And how do we resist?
Resist By Submitting To God
James 4:7 (NKJV) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
“Submit” is a military term, and it means to obey or to be subordinate to a commander.
Submitting to God means humbling ourselves before Him and declaring our utter dependence upon Him. It means repenting of all pride.
Resist By Rejecting Pride
When we submit ourselves to God we become humble and able to resist pride which results in insubordination.
Pride is a big problem. We see what it does when people start believing the hype about them. God gives some the gift of being able to encourage people or teach people or lead people and the people being encouraged look to that person as examples. We we start believing that we are all that that’s when pride creeps in. The enemy causes us to think that we are the reason for our success and not God
When we become prideful we are looking at ourselves and not God and you know what happens then.
Proverbs 16:18 (NKJV) Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
James 4:6 (NKJV)6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."
Resist By Rejecting Fear
You are made up of “spirit, soul, and body”—your soul is made up of your mind and emotions, and this includes your will
1 Thessalonians 5:23 (NKJV)23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God wants all of these aspects of you submitted to Him under His Lordship. If the enemy has influence in any of these areas of yourself, you will find fear creeping into your soul.
Fear increases in us when we have too much involvement with the world. If you suffer from fear, the enemy will seize the opportunity to feed it in you until you are emotionally paralyzed.
2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Resist By Praying
God wants to do miraculous through us, but too often we either don’t pray for them, or don’t believe they can happen, or when they do happen we have trouble believing it. Too often, just because we cannot imagine the miraculous, we don’t pray for it. We have to stop doing that. We must trust in God and pray for without feeling we have to tell Him how to do it.
Pray that God will deliver us from unbelief and increase our faith to believe for the miraculous.
Mark 9:23-24 (NKJV)23 Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"
Resist By Not Giving Up
Be persistent in prayer even when it looks like God isn’t listening and that our prayers aren’t making any difference.
Luke 18:1-8 (NKJV)1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,2 saying: "There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, 'Get justice for me from my adversary.'4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, 'Though I do not fear God nor regard man,5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.' "6 Then the Lord said, "Hear what the unjust judge said.7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"
We know that God is Omniscient, and that He knows what we need before we ask, but we are still told to ask and to be persistent in our asking.
Matthew 7:7-11 (NLT)7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.9 “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?10 Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not!11 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.
Resist By Refusing To Be Discontent
Supplication means more than just asking for something from God. Supplication means praying until the burden you have on your heart is released into God's hands. It means to keep praying until you see the answer or you receive the peace to stop praying—whichever comes first.
God wants you to be content no matter what condition you are in or what is happening in your life.
Philippians 4:11-14 (NKJV)11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content:12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.14 Nevertheless you have done well that you shared in my distress.
That doesn’t mean you have to stay in that condition forever. It means you trust that God is not going to leave you in that condition forever.
Remember this: God loves you more than you know and has a wonderful plan for your life. When you follow Him completely and surrender your life to Him, He enables you to become all He created you to be.
Remember this: The enemy hates you and despises all that God wants to do in your life. He has a plan for your life too, and that is to control you for his purposes and destroy you. He will do all he can to make that happen through his lies and deception.
Remember this: God has given you dominion power on the earth for His purposes.
Remember this: The enemy wants that power for himself for his own purposes.
Remember this: God wants to use you to accomplish His will and glorify Him, while blessing you at the same time.
Remember this: The enemy wants to use your life to glorify himself and destroy you in the process.
Remember this: God has given you a free will, and He waits each day for you to invite Him to work powerfully in your life.
Remember this: The enemy doesn’t wait to be invited. He will work in your life unless he is stopped. He wants you to reject God and open up to him instead.
Remember this: It is impossible for God to lie. God only speaks the truth, and He gives us His Word on that.
Remember this: The enemy is the father of all lies. He controls people by enticing them to believe the lies he tells them.
Keep in mind that the enemy is always planning evil. The only thing that restrains him are the prayers of the saints—the prayer warriors. Don’t allow this aspect to become vague to you. We can pray anytime, day or night, wherever we are, and that is what we must do on a moment’s notice when we are prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so. We cannot ignore those promptings.
Keep in mind that we must have time alone with God in order to communicate our heart to Him and listen to Him communicate His heart to us. Our time alone with God is when we are empowered and filled afresh by the Holy Spirit In us, just as Jesus was. It’s when our mind and soul are renewed and strengthened. It’s when we receive greater clarity and can receive the guidance, discernment, wisdom, and revelation we need.
Keep in mind that believers everywhere are experiencing the same things that we are experiencing. God’s Word says of the enemy that we are to “resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world”
1 Peter 5:9 (NKJV) Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
We are not alone in what we are facing.
Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter how strong the enemy is. God is greater. The power of God's Spirit in us is far stronger than that of the enemy.
Keep in mind that we are resisting the enemy whenever we pray. When we stand strong by submitting to God, the enemy must flee from us. That is why we must always be ready to do battle with the enemy in prayer. We must remember that we are not going into territory the enemy owns. We are taking back territory the enemy has stolen - From CDG Bible Study Prayer Warrior: Praying Your Way To Victory - Session 11
The Only Way to Shut Up the Devil Is at the Cross
by Whitney Capps
Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Col. 2:15).
Living a life unashamed is a hard thing to grab a hold of. I mean, live confident in the work of Jesus? I get that. Forget the mountain of debt I had against God? Live completely free from the guilt and shame of that? So much harder, right? Shame is a stubborn weed that comes back no matter how many times I pull it, you know?
When the devil begins to attack us, it’s best not to argue with him. I've lost quite a few arguments with the devil. I know I have authority over him, but when he starts reading my rap sheet of crimes against God and comparing me to other women, I can get sucked into a “me” spiral. When this starts to happen, the only solution is to take me out of the equation. The only way to shut up the devil is at the Cross.
The church at Colossae knew about having an attacked, vulnerable faith. One of the purposes of Paul’s letter to the Colossians was to firm up their faith and remind them of their confidence in the Cross. In Colossians 2:14-15 (NIV) Paul says, “Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
The only way to shut up the devil is at the Cross.
In the Ancient Near East, agreements and business transactions between two parties were handwritten into formal contracts—not unlike today, but with a few more brush strokes rather than keystrokes. When one party was indebted to another, his name would be written below the agreement. When the debt was satisfied, the name would be scratched out, a line drawn through it, or one would hammer a nail, piercing the name, signifying the debt had been cancelled.
In Colossians 2, Paul uses this same idea with the phrase "legal indebtedness." The law of God was the written contract that held us in debt to Him. Sins stacked up, and our charges against Him were incalculable. But through Jesus Christ, God has canceled those charges! Because of the very specific word choice Paul used in verse 14, his audience would have envisioned the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet blotting out the debt we owed God. Every charge against us was nailed to the cross. Our account with Him had been settled. He can forgive us because though we failed to uphold our end of the contract by keeping the law, Jesus paid the price for our crimes against God. We were unable to meet the terms of our agreement with Him.
So, Jesus did that for us by living a perfect, completely sinless life and taking on the shame of our sin by dying a criminal’s death in our place. This is referred to by scholars as expiation. To "expiate" our sin means that Jesus satisfied the legal requirements that God demands of us.
This is the gospel. Our debt is paid! The nails that pierced Him declared us free and clear. What marvelous news! It’s a sweet reminder to combat our shame and guilt. The Cross is the antidote. The Cross sets us free from shame.
Excerpted from Sick of Me by Whitney Capps