In the game of football many hours are spent looking at film/tape of your next opponent to discern their strengths and weaknesses. When you see a strength, you plan your game to stop it or avoid it. When you recognize a weakness, you set out to exploit it.
However, all this relies on understanding your opponent. If you don’t even know who your opponent is, you cannot be successful in overcoming him. You must know your enemy to develop a strategy to defeat your enemy.
Followers of Jesus must know and understand their enemy. It isn’t your neighbor, or a person from another country or religion. Paul the apostle wrote to a young church in what is modern day Turkey called Ephesus, and let them know who the real enemies were: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Ultimately we are in a spiritual battle rather than a physical one, but the most encouraging news is that we already know the outcome. The war has been won! This sounds a little weird, but it is true; read the words of Jesus, “In this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We are to bank on our victory in Jesus for the battles that rage around us day after day.
Our enemy’s plan is to make us doubt the promises of God and to question who He really is to us. Take for example Hebrews 13:5 we are told that God will “never leave us nor forsake us.” The enemy’s plan is to make us doubt the truth of that statement and walk away from a God who cannot lie or do anything against His character. God will not deceive one of His children, however Satan does little else, earning his title as the great deceiver or father of lies.
If anyone ever says or writes that God will deceive His creation or His children it is they that are lying and not God. Any statement that is made to reduce God to less than He really is comes from the devil and not heaven.
As Christians, we must heed the words of Peter the apostle: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). We are to be watchful, we are to know our enemy and have a strategy to combat him. He will never give up and neither can we in our battles with the evil one.
And it is a battle; read the next verse – “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood through the world.” He will discern your strengths and weaknesses and do all he can to exploit them. But this does not mean we lose, because we know the devil’s greatest weakness – Jesus.
The Christian has been freed from sin and spiritual darkness no longer has any authority over us. Jesus IS the answer and the Victor and has won the victory for the Christian.
Yet we cannot let down our guard as we live in a sin-filled world. Satan will try anything he can to get us to not only trip up, but to completely fail and question our relationship with our Heavenly Father. To overcome and win is to keep our eyes on Jesus and we can do that through a consistent diet of Scripture, prayer and fellowship with others of like mind.
Know your enemy and have a strategy to combat the evil that will inevitably come your way. Never give up, no matter what happens, because your Heavenly Father is fighting on your behalf.
Come to know Him deeply and then make Him known to all around you. As Peter the apostle closes his second letter to the churches: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18).