Shiloh Place Ministries
Seeing The World Experience the Father's Healing Love
Through the Hearts of the Leaders
www.shilohplace.org

Spiritual Attack: Meant For Evil, Turned To Good
Part 2

We have found that the first way the enemy seeks to deceive and distract you is through a spirit of dissatisfaction or strife. Your thoughts become dissatisfied with family members, people at church, or others. You may not agree with decisions others are making and you begin to have a heightened sense of their faults or weaknesses. You then start feeling as if they do not care about your needs or ideas. The accuser of the brethren gets a foothold in your thought life and unity begins to fade away. Once you begin to easily discern and disarm the spirit of dissatisfaction or strife by casting down the temptation in your thought life, the enemy will seek other means to detour you from maturing and influencing others with the Father's love.

If the enemy cannot stop you from doing good things, he will try to keep you busy doing good things in order to distract you from dwelling in the center of the Father's love. As you mature and your influence increases, people drawn to God's love within you will begin seeking you out as the source of God's love. You may find yourself slipping into hyper-religious activity, and an attitude of grace, patience, and love toward others begins to slip away, resulting in an angry edge to your ministry or family life.

When busyness comes, priorities often get shifted out of order and temptation may come in the area of neglecting intimacy with God, family, and others. It leads to independence, self-reliance, and control. Child-like dependence upon God and inter-dependence upon others waivers. Grace begins to fade as relationships seem less important and the task at hand is all you can see.

The enemy may also try to keep you insecure and in fear by attacking your finances. This distracts you from dependence upon the Father. You may even develop an attitude toward Him that He is not faithful to provide, or you may focus your dissatisfaction upon others, thinking that they are not helping meet your needs. By doing so, you put your dependence upon man, diminishing your child-like trust and rest in the Father.

The enemy will also go after any physical weakness or generational weak link in your physical body. He wants to keep your body weak and infirmed so that your energy and Godly influence on others diminishes. This is why nutrition and exercise may be of major importance to those who struggle physically, especially those over 40. (See our audiotapes on Pulling Down Strongholds Through Prayer and Fasting.)

(1) Of utmost importance is having more faith in the power of God to protect you than in the enemy to harm you. (Psalm 91; 1 John 5:4, 14, 15, 19) The safest place is to see yourself as a little child with a great big Father. God does not ask you to step into a deeper realm of influence for which He has not already prepared your heart. Simply humble yourself daily as a little child before the Father and do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. Spend time each day just sitting in the Fatherπs presence and allowing Him to express His love and comfort to you. It is helpful to play gentle and loving worship music and to meditate upon the words while you wait on the Father to reveal Himself to you. (1 Peter 5:5-10; Zephaniah 3:17)

(2) Search your heart for any unconfessed areas of sin, such as self-love, pride, strife, resentment, hidden darkness, unrestrained thought life, fear, or jealousy. Close any door opened to sin through confession, repentance, and forgiveness. (Psalm 139:23, 24; 32:1-7)

(3) Share your struggles, thoughts, feelings, and temptations with your spouse, spiritual authority, and prayer partner. Keep walking in the light of openness and transparency with people, and the enemy has no right to traffic in those areas. He only has legal ground in our areas of unconfessed darkness. (1 John 1:5-9; Romans 13:12-14) (See our audiotape on "Walking in the Light.")

(4) Be sure that you are in right relationship with spiritual authority and that their thoughts about you bring them joy because of your heart of sonship (honor, respect, and submission) toward them. This is a heart issue and not a performance thing. Authority is a covering to you. (Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 2:17-21)

(5) Ask your spiritual father or mother to speak into your life any admonition, correction, wisdom, or discernment to any possible open doors or harmful relational patterns they may see in your life. Apply confession, repentance, and forgiveness. (Galatians 6:1, 2; James 5:14-16)

(6) Be sure that you seek out times with your friends, prayer partners, and/or family for corporate prayer over your life, family, and ministry. One puts a thousand to flight, but two puts ten thousand to flight! (Deuteronomy 32:30)

(7) If the attack seems intense, enter into extended times of solitude, meditative prayer, and fasting. Desperate times require desperate measures! Seasons of increased attack are times when you must be still, wait on the Lord, and refocus. If you are in a season where you do not have the strength for a normal fast, then make it a Daniel Fast. (Psalm 46:10; Isaiah 40:29-31; 58:5-12) (See our "Fasting" tapes.)

(8) Do not make any major decisions without first seeking Godπs voice, and then your family and your spiritual fathers coming into agreement. Talk about and pray over each important move you make in ministry and life. Be patient and wait until you have a green light and there is peace in the hearts of all parties involved. (Proverbs 11:14; 24:6)

(9) Be sure that you have unity in your family, workplace, and ministry. Quickly resolve all relational conflicts and negative attitudes with openness, love, grace, and gentleness. Pray that any negative words or thoughts over you be broken. (Isaiah 54:17; Galatians 6:1-2; Psalm 133)

Remember!!! Not all spiritual attacks are results of doors opened by sin. They may be counter-attacks from the enemy to diminish your faith in resting in the Fatherπs love and influencing others with Godπs grace. Be sure that all open doors of darkness are closed. If you do not, you may become angry with God, blaming Him for unanswered prayer, and it becomes very easy to stop seeking Him. You may then find past counterfeit affections, judgments, and ungodly beliefs springing back to life within you. This reveals that your walk in the Fatherπs love has only been an addiction to the experience and emotions. You need a fresh revelation of God taking that which is meant for evil against you and turning it all for good. (Genesis 50:20) What the enemy seeks to suppress, the Father's love will cause to grow!

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Conway, SC 29528, USA
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