You are your own worst enemy.
Yeah, you.
The person staring back at you in the mirror. The one who listens to the voices in her head rather than tuning into the whispers in her heart.
You, in all of your God-designed beauty and God-ordained worth, are your own worst enemy when you choose to give into your brokenness rather than surrender to the One who can piece you back together and shape you into the Father’s perfect creation.
Sticks and stones can break your bones and names can most definitely hurt you. But the thing that can hurt you the most is your own free will. Your flesh and the world around you can and will eat you alive, little by little, if you put your guard down.
Which is so easy to do when you are lost, confused, wandering, insecure, seeking love and affirmation and/or doubting your purpose in this world. When your guard is down anyone and anything can enter through. Lies can seep into your mind and manipulate what you think and believe to be true. Expectations can become unrealistic and unattainable when your sense of reality has become not real.
Competition and comparison begin to drive your motivations and selfish ambitions. Greed, envy, and the desire for more feed your ego. Over time, the voices in your head become synchronized with what you hear on social media, television, and other mediums. The lies are twisted so much that they start to appear like truth. Your friends and those of influence in your life only further support the negative messages you believe.
It’s a slow fade when you gradually lose who you are. Often times, you don’t even realize what has happened or recognize who you are until you consider how far you have traveled.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place you have a choice to make – continue to listen to the voices or silence them once and for all.
You, with your own free will, possess the power to choose to listen to Satan’s lies or follow the gentle whispers of the Lord calling you home.
Just remember – the head can be persuaded but the heart always stands its ground.
The heart remains firm and unshaken when it is the place where God’s Spirit resides. And once He moves in, He will never move out.
When you invite Him in, He becomes the heartbeat of your life, guiding your steps and protecting your path. He is the little nudge you need to step outside your comfort zone. He is that feeling you experience when something doesn’t feel right. He is that sense of peace that overwhelms your soul when you surrender control. He’s the One who speaks to you, ever so softly, to prepare your heart for whatever is to come.
You can be a threat to yourself and to other image-bearers or you can be a threat to the world. You can live the life prepared for you or you can venture down the unpaved road.
I don’t know about you, but I want to set this world on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit within me. I want to be a threat, but not to my self nor to you. I am not a prisoner of this world, but rather a royal daughter of the King. I am a woman after God’s own heart and I would much rather have Satan fear me than have control of me.
But that’s what he wants – the enemy. That is why he masks himself as our selves, because he wants control of us. He wants to ruin us. He wants to pin us against each other and spew hate all over. He wants nothing more than for us to become deaf to the whispers of the Spirit in our heart.
Not today Satan. No way.
Be a threat, my friend. Put on the armor of God and take on the world.
“Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves. But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities.For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace. For no matter how hard they try, God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled by the flesh.But when the Spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit. And if you are not joined to the Spirit of the Anointed One, you are not of Him. Now Christ lives His life in you! And even though your body may be dead because of the effects of sin, His life-giving Spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God. Yes, God raised Jesus to life! And since God’s Spirit of Resurrection lives in you, He will also raise your dying body to life by the same Spirit that breathes life into you!”
Romans 8:5-6, 8-11 (TPT)
