FILE NAME: Carrie Lynn
It's Monday. It feels like a Monday. It was dark enough to look like the middle of the night when my alarm went off at 6 a.m. Before the day has really begun the attack is already fierce. Oh how he loves to break in through any foothold he can find.
"Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." Ephesians 6:11
It can be explained that the "schemes of the devil" are his tactics, his strategies. As our pastor defined yesterday, his tried-and-true proven track record of how to attack each one of us. David Jeremiah talks about the "file" - the literal file folder chock-full of notes the enemy has kept about each of us and what tactics work against us. It got me thinking about my own file. What would the enemy's notes about me look like? What would they reveal about me? If he wanted to truly attack me, to get me absolutely down, what tested-and-proven schemes would he pull out of my file?
FILE NAME: Carrie Lynn
TACTICAL SUMMARY: Build her up before you knock her down.
VICTIM PROFILE: Prone to self-doubt, worry, anxiety and guilt. Make sure to build her up and allow others to acknowledge her strengths to create a facade of worth before allowing guilt and fear to creep in and tear her down at her core. Creating a false illusion of herself will allow her to fall even harder and further.
At her weakest, make her feel worthless, beaten up, and never any good. Keep her away from bible study and the encouragement of other believers so she feels isolated and completely alone. To further discourage, give her the false illusion she's in control. Better yet, give her the opportunity to involve herself. Get her completely entangled with directing every detail until she's so wrapped up in a mess she's created that she has absolutely no way out.
Make her BUSY - completely over-committed - so she feels her service is good and useful but make it distract her mind and time from being alone with the God she loves. Make her so useful that she expends every amount of energy. Make her believe she's giving, serving and blessing others and she'll completely forget to replenish her own soul until she's absolutely spent. At this point, consumer her with worry, fear, anxiety or frustration. She can be easily pushed to the breaking point and lose her joy in this rock-bottom emptiness.
SPECIAL NOTES: In moments of weariness when she realizes she's out of control and about to surrender for help from the Lord, weigh her down with such overwhelming guilt, every lofty reminder of her failures and flaws, that she will feel completely worthless, even more isolated and alone, and unworthy to even turn to her Savior.
Yep, that seems to about sum up my file. I'm not going to lie. While this is a truly revealing post, one that could even be used against me, it is also very enlightening. To know what gets me down is the very way I can help stand against the one who seeks to steal and destroy. Arming myself with God's armor and the knowledge of the schemes the enemy employs against me, help put me in the offensive position to stand against him and his attacks.
So I'm writing today to encourage you to write your own file. You don't have to be as vulnerable as me and post it for all to see. But I wonder if you were to ask yourself what proven schemes the enemy uses on you, would it help you better stand? I pray so.
Be encouraged. You're not alone. My file is full of my own failures that the enemy counts as his wins. But there's another file that I think God keeps on each of us. Not a record of wrongs, but a road map of our hearts. That post will come tomorrow.
"Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." Ephesians 6:11
It can be explained that the "schemes of the devil" are his tactics, his strategies. As our pastor defined yesterday, his tried-and-true proven track record of how to attack each one of us. David Jeremiah talks about the "file" - the literal file folder chock-full of notes the enemy has kept about each of us and what tactics work against us. It got me thinking about my own file. What would the enemy's notes about me look like? What would they reveal about me? If he wanted to truly attack me, to get me absolutely down, what tested-and-proven schemes would he pull out of my file?
FILE NAME: Carrie Lynn
TACTICAL SUMMARY: Build her up before you knock her down.
VICTIM PROFILE: Prone to self-doubt, worry, anxiety and guilt. Make sure to build her up and allow others to acknowledge her strengths to create a facade of worth before allowing guilt and fear to creep in and tear her down at her core. Creating a false illusion of herself will allow her to fall even harder and further.
At her weakest, make her feel worthless, beaten up, and never any good. Keep her away from bible study and the encouragement of other believers so she feels isolated and completely alone. To further discourage, give her the false illusion she's in control. Better yet, give her the opportunity to involve herself. Get her completely entangled with directing every detail until she's so wrapped up in a mess she's created that she has absolutely no way out.
Make her BUSY - completely over-committed - so she feels her service is good and useful but make it distract her mind and time from being alone with the God she loves. Make her so useful that she expends every amount of energy. Make her believe she's giving, serving and blessing others and she'll completely forget to replenish her own soul until she's absolutely spent. At this point, consumer her with worry, fear, anxiety or frustration. She can be easily pushed to the breaking point and lose her joy in this rock-bottom emptiness.
SPECIAL NOTES: In moments of weariness when she realizes she's out of control and about to surrender for help from the Lord, weigh her down with such overwhelming guilt, every lofty reminder of her failures and flaws, that she will feel completely worthless, even more isolated and alone, and unworthy to even turn to her Savior.
Yep, that seems to about sum up my file. I'm not going to lie. While this is a truly revealing post, one that could even be used against me, it is also very enlightening. To know what gets me down is the very way I can help stand against the one who seeks to steal and destroy. Arming myself with God's armor and the knowledge of the schemes the enemy employs against me, help put me in the offensive position to stand against him and his attacks.
So I'm writing today to encourage you to write your own file. You don't have to be as vulnerable as me and post it for all to see. But I wonder if you were to ask yourself what proven schemes the enemy uses on you, would it help you better stand? I pray so.
Be encouraged. You're not alone. My file is full of my own failures that the enemy counts as his wins. But there's another file that I think God keeps on each of us. Not a record of wrongs, but a road map of our hearts. That post will come tomorrow.
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