The enemy has many things in his tool bag to disrupt me and seek to get my focus off of Jesus:
Spirit of murder—nah, not going to happen.
Adultery—on guard; keeping my defenses up.
Spirit of jealousy—maybe on rare occasions, but not so much; check.
Bitterness—Yes, it is a battle, but usually see it coming.
Anger—Yes, it happens, but I know better than to let the sun go down.
Envy—nah, not too contented with what God has given me.
Pride—For sure; it is subtle and a continual battle-Lord, teach me humility!
Discouragement – ugh, I seem to always forget that is in his bag of tricks. He got me again!
It wouldn’t surprise me if your temptation list is a little bit like mine. We can fairly easily say “no” to many things, but discouragement - we didn’t even recognize that was from the enemy.
Francis Frangipane says,
“Discouragement is an enemy that is both subtle in its attack and powerful in its ability to paralyze our progress. When discouragement approaches our hearts, we must discern it. We must refuse to accommodate its influence when it speaks.”
To win the battle of discouragement is to call it what it is, “an attempt or attack.” By calling it out of the darkness of our souls into the light of the Lord will usually help us start to be loosed from its talons.
We become discouraged whenever we start evaluating our negative circumstances based upon information supplied by our emotions, instead of the truth of God.
Don’t be caught off guard. Discouragement doesn’t come from God, courage does.
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