Satan tries to get into our minds to accuse us and move us away from Christ. One of his means is to make us feel beyond guilty for something we have done or to try to tell us we aren’t good enough for salvation. He twists things around to turn us on ourselves and others against us so we won’t seek forgiveness for a sin. He tries to put thoughts in our mind as well, to take our hope away and to sway us to believe we aren’t good enough for Jesus and that He can’t love us.
Satan tempts us and tries us so we will turn from Christ, or for those not saved, to not come to the altar of salvation. This is a daily occurrence and it gets tiring to fight. But we must fight. We need to put on the armor of God to combat Satan and his fellow fallen angels who want nothing more than to destroy us. We can succeed because we are good enough!
What gets me the most is the question of why I would want God in my life, or why I believe in Christ if bad things happen to me, as some people ask. Or, as Satan uses others, they tell me I must not be saved because I still have troubles and tribulations, and it means I’m not good enough for Him. Jesus told us in John 16:33 that we will face troubles in this world. This doesn’t mean we won’t have Him with us. The verse doesn’t say that. It’s hard to remember in the middle of tribulations, though.
It’s in these moments that Satan will try to turn our thoughts against ourselves. When we hear nothing but silence from our prayers, Satan will in turn capitalize on this to have us think we are abandoned by God or He doesn’t care. We know it isn’t true, but Satan berates us over and over until we either shut him up or give in.
We all get attacked by Satan, but the more we grow and live in Jesus, the easier it is to repel the efforts of Satan. If you are weak in Jesus, Satan has the advantage. If you are strong in Jesus, Satan will be easily defeated. He constantly looks for cracks in our armor to take advantage of them. Yet, even if this occurs, the strength we have in Christ will chase Satan away from us, and we’ll grow and learn from his attacks against us. We can either gain strength and wisdom or we can feel defeated and step back in our relationship with Christ.
In the mix of Satan’s work against us, we need to remember that God is always with us and is for us. God does not want us to fail, and He is our strength when we are feeling weak or defeated. We just need to ask. With His power and strength to help us, we can overcome. Unfortunately, we sometimes rely on ourselves or the world for our answers and strengths. Of course, God will bring people into our lives to help us, but we must use discernment to determine if their intentions are out of love or if they are a trickster working for Satan.
When we rely on self or the world, we usually fail. Without the backing or foundation of God, failure can be expected as the outcome. Satan will use this to his advantage to have us release our hand from God’s grip by making us think we are not good enough for God’s help.
The Holy Spirit is with us to aid and guide us through our battles with Satan and to lead us through to trust in God’s power and strength each day. When Satan says we aren’t good enough, the Holy Spirit is there to step in to let us know we are good enough. The Holy Spirit is our guide in this life to help us get through each day to help us stay on track and focused on God.
The issue we have with the Holy Spirit is that we don’t tend to listen to or hear Him in our lives. We have mixed the voice of the Holy Spirit with the other background noises in our head to such an extent that His voice is drowned out by everything else; and that can lead to a sense of abandonment by God. What we need to do is to be attuned to His voice in our lives. The Holy Spirit’s small voice needs to be focused to become the overwhelming roar in our lives.
The Holy Spirit is with us to assure us of our standing with Christ and to let us know that, yes, we are good enough and loved by God. The Holy Spirit guides us to fight the evil thoughts and temptations that arise in our lives to make us think otherwise. He is the voice of reason when we find ourselves in tight situations, and He will lead us to decisions based on God’s Word. We can listen to the Holy Spirit or ignore Him; that is up to us.
When we don’t listen to the Holy Spirit, things go awry. He’s with us to point us in the right direction — to move us forward — and it’s when we don’t listen that we become stagnant or move backwards in our relationship with God. The Holy Spirit will urge us forward, but again, it is up to us to listen or ignore Him.
When we do heed the wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit, things tend to go pretty well and work out for us; and we are assured we are good enough. When we are not in tune with Him, His voice is a whisper that we may not be able to discern as His voice, and we may feel defeated. When we are in tune with the Holy Spirit, his voice overwhelms our senses, making it very clear who is speaking. And the times when we hear silence? These are the times to remain in steadfast hope and practice what we know to be true and what we have learned from the Holy Spirit in times before.
Satan will try to mess us up, no doubt. He will try to snare us and ruin us. He will try his best to convince us that we are not good enough for God. He will try to talk over the Holy Spirit and will try to blind us from the truth. Jesus already conquered Satan, though. Knowing this we can live assured that we are good enough to be His children. This is reinforced through prayer, study of the Word, and being tuned into the Holy Spirit.
God bless and stay strong in the Lord!