Enemy Cackle is Not For Me! No… Not!

I started a bible study yesterday with some of the women of Covenant Community Church and we are studying this book:

Life Principles From The Women Of The Bible Book One

Written By: Wayne Barber * Eddie Rasnake * Richard Shepherd

 

This thought from an excerpt of the book, really hit home, so I thought I would share the inspiration the Holy Spirit incited in me!

Excerpt From Week One: Eve Following God After Failure!

"Through attacking Eve's contentment, Satan was able to incite rebellion in mankind and sin entered into the world."

Wow… that is so true… I never thought of it in that way!

Yesterday I experienced this first hand, the enemy cackle! My enemy began working on my mind through the discontentment of a circumstance where I am diligently waiting for God's intervention! When you are persevering, enemy cackle can be so discouraging! Enemy cackle is the subtle, sneering laughter with attached speculations that are soaked in deceit! I listened to such enemy cackle yesterday and my emotions responded with a downward shift until I shook off the deception and spoke out the truth! Yes he tries… the enemy wants to attacks our contentment and if he is able to incite it… look out!! I have done so many stupid, impulsive things in my life time that I deeply regret because of this very same thing… listening to enemy cackle! I can relate to Eve! I am afraid, that I too have bit the apple served by enemy cackle!!

My contentment was a big thing for me and it played itself out through my feelings of needing security, wanting to feel stable and striving to keep everything on the status quo. Therefore, I was a "fixer" and I was easy prey for enemy cackle! I was always looking ahead to the contentment, the perfection that I wanted and thinking forward on how to make it happen, so much so that I never really learned to enjoy the day that God had provided at hand! I developed a really unbalance sense of contentment and the enemy egged it on using cackled assumptive thoughts, which when entertained by me had a really negative effect of charging up my impulsive carnal nature… right into overdrive or should I say over-kill since that is what my enemy's strategy provides!

Enemy cackle always led me to reckless behavior! I can remember so many willful decisions I made empowered by this impulsive side of my soul, choices I knew that were made by the light of my own fire and were very irresponsible! (Isaiah 50:11-12)

As I listened to more and more of the enemy cackle, my impulsive nature caused me a lot of grief in my life, especially as I faced the consequences of my inaccurate pursuit of slippery, personal contentment! I have learned and grown up through my life-lessons created by the compulsion for satisfaction! Yes, God uses all things in our lives and I got to know Jesus more and more as I searched less for satisfaction and personal contentment being found in Him! He is simply enough, My Jesus! Plus, the consequences of my impulsive nature are still around to remind me! "Heavenly Hindsight" that memorizes wisdom for my today!

Like Eve, I still get tempted in the area of contentment, and I know my mind will be a battlefield of personal expectations incited by intentional deception, the cackle of my enemy. It helps that my will is no longer as strong as it used to be and that I have learned to put all my expectations in a very safe place! (Psalm 62!) I don't diminish the temptations of enemy cackle, they are real and strong, yet I am blessed incredibly because my life is one of a daughter, whose Father God is continually and faithfully teaching by His Holy Spirit and Powerful Word!! AHH Lord God, Yes because of The Purposes of God, I daily find myself consumed by Jesus and less directed by my thoughts or driven by my emotions. Thank Goodness!!!

Today, in the face of the Eve-like temptations, I am learning to face life with a willessness that helps me run my race as a Champion In Christ. My impulsive pursuit for me, myself and I, has been changed ("the heart J of the Gospel J is change") by a diligent pursuit of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. My life-plans have been altered by the surrender of what I want, my plans or my will and is all about being faithfully found In Him!

As a Champion In Christ, this is how I work out my salvation training: I changed my response to enemy cackle! I do not pursue my satisfaction or my contentment anymore! I do not entertain thoughts from my enemy that subject my personal contentment. I lay it down, my will and my plan of contentment for this day and I decisively with purpose, pick up the baton for The Kingdom of God and run as a Champion In Christ should race… with excellence and in pursuit of the ultimate prize, Jesus Christ!