In my previous posts, I talked about the complex phenomenon of bullying. However, the bullying we experience from our own is but a shadow of a far worse type of bullying. The type of bullying I am referring to can be summed up into two words: spiritual warfare.
The bullying that we are more familiar with taints the happiness from our daily life: work environment, relationship with our significant other, friendships. That loss of happiness is a shadow of the loss of eternal happiness. The greatest bully of all goes by many names: the Serpent, the Enemy, the Father of Lies, the Deceiver, Satan… His goal is to rob us of an eternity of bliss in the presence of God. He waged war on humanity since the beginning of times and he won’t stop until the end of times.
Let’s illustrate spiritual warfare by using the third chapter of the book of Genesis, in the Old Testament. Without doing a full analysis of the Serpent’s tactics of seduction to lure Adam and Eve to sabotage their state of perfect bliss, let’s point out the obvious. The serpent challenges their relationship with God. He invites them to question God’s words and so manages to sow doubt in their hearts of God’s benevolence. He makes himself look like the benevolent one who’s looking after their greater good, using deception and twisting truth. Once Adam and Eve cross the line and eat of the fruit of the tree, their eyes are open to what they’ve done and they’re filled with shame. Their happiness is now tainted, forever changed.
God did not condemn them, but He promised them that this life would never be the same again. Ever since then, life has been a battle. To ease their pain, God promised them a Redeemer who would come to wipe that stain and open the doors to paradise once again, but only after battling through this life.
Unfortunately, the Enemy hasn’t stopped at tainting our happiness in this life. He wants to destroy us entirely by separating us from God forever. And so, using similar tactics that he used with Adam and Eve, he tries constantly to lure us away from God to follow him in that eternal separation from Him. Since he can’t be happy, he tries to deny us that happiness.
lighthouse counselling 
That’s exactly what he does. His future has already been written and he certainly doesn’t want to go alone, so his mission is to get as many people as he can to join him. It’s our job to look to God for strength to battle against him. We weren’t created to have to endure this war on our own.
LikeLike