The following are ideas from John Eldrige's "Wild at Heart" (chapter 9). I have often felt extremely frustrated and disgusted at myself when sinful thoughts or ideas have come into my mind. This chapter has helped me gain a new understanding of how Satan works to try and get us frustrated and down on ourselves. He does this to try and handicap us in our attempt to live our lives for the Lord. He wants us to get down on ourselves, think that we are not worthy and that we are worthless failures who cannot accomplish anything for the Kingdom of God. He does this to people who have chosen to live for Jesus. When people are not a threat to Satan, the message he sends them is, "You are doing fine in your walk". However, for those who are doing work to further the Kingdom of God, the devil will send all kinds of messages to deceive and frustrate you into believing that you are worthless and a failure. For this reason it is so important to be in constant communication with God, seeking Him and continually building upon your relationship with Him. This way, it will help you stay in tune with the messages which are from Him, and those which are not from Him.
An example of how Satan works is through sinful thoughts. He will constantly throw sinful thoughts at people striving to live for God. He places these thoughts into your head in an attempt to make you believe that these thoughts are your own. The truth is they are not your's. This would be the same as if someone told you a lie about yourself. You would be an absolute fool to believe that the lie is true simply because someone said it. Well the same is true when Satan does this. The truth is that the Bible teaches that when a person accepts Christ, He "puts a new heart and a new spirit in you". Because Christ lives in you sinful thoughts and actions are not of you. God would not allow that to be a part of the person He dwells within. Those thoughts are from the sinful nature and most often are the result of Satan putting them in your mind. Satan will do anything to frustrate you, your walk and the work that you are doing for God's Kingdom.
I must be aware of the fact that these attacks are always present in the life of a Christian, and I must not allow them to frustrate me. They are not true, they are not from me, they are to be resisted and ignored. I must rely on God's strength to ignore and resist and I must do this with the confident attitude of a warrior.
This is not to say that I don't have specific areas of weakness in my life, but even with these Satan will attack those weaknesses with sinful thoughts. I am at war, and always will be. But I want to relish in relying on God's strength to be a warrior for Him, and fight against the devil's schemes.
I am so thankful for the peace of knowing that these sinful thoughts are not of me and that they should therefore be dismissed and ignored. The only attention they deserve is to remind myself how sinful they are, and of the fact that I am so thankful that they are not of me and that there is no truth to them.
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