Remember the days of your youth when your Mom or Dad shipped you off to vacation Bible school or church camp? At first you are reluctant because you weren't sure if you will make friends or desperately miss home, but by the time the week was over you left so encouraged and changed that you found yourself on a spiritual high!
When all of us camp kids went home, we found the spiritual high wore off within just a few weeks! Often times, it would feel like darkness was just around the corner after camp ended. Temptation came, the high wore off, and soon we we're left questioning everything we believed in when we left camp.
I propose the reason we had a spiritual high to begin with was because we were meditating and marinating in God's Word! Our closeness to Him grew from our newfound knowledge of Him and His love for us! When we left, we fell away from making Christ the center of our day and straight into spiritual attacks from Satan.
Let's take a look at Genesis 3:1-7 to see the first attack of Satan on God's image bearers.
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths." (ESV)
Satan wanted Eve to question God's words. He wanted her to test her knowledge of the truth. It is scary to think that Satan knows God's Word well enough to twist it in just the right way that it almost sounds believable.
My friend, the spiritual realm is real. Although Satan is not coming to us in the form of a serpent, we should not be naive to think that he isn't testing our knowledge of God's truth. In our everyday life we have to be prepared to counter the attacks of the enemy and stay strongly rooted in God's Word.
The way that we can do this is by meditating on scripture! We cannot know truth from lies unless we learn the truth within God's Word. So, the next time that you feel like you might be being tempted, attacked, questioned, or forced to doubt God's word- go back and prayerfully read His truth found in the Bible! Do not underestimate the power of reading, chewing, and digesting God's word thoughtfully. Although you may not be living on a spiritual high like you did at camp- you will be stable, rooted in truth, steady in the midst of life's storms.
Remember that God wants to hear from you in prayer, grow closer to you through His Word, and ultimately be your source of strength! Stand firm in His Word so you can be ready for when Satan attacks.
In Christ,
Taylor
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