“We are familiar with Satan’s schemes.” (II Corinthians 2:11)

Thoughts… Early in the morning on September 11, 2001, I was driving from the Bay Area to Sacramento when I turned on the radio and was stunned to hear the news that planes were crashing into some of our landmark buildings across America. We were being attacked!

At that time, we didn’t know who it was, or how extensive the attacks would be. We didn’t even know who to retaliate against. We were unable to respond initially. The newscasts blared that day, and for the months to follow, this headline: America Under Attack!

I suppose if the Apostle Paul were alive today, he would sound a similar warning: Christianity under attack! The truth is, you and I are under attack. Our faith is being assaulted daily. Our church is in the crosshairs of some pretty big guns. We’re being hit by an invisible enemy, and the devastation is obvious: Broken marriages, ruined families, moral filth, widespread anger, pandemic depression, spiritual anemia, weakened and divided churches, and the list goes on and on.

And here’s the scary part: For the most part, Christians are not striking back. In fact, we don’t even seem to know where being attacked; we haven’t even identified our enemy, much less mount a counter-offensive against him.

That kind of mindset was foreign to the New Testament church. The Apostles made the reality of spiritual warfare quite clear to the early Christians, and they directed a great deal of their teaching to expose the strategy that Satan used against the people of God.

Are you aware of Satan’s strategy? What he used to defeat the first century believers he is still using against believers today, and if you are going to live the victorious Christian life, you need to become familiar with it. I would challenge you to take some time to list out the variety of schemes the Enemy uses against you, your family, and your church, so that as the Apostle Paul says, you can be very familiar with them.

In his commentary on the book of Ephesians, Pastor John MacArthur lists Satan’s nine-fold plan to cause your defeat and the defeat of Christ’s church:

First, Satan attempts to impugn God’s character and credibility. (Gen. 3:1,5; I John 5:10)

Second, Satan undermines the victory that Christ has secured by making life difficult and thereby tempting us to forsake obedience to God’s standards and calling. (Hebrews 10:32-29)

Third, Satan attacks believers through doctrinal confusion and falsehood. (Eph. 4:14)

Fourth, Satan attacks God’s people by hindering their service to him. (I Cor. 16:9; II Cor. 12:17)

Fifth, Satan attacks believers by causing division. (John 17:1121-23; Matt. 5:24; I Cor. 1-3; Eph. 4:3)

Sixth, Satan attacks believers by getting them to trust in their own resources. (I Chron. 21:1-8; Prov. 3:5-6))

Seventh, Satan attacks believers by leading them into hypocrisy. (Ezek. 33:31-32; Matt. 7:6; Titus 1:16))

Eighth, Satan attacks believers by leading them into worldliness. (Ro. 12:2; II Tim. 2:4; I John 2:15-16)

Ninth, Satan attacks believers by leading them to disobey God’s word. (Matt. 7:21)

Perhaps one of those nine is the area where you are being hit the hardest, or maybe even being defeated. But here’s a bit of good news: You don’t have to be defeated any longer. God made you to win, and he secured the victory for you when Jesus defeated Satan at the cross.

So if you are on the losing end of Satan’s schemes right now, how do you turn the battle around? If you’re willing to come to Jesus—who has been there and won—he’s willing to help. The writer of Hebrews reminds us,

“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:18)

“So let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

Come up into God’s presence and get help!

I once read the story of a military pilot who climbed into the seat of his jet and took off, soaring high above the clouds. After he reached cruising altitude, the pilot heard a strange and disconcerting noise. It sounded like crunching of plastic. When he looked below the instrument panel, to his horror he saw a rat, out of reach and eating through the electrical wire between the controls and the engine. If the rat were to eat through it, he would lose any ability to control the jet and it would crash.

His first instinct was to descend but he’d flown so far that there wasn’t enough time to land. So instead, he ascended. He figured the rat couldn’t survive at a higher altitude. He put on his oxygen mask, boosted power and climbed as high and as fast as he could. Suddenly the gnawing ended, and when he landed safely, he found the rat—dead.

In a spiritual battle right now? Soar up to God’s throne. That’s how you kill the rat!

Prayer… Dear Father, I come into your presence with boldness because of the way into your throne room that was paved by Jesus’ death. I come to find grace and mercy that I need to strengthen and help me in the battle against Satan. I ask that today, you would lead me away from temptation and deliver me from the evil of the Evil One. Help me to stay alert to the Enemy’s schemes and ready for his attack. Remind me to stay suited up in the armor of God. And grant me spiritual victory I pray. Amen.

One More Thing… “God is not against us because of our sin. He is with us against our sin. So if God be for us, who can be against us?”

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (II Corinthians 1:3-4)

Thoughts… Why do we suffer? The easy, theological answer is that we live in a world broken by sin, and the sad fruit of sin is suffering. Suffering was not a part of God’s original plan for human beings, and in the world to come, suffering will have no place whatsoever. But in the meantime, since sin entered the human race through Adam’s sin, suffering will be a part of the human story until the Day of Redemption ushers in that eternal sin-free, pain-free age.

On a personal level, however, answers to suffering aren’t that easy. When suffering hits close to home, all those nice, neatly packaged theological explanations go out the window. Oh, they’re still true, but they don’t take away our pain. When there is a tragic death, or a disheartening diagnosis, or a child rebels, or the pink slip is handed out on Friday, and our heart cries out, “Why God? Where are you in all of this?”, we don’t need to hear, “Well, because Adam sinned, sin entered the human race and suffering was the consequence…blah, blah, blah.” We hurt, and at that moment, life stinks!

Yet through our experience of suffering, in hindsight we notice a depth and a quality to our lives that would not have been otherwise possible. Through our disappointment and pain, we have gained some priceless treasures. One of those priceless treasures that Paul speaks of in these verses is the discovery of a wonderful dimension of God that cannot be experienced apart from pain: “the God of all comfort.” How would we know what his comfort is unless we really needed his comforting?

That has certainly been true for me. My deepest trials have produced my deepest experiences in God. I have learned more about God when going through the valley than I have on the mountaintops. I prefer the peaks, mind you, but in hindsight, I would not trade the “valley of the shadow of death” for anything in the world. It is there that I have found “the God of all comfort who comforts me in all my troubles.”

Another of these priceless treasures that Paul mentions here is a greater understanding and empathy for fellow sufferers. The ministry of care and counsel to which each of us has been called as followers of Christ is incomplete until we ourselves have experienced God in our pain.

As I have discovered deeper dimensions of God in painful times, there has also been the forging of a greater ability to understand the pain of others who are going through valleys of their own. Out of my pain and suffering, I am now able to come alongside them, not as a theologian, but as an empathetic friend and fellow sufferer. I am able to give counsel, comfort and encouragement not from what I learned in a seminary textbook, but in the school of hard knocks. I am able to give aid and comfort with “the same comfort I myself have received from God.”

Why do we suffer? We know the answer to that. It’s just that we don’t like it. The more important question is, “is there purpose in our suffering?” Of course there is, but we need to trust God and cooperate with his plan in order to bring out those redemptive purposes in our pain. When we do, we find that at the heart of our pain is a purpose.

Did you know that a beautiful pearl is formed when a grain of sand embeds itself in the wall of an oyster. In its pain and suffering, the oyster secretes a milky substance that coats the grain of sand and makes it bearable. When the substance hardens, there is a beautiful pearl. You might say that at the heart of every pearl is a pain.

At the heart of your suffering is a pearl of invaluable worth. It’s a difficult journey getting from the pain to the pearl, but allow your trust in God and your patience with his sovereign plan to make the journey bearable, and one day you’ll be truly able to thank God for it.

Prayer… Dear Father, thank you for working everything out for my good and for your glory. I don’t like everything that I go through, but I like what you are producing in me. I’d rather have your perfect plan fulfilled in my life than avoiding the pain that is sometimes a part of that plan. So I will embrace my suffering and lean into you as you develop yet another pearl of great price in my life.

One More Thing… “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” —William Penn