God's Conviction, or Satan's Accusation?

      Have you ever had a certain area of your life where you just kept falling back into the old patterns?  No matter how hard you tried, you just weren't able to get out of certain destructive sins and habits.  Maybe it was a small area that no one else noticed, but it was ripping you apart inside.  Big or small, that's called a stronghold.  

     I was told the following story.  A woman just couldn't get victory over a certain sin in her life.  Every week, she'd go to her pastor for prayer, and in the midst of this, she would always pray, "Lord, remove the cobwebs of sin from my mind!"  One day, after several weeks of hearing her pray this way, the pastor led out and prayed, "Lord, kill the spider!"  That's how strongholds are defeated, by getting to the source of the problem, not just the surface symptoms.  

    A stronghold has been defined as a mental pattern of thought, burned into our minds, usually over a period of time, which affects our attitudes and ultimately our actions.  There is a digression into it:  First, we have the stimulation.  We're stimulated by something.  Maybe it's a dirty ad popping up online when you're not even trying to look for something like that.  Maybe it's deep feelings of fear or anger when an unresolved part of your past comes up.  Maybe it's compulsive spending, or finding self-worth in the wrong places.  It could be any number of things.  For me, personally, it is fear and feelings of invalidation.  I have struggled with this a little more in the past two weeks.  I'll elaborate in a little bit.  

     With the stimulation step, you haven't sinned yet.  You weren't even seeking out the stimulation.  Something outside your control triggered it.  Now, you face the next step, temptation.  Again, you still haven't sinned.  You haven't looked at that destructive website.  You haven't reacted in fear or anger.  You haven't overspent.  But you're tempted.  Jesus Himself faced these first two stages of stimulation and temptation, but He stopped it right there.  Matthew 4 tells us about how Satan tempted Him when He was at a vulnerable state of hunger and loneliness in the desert.  That's when Satan will bring on those stimulations and temptations for you as well. 

     After stimulation and temptation comes a further digression, and this is where sin comes into it if we don't stop at the temptation stage.  Consideration follows temptation, where we rationalize why it would be good and right to indulge the temptation.  Maybe clicking on that bad website would give us insight into how certain people live, so we can minister to them better.  Maybe reacting to the invalidating situation would help in some way.  Do you see how that's making something bad look a lot more innocent?  That's what happens when we consider sin.  

     Once we've considered things, then we make a choice.  We go ahead and choose to indulge or not.  We can stop it any time in this process, but it is much harder the further we get.  

     Action follows the choice.  We act on what we chose.  We might tell ourselves it was a one-time thing.  But it never is.  That's not how temptation works.  It doesn't let you off that easily.

     Once you've taken action, you form a habit.  An enslaving habit.  And that, my friend, leads you into the realm of stronghold.  These past two weeks, I have returned to the headquarters of the ministry I have been a part of in one way or another since I was fifteen.  Some of my best and worst memories in life happened here.  When I was a young college student, I faced a very confusing situation here.  All these years later, I struggle with condemnation and invalidation about it, and how I might have handled it differently (or maybe not).  I've been at ministry headquarters now taking a course that will further the ministry.  My husband is here with me.  It is a wonderful time, and yet this long ago stronghold doesn't want to let go.  It's a battle I've had to fight in the last few days.  

     We need to be guarding our hearts.  Proverbs 4:23 says, Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.  Choices made have much further-reaching effects than we know or can anticipate.  In his song, Guard Your Heart, Steve Green says, We dare not leave the outcome to chance, we must choose in advance.   So important.  We need to be making godly choices long before we're ever even stimulated toward a stronghold.  

     At the point of stimulation, we need to be saying (out loud helps), "I refuse to give in to this thought of: inadequacy, fear, insecurity, inferiority, discouragement etc."  Be transparent with others.  Share your struggle with someone else.  Ask God to make you an encourager to someone who is struggling.  I have a few people I am accountable to, and it feels good.  These people cheer me on when I do right, and help me when I need gentle reminders.  No one can do it all by themselves.    

    In the midst of these spiritual battles in our lives, we feel terrible inside.  I know I did the other day when struggling with this.  Is that God convicting you, or is it the devil condemning you?  There are differences.  

     When God convicts you of a sin, He is doing it in love, whereas Satan condemns you in hatred.  God convicts you gently, with the Word of God.  Satan uses feelings and memories to accuse you.  God uses conviction to draw us close to Him.  Satan uses condemnation to pull us away from the Lord.  When God convicts us, it is so we might look ahead and have hope.  When Satan condemns us, he wants us to look back and give up.  Here are a few others, that I have observed from my own life.  When God convicts me, I know exactly what He is convicting me of and what I should do about it.  When Satan condemns me, it is often ambiguous, where I'm not even certain of the specifics, and definitely don't know what I'm supposed to do from there.  When God convicts me, I don't feel badly about who and what I am, just sober about what I've done.  What Satan condemns me, I feel terrible and ashamed.  I have concluded God is not behind the struggles I've had, but that they are Satan bringing up the past to ruin my effectiveness now.  I can't let him win.  

     Satan is called the accuser of the brothers in Revelation 12:10.  The very next verse tells us how we can have victory: And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.  The blood of the Lamb is Jesus' sacrifice for us.  He already defeated Satan and made a public display of him (Colossians 2:15).  The word of our testimony is our salvation in Christ.  Loving not our lives unto death means we are trusting the Lord even unto death, because we know our eternity is sure.  

     First John 2:1 tells us that if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.  Just as Satan accuses, Jesus pleads for you.  The holes in His hands win over Satan's condemnation every time.  Don't get caught up in strongholds.  Move forward in victory.  As Paul said in Philippians 3:12-14, Not as though I have already obtained this or were already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.  But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.