Part #1 of 5– Discord

I wake up every day with thoughts of temptation. Like so many people out there, I struggle with thoughts of not being enough, not doing enough, doubting myself, and the calling on my life that God has for me. I have times where I feel discouraged, and sometimes I feel like I’m not going to cut the mustard. But praise be to God! I am an overcomer! I am thankful for every opportunity to be delivered from those thoughts. See, these thoughts are straight from the enemy himself, and these thoughts are from the pits of Hell!

You see, my friends, we are all overcomers. If God is for us, who can be against us? When I wake up every day, I can choose to feed my faith instead of my sin. I can choose to digest God’s word. I can choose to engage in God’s word. I realize, and I know that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have to believe that when the fiery darts of the enemy come against me, I am not alone. You are not alone either. You see, the devil likes to dish out what I like to call the D’s of the devil. When I’m facing these D’s, I can go to God’s word and let it transform me and lead me in the right way I should go. We believe God’s word is divine. If we run to His word for every issue, we can find a way out of every situation. We do this by going to the word and letting it change us from the inside out. When we read God’s word, we plant seeds into ourselves of an unknown harvest. We don’t know its effects on us, but God does. Rest assured, we are affected and will be affected. When we read God’s word, we lose the power fear had on us. We realize we are given the power of love and deliverance from the enemy. We can be victorious over the temptation in the world and our life. We can conquer sin.

You see, dear readers the enemy never stops coming against us. Every day will be a constant battle. The enemy uses several tactical moves to go against us. We can fight back by knowing God’s word and who he says we are. We are a child of God. A victor. A conqueror. We are worthy, valuable, chosen, free, beautiful, beloved. His delight. The apple of His eye. Did you know that each of us as individuals has our names carved into the palm of his hand? It’s why we are hated and constantly battling with the enemy. We read what to do in 1st Peter 5:8-11 ⁸“be alert and of sober mind, our enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He is the one that brings death. ⁹But if we resist the devil, stand firm in our faith because we know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. ¹⁰The God of all grace, who has called us to eternal glory in Christ, after we have suffered for a little while, He will restore us and make us strong, firm, and steadfast. ¹¹To Him the Father be all the power forever and ever AMEN”.  Do you know who lives inside of you if you have Jesus in your heart? It’s the Holy Spirit. Remember greater is He that lives inside of us than he who is in the world. Because we know Jesus, we have a source greater than ourselves to overcome what the enemy wants to dish out at us. Our Father gives us an exit strategy to avoid the temptation to sin.

Let’s take a moment to clear our minds and our hearts. Please take a few deep calming breaths. Now I’d like you to SAY THIS TO YOURSELF… I AM AN OVERCOMER; AFTER TODAY, I WILL NEVER BE THE SAME. Now, my friends, I want you to stand firm in your faith. Resist the enemy. Do not accept what the enemy tries to dish out. Yes, YOU are an overcomer. We all have the power to overcome the enemy. But we cannot do it alone! We must take opportunities to join with other believers. We need to pray for each other. We should encourage others or get encouraged by others. I urge you do not to do this alone! Every day is a new day of challenges. Every day the devil dishes out new D’s that he tries to use against us. It is up to us to decide if we will eat and partake in what he dishes out. Just remember, his food is poison. It always leads to sin, sickness, and eventually death. If you find yourself dealing with any of these D’s, know you are not alone. We all deal with them. We are all suffering as the word says that we will be. But we all have a helper in the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us resist. The Holy Spirit will help us stand firm and make the devil flee. Never forget that darkness is constantly overtaken by light, and that’s what the Holy Spirit is. It’s light. It’s hope, and it’s love.

Now to begin, the reason we are dishing out D’s that the enemy throws at us. That problem starts with the simplicity of DISREGARDING GOD’S WORD. Far too many days, we walk through life doing exactly this. Sadly through this, the devil dishes out more than we can comprehend. Here are a few to begin: Discord, Doubt, Discouragement, Discontentment, Drama, Debt, Disease, Disappointment, Distrust, Disloyalty. If you have Jesus in your heart, you must believe and regard God’s word as truth. It doesn’t change just because our circumstances do. After all, I don’t know about you, but I believe that God’s word is true. I believe God means what he says when he says it. Let’s not get to a point where we are found compromising God’s word. Please do not walk away from it! Do not twist the truth enough to think this is okay. It is not okay to DISREGARD GOD’S WORD! As I said, God’s word is truth. Every situation is found in God’s word. What it says has authority whether we think it is right or wrong. They are the source we need to overcome the devil’s schemes. God’s word is the whole truth, and his promises are meant for each of us.

We all have to get to the point where we realize that Christ is the foundation. The solid rock. Without Him, anything else will fail us! We must get grounded. We must get rooted in the word of God. We need to let it change our lives. When we were created, we already knew God. Over time we separated ourselves from him. Now we have to choose to turn back to him. Through life, we have to decide to get to know him more. We have to choose to be in his word. We have to choose to let the scripture sink into our heart. Psalm 119:11-12 ¹¹“I have hidden your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you. ¹²Praise be to your Lord, teach me your decrees”.  We have to know and understand Gods word by forever continuing to be a student of Jesus Christ. We need to learn to wield God’s word as a weapon. His word should be the sword we carry.

We need to hide God’s word in our heart so we may not sin against Him. To turn away from the truth is sin and leads to corruption. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all nothing but filthy rags compared to Jesus Christ, and that is what we can boast about. WE ARE ALL IN NEED OF A SAVIOR! To Sin LESS, to be more Christ-like, we must choose to live with more honor and dignity. We need to live in the delivering power of Christ who lives in us. We need to decide to hide his word in our heart that we may not sin against him.

Psalm 119:160 says “ALL his words are true, and His righteous laws are eternal”.  Jesus came to testify to the truth. The word is truth. We can stand on God’s promises. What are God’s promises? His promises are yes and Amen. We need not disregard God’s word. What God says about a matter is the truth. We have got to stop listening to the devil’s lies. Just because the devil is whispering in your ears, that doesn’t mean you have to listen. Choose to fight back. What does God say about the situation? We must take the truth more seriously. John 17:15-19 ¹⁵My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.  You see Jesus prayed for us. He prayed for his disciples. He prayed for them to be changed, washed, and renewed. He wanted them to be sanctified by the power of God’s word. He wants the same things for you and me. Sanctification means no longer being affected by the world. To no longer be led into sin. To stop drinking, smoking, cursing. To choose to stop living in sexual immorality. We decide to have nothing to do with things of this world. We die of ourselves completely. The old is gone; a new creation in Christ is here to stay. We believe in the Bible. We trust that it’s our basic instructions before leaving earth. It’s God’s holy word. We choose to let it change and better our lives. When you deny the enemy access into your life by not giving in to these next few things, you will starve the enemy to death. When we starve him to death, he has nowhere left to run. He has nowhere left to hide.

Let’s take a deeper look at the first D the devil likes to try to dish out. This first D is Discord. Discord is division, division of families, friends, losing sight of what God made for His good. Do not be in division, be united in Him. STARVE THE DEVIL TO DEATH. Isaiah 41:10-12 ¹⁰So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ¹¹All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. ¹²Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them.  When the enemy comes against us, we must fight back. Claim that the victory is the Lords. Claim in faith, not my family, marriage, children, finances, health, self. We must claim victory over everything and anything. We need to say that we’re not going to have an attitude of discord. We must not let the enemy devour what God brought together for good. Devour is precisely what the devil is trying to do. Remember that the enemy is sneaky and crafty. He doesn’t rest for the day until a state of discord and distress is upon you. Don’t let him win! Stand on God’s word! Do not fear what the enemy is trying to do. Be very aware of how he’s trying to cause a stirring in your life. But don’t allow yourself to become depleted and defeated by him.

Take authority over the Spirit of discord. Stand your ground. Say to the enemy, get behind me, Satan. Get behind me discord. Do not give in to fear because God is in you. He overcomes it all. He fights our battles for us. We were created to fight the good fight of faith. He will fight the battle against the enemy. The battles belong to him. Give him your battlefields. He will give you a victory. He is always with us. He is in our situation. The devil, the Father of lies, wants to divide us all. The Lord wants us to unite and come together. He wants us to be connected by his great love. Speak life, not death, into your situations and circumstances. Place God in existence over everything in your life. After all, God is only able to do with us and for us what we are unable to do for ourselves.

When faced with this D from the devil’s dishes, look up verses to counter it. Romans 8:28 “and we know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.”  That is one of his promises. This is an example of his truth. Hallelujah, and praise to the King of Kings and Lord of Lord’s. Let’s take a closer look at this passage. Now let’s open our minds up to what is going on. Romans 8:26-30 ²⁶“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. When we don’t know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. ²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew he all predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sister. ³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; those he called; he also justified; those he justified; he also glorified”. 

When things come up and you think you can’t do this anymore. You feel like you can’t continue. Everything is going wrong in your life, please remember that Christ is an orderly God. He is not a God that promotes discord. Remember that Jesus can calm every storm, including those raging in you right now. God is full of love and unity. He’s not a God of division. He is constantly working for our good. Why? It’s because He loves us. He loves us all so much! Just hold onto faith. Let him fight the battles against the Spirit of discord. Remember that the enemy sent these battles, not God. We have to believe that our hope is in Jesus Christ. We have to choose to keep the faith. Faith is what changes things. Faith is what gets it done.

Father God, discord is tricky. It’s so hard. The devil’s fiery darts are thrown at us each day. We have a choice! We can give up and give in, or we can fight. We can fight with you by our side. We can call upon your name. We can trust that you’re always working on our behalf. Fear doesn’t have to win as it has already been defeated. With you, we’re going to see a victory; it’s there on the horizon.

Author: Priscilla Campbell
Editor: Nadia M. Walker/ JJ Michael Smith