We don’t see it.
But know that in the Spiritual Realms,
Followers of Jesus who are actively growing in and demonstrating the Fruit of the Spirit in their daily lives are lights shining in the darkness. Cf Ph 2:15.
A Believer who starts the day with prayers such as:
“O Lord, use me as an instrument of Your Grace this day.”
“Lord, teach me about You, myself, and others today.”
“Father, use me to encourage someone else. Bring someone into my path who needs to see Your Grace.”
“Lord, for whom should I pray this day?
–– this kind of Believer is a serious threat to the kingdom of the enemy. We our lives are being intentionally lived out from a core of God’s Grace, we are pushing back the darkness.
The Enemy’s Tool Box
SO to prevent believers from becoming effective, balanced Agents of Grace the enemy has a tool box.First, he seeks to tries to help us slide into self-righteousness. Religion does not scare the enemy— in fact, it is one of his most effective tools. The more religious we are, the easier it is for us to become self-righteous. When we are religious, it is easier for him to convince us that the enemy is other people who don’t think like we think and are not as good as we are. Consider of all the evil done when people thought they were better than others and that God was on their side!
Use the Fruit of the Spirit as the evaluation tool. Is this growing the Fruit of the Spirit in my life, or diminishing it? Is it making me more compassionate or less? More joyful or less? If is diminishing the Fruit of the Spirit in your life, it is appealing to your fallen nature not your heavenly nature.
However, if a Believer maintains their humility and is actively walking in grace, then the enemy seeks to weaken their effective lives, by some combination of guilt, shame, and/or fear.
Just a reminder here. Are You Drawn or Driven?
Jesus draws people to Himself by His love and grace. People who are being drawn by His Spirit of Grace develop the Fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
Satan seeks to use guilt, shame, and fear to drive people. People who are driven can try to be better people and imitate the Fruit of the Spirit, but it is more of an outward pretense than a genuine display of God’s Presence. Driven people sooner or later resort to “the end justifies the means” thinking.
Time to look into the mirror.
Rohr’s observation reveals that for many Christians the Fruit of the Spirit is only an outward show, not an inward reality.
“Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control, power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else.
—Richard Rohr
“We often give a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self; and the result has been the spiritual disaster of “Christian” countries that tend to be as consumer-oriented, proud, warlike, racist, class conscious, and addictive as everybody else– and often more so, I’m afraid.”
Satan Is the Ultimate Bully
Guilt, Shame, and Fear are not evil in themselves but rather the tri-consequence of the fall. Adam and Eve were afraid and tried to hide. They felt shame so they covered themselves. They felt guilty so they blamed.
God seeks to return us to the pre-fall state by addressing guilt, shame, and fear in Christ’s great redemptive events— the crucifixion & resurrection. He bore our shame and our guilt. This amazing love and the assurance of the resurrection free us from fear.
Abuse (bullying) is using guilt, shame, and/or fear to get one’s own way and control or belittle the victim.
Satan is the ultimate abuser. He works hard to keep us from functioning free from guilt, shame, and fear. He wants to shame you by questioning your worth and your core identity. He seeks to remind you of your failures, weaknesses, doubts, etc. He wants you to an have unhealthy fear of God to prevent you from being drawn by grace, which is the biggest threat to his power.
To enemy the scariest being on the planet earth is someone who
Stands firm in God’s grace. 1 Peter 5:12
Paul says that “since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.” Romans 5:1-2.
When you read Paul’s letters,
notice how often his themes address guilt, shame, and fear.
JB Phillips Romans 8:31-35, 37-39
In face of all this, what is there left to say?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He that did not hesitate to spare his own Son but gave him up for us all—can we not trust such a God to give us, with him, everything else that we can need?
33-34 Who would dare to accuse us, whom God has chosen? The judge himself has declared us free from sin.
Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ pleads for us!
35 Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, pain or persecution? Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life and limb, the threat of force of arms?
37 No, in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us.
38-39 I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!
As faith, hope, and love grow in our lives, we are able to “live under the freedom of God’s grace,” Romans 6:14.
Understand that God’s desire for our lives is for us to respond to His grace and then live out this grace in our daily lives. This is standing firm in His grace.