Detect & defeat Satan’s lies!

Let’s not be ignorant.  Satan is dead-set on destroying your marriage and killing your joy.  Jesus explains in John 10:10 that the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy.  Furthermore, Jesus reveals in John 8:44 that one of Satan’s favorite schemes to destroy you entails lying to you. 

He will try to plant lies in your mind such as this:  You deserve a different husband.  You are not loveable.  You will never be happy with your husband.  You better not challenge any sinful behavior by your husband because if you do, he will leave you and you won’t be able to take care of yourself.  Your marriage is hopeless.  You will never be able to get over what your husband did.  Do any of these lies sound familiar?

Thankfully, Jesus reveals the way to stand against the enemy’s plans to destroy us and our marriages.  When he left this earth, He sent His Holy Spirit to come be with us and to guide us into all truth! John 16:13  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

So ask God to reveal lies of the enemy that you’ve been buying!  When negative, critical, hopeless, or fearful thoughts enter my head, I try to remember to pause and ask myself, “Does this sound like something God would say, or is this a lie of the enemy?”

Recognize & resist Satan’s schemes

Something I’ve learned over my many years of being a wife is that Satan is out to destroy marriages, especially Christian marriages.  Therefore, you must be on guard.  Just as 1 Peter 5:8-9 says, we must “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.

Here is one of the most common schemes of the devil to take out Christian marriages:  getting one or both spouses isolated from other believers.  You must not be like an antelope that strays away from the rest of the herd out on the prairie.  Apart from the herd, that antelope is easy picking for that hungry mountain lion lurking in the high grass.  But this is exactly what many believers do.  We allow ourselves to get overly busy, so we drop out of the women’s Bible study.  Perhaps your husband spends too many hours at work or in pursuit of hobbies, and slowly drops away from the men’s fellowship at church.  We drift away.  We no longer hear the encouragement and admonishment of other believers to stay the course.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing”   Hebrews 3:13 says “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”  You MUST fight to remain in close fellowship with other believers.  I have seen too many marriages begin to crumble when one or both spouses drift away from regular weekly fellowship with believers of the same gender.  Are you staying connected with godly women every week?  Maybe it’s time to get back into a weekly Bible study meeting and/or the fellowship at Squadron of Sisters.