lead us if we’re distracted and unable to discern His will for our lives. This will require that we, like Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:12, not be mastered by anything. We must exercise self control to put the phone down, put the pills down, put the negative thoughts down, and anything else that prevents us from consistently and fervently walking with and living for God.

• The enemy deceives us to deprive us of God's truth.
• He discourages us to deprive us of God’s presence.
• He divides us to deprive us of strength and power.
• He distracts us to deprive us from God’s purpose.

But when we stand in the truth of God, when we trust and believe that God is with us, when we come together as one in Christ, and when we keep our eyes on God we overcome every strategy of the enemy and experience true victory in Christ. 

Now that you know his strategy and how to overcome each one, the Bible tells us two ways to overcome spiritual warfare. The first is to strengthen ourselves in the Lord and the second is to put on the whole armor of God. Learn how to do both in our next online Beloved Bible study called “Stand Firm: How to Fight for Your Faith with the Armor of God.” In this study, exclusively in the Beloved Women app, we will look deeper at Ephesians 6:10-20 to learn how to access God’s strength during spiritual warfare, how to stand firm against the attacks of the enemy, and how to practically put on each piece of the armor of God to realize the victory we as believers are promised in Christ. You are not going to want to miss this eye opening and powerful study on the armor of God with your Beloved sisters all over the world. Sign up now by joining the Beloved Women app in the Apple or Google play stores or visit www.belovedwomen.tv. I look forward to studying with you.

Now I would love to hear from you. What step can you take today to live less deceived, discouraged, divided and distracted so you can live victoriously in Christ? Let’s encourage one another in the comments.

As always, thank you so much for watching today and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed and beloved.