Last time we covered how Satan tries to keep unbelievers from believing. This time we’ll take a look at how he tries to keep Christians on the couch.
From Satan’s perspective the real danger of losing a soul to Christianity is not that his kingdom shrinks, it’s that he has absolutely no idea how Christ will use this new asset to build His kingdom. For the people that become Christians, Satan wants to stifle their growth as much as possible so their relationship with God suffers and they don’t become effective at bringing others to a saving faith. He wants to prevent walkers from maturing to the point that they can enable other unsaved souls to become walkers.
If Satan wants to limit the impact of his losses, he’ll do what he can to prevent Christians from using their spiritual gifts or submitting themselves to Christ’s plan. He ultimately wants Christians to die with untapped potential. What kind of Christian do you think Satan likes better, a passionate Billy Graham, or an apathetic average Joe that got saved as a kid, but whose only present-day indication of faith is going to church on Christmas Eve? Clearly, he’d rather have a world full of couch-potato Christians; they don’t even have an impact that he needs to counter!
Well, let’s get to it. How do you keep Christians on the couch instead of in the trenches?
It turns out there are a variety of ways. God made people with different personalities and vulnerabilities. Everyone is susceptible to something. There’s a group of well-used tactics in Satan’s bag of tricks; if one doesn’t work, he’ll try another, then another, until he finds something that shows promise. (You may recognize a particular weakness in your own life that prevents you from being used by God to do greater things than you’ve done up to this point.)
None of the tactics are overly complicated, but there are many different ways to employ them. Think of it in terms of Satan having a dossier on you. He knows what works on you and what doesn’t. For some it’s ego. For others it’s jealousy or fear. Some people have major problems with anger, while others are crippled by depression or doubts that God could forgive the things they’ve done. You don’t think Satan’s figured you out and takes advantage of your personality quirks and triggers? Although one person may not have a problem with lust or pornography, it can absolutely shatter the ministry effectiveness of another. The same holds true with drug addiction, insecurity, arrogance, self-pity, apathy, or any number of other ways to take you off mission…Satan has a tailored attack plan for you that will give him the best chance of minimizing your effectiveness as a Christian in ministering to others.
In the last post I named three general steps God takes to bring a person to faith, and three methods Satan takes to combat those steps. For the Christian, I’m going to reverse it by giving you Satan’s tactics first. When it comes to marginalizing a Christian’s effectiveness, he uses the three Ds.
The many tools Satan uses to keep Christians from doing God’s work can largely be categorized into three groups: Divide them to make unity impossible, Distract them from what’s really important, and Delay them from actually doing anything in God’s plan.
Let’s talk “Divide” first. Ever see a schism in a church? It’s ugly. What happens to the people in that church? They may have been focused on going out into the world to preach Christ at one point, but if the right issue comes to the forefront, a surprising number of parishioners give in to things that Christians should not fall prey to. Back biting, gossip, pettiness, bitterness and grudges are some of the big ones. Is that church an effective light to the world at that point? While it’s true that church splits sometimes happen for good reason, the fallout can hobble many Christ followers’ effectiveness and cause long-lasting divisions. Anything that divides Christians compromises their ability to serve God as a unit.
This is just an example of a single church in a single community. We’re living in the most divided period our country has been at any point in recent memory. Try to get churches across the nation to agree on and endorse a political party. Some pick the party that helps the poor. Others pick the party that believes life begins at conception. Are these not both Christian values? Why do we have to choose to embrace one and ignore the other? Division is built in. How can one side be pro-life, yet be pro-death penalty? On the other hand, how will you help the poor by de-funding the police?
Talking politics tends to get people going. If that paragraph made your blood pressure start to rise, it’s a perfect illustration of how effective division can be. Do you get as heated or willing to give a response when someone puts down Christian values? In the grand scheme of things, Christians around the world should probably have the same views and be the most willing to reach out to other cultures because we all have Jesus as our model. It’s not that Jesus is so different to various countries and cultures around the world, it’s that we view Him and His teachings through many different prisms. We have the same model, but we’re quite divided about our opinions of what’s important and what’s not.
This concept overlaps with “Distract,” too. At the most basic level, a distraction is something that siphons time, focus, and effort from a primary objective. If you’re a Christian, your two main objectives in this life are to draw closer to Him and share Him with others. Anything that takes away from your ability to do that is a distraction.
We don’t always have large events that distract us, but we instead fall victim to general busy-ness. Our schedules are so full that we don’t have much time to proactively pursue God’s calling for our lives. Being busy doesn’t make us bad people, but we need to be clear-headed and understand that busy-ness doesn’t directly translate into good use of time, nor is it an excuse to duck the plans God has for you. In order to get a handle on our lives we have to be intentional; we have to manage our calendars rather than allow our calendars to manage us. It falls to us individually to make God’s calling for our lives a priority.
Finally, Satan uses “Delay” as a class of tactics. Think back to when you were a kid. What were your dreams for when you got older? What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you that today? If not, why not; did something unforeseen come up? Maybe a little more recently for some, what big vacation plans did you and your significant other envision early in your relationship? If you haven’t done it yet, and the years have started to get away from you, it may now be too late to do it. Rarely does a single, large event derail the intentions, but more commonly a variety of things get in the way to ensure “someday” never arrives.
This is the same principle Satan hopes for with “delay.” If the adversary can postpone your big plans for doing God’s will even by a short amount of time, a new day can bring a whole new set of circumstances. Your enthusiasm to take on new responsibility in an organization died a slow death after your accident. You’re still willing to go on that missions trip, but the opportunity died when Coronavirus emerged. You’re not promised tomorrow. You’re not even promised the rest of today. All you have is right now, and if you don’t make use of it, your future will be imposed on you, rather than be influenced by you. You can serve God in a way that only you can, but it takes conscious, devoted, and persistent effort.
Boy, I run out of room quickly when I take on complex topics. Time for a quick review. Many of the enemy’s tools can be boiled down into the three Ds: Divide, Distract, and Delay. It’s important for individual Christians to learn what they’re vulnerable to, and to learn to recognize when it’s happening to them. The goal is to have no more unrealized potential left when you pass from this life into eternity. To borrow from author Erwin McManus’ book, how many unused arrows will still be in your quiver when you die?
We are under constant attack, it’s true, but take heart! In the final installment of this series, I’ll touch on the three items Christ followers can use to fight against the enemy’s three Ds. If it feels like you’re alone in this fight, it’s by design. I can assure you that you are not alone, but you may have to do some reaching out.
Subscribe or check back next Thursday for the final installment in the series “Red Teaming Humanity!”