All Strategies

Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. (6:11)

As discussed in the previous meditation, Paul instructs the believer to put on ALL of God’s armor. The reason? In order to stand firm against ALL strategies of the devil. This tells me that the Devil doesn’t have just one plot, or ploy, or mode of attack. He comes at the believers in different ways, seeking any and all kinds of vulnerabilities.

I believe that the word ‘scam’ fits here. Though nothing new, it’s common today. We used to talk about getting ‘conned’, or that someone was a ‘con artist’. That was used to describe trickery, or deceit, in order to take advantage of someone and profit from their missteps or bad judgment and decision-making. It’s apparent to me that the Enemy’s goal is to scam the believer into thinking that God is not enough. God doesn’t care, doesn’t listen, doesn’t respond. That he won’t help us in a time of need. We’ve been tricked into thinking that God is on our side!

The Devil doesn’t use just one approach in the scam attempts. This is similar to multiple strategies that scammers use. They call on the phone and ask for personal information. They send an email and say, “Click here.” They send a letter in the mail, “Congratulations on your big win! Call this number to claim your prize!” They call and say your son or daughter is stuck in an airport in the Philippines, and needs money immediately. Won’t you help? And the list of scam strategies is a long one, seemingly limitless.

The Devil is not ignorant of our vulnerabilities; he uses a variety of strategies to try to trick us and take us down. Remember: he knows we battle with pride. He appeals to that pride as a key vulnerability.

It seems that some parts of the armor are important for resisting and overcoming particular ones of his strategies. For example, the Enemy attacks us in an area of truth, confronting us with declarations of un-truth—God doesn’t love you, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, the Holy Spirit is not present with the believer, that’s not really sin. And so on. In those situations, or for that strategy, the belt of truth is a necessary piece of the armor. But all of the armor is necessary for all strategies. If we are equipped with only part of the armor, either forgetting how powerful is the entire armor or just dismissing some pieces “because we don’t need them; we can handle this”, then we are in for a season of pain.

Not only are the strategies of the Enemy many and varied, but I am struck by the use of the word strategy as something that is intentional. It does not indicate random acts of evil, though they may feel that way. This is a planned offensive against the Body of Christ. He is strategic. He is looking for weak points. For places to exploit, and places to expose. Places to take us down and make us think that we’ve lost (when we’ve won!!) He does it with intention, with planning, with strategy. (I think of the old saying that a fool with a plan always beats a genius without one.)

His strategic goal, or purpose statement is to:

• make us think we’ve lost the ultimate battle (when God has actually won that battle for us, by means of the blood of the Sacrifice Lamb)
• to get us lost from the way that God has laid out for us, a path of victory and blessing and abundant life in Him
• to feel lost, which will cause us to panic and worry and look defeated

I don’t imagine that we could actually catalogue all of his strategies. But let me offer just a few. He uses such tactics as:

Keep us distracted from worshipping the One true God. Distraction can keep us from blessing, and from intimacy with the Father. That can be in either personal, private worship, or in group worship. (Just a note on group worship that I’ve gathered from listening to others: what seems to be the hardest morning of the week for Christian families? Sunday! Getting ready for church, getting kids fed, clothed, watered and in the car, getting to the church on time, getting on our smiles…why? We are headed to worship. Now be happy, family!…I’m already exhausted.)

Make us think that things that aren’t important are of pre-eminent importance. Money stands out to me as an example of this statement. I’m aware that money is not in the creation story, nor in the garden of Eden story. But the world runs on it, revolves around it. I’ve noticed that often if we try to downplay its importance, that some immediately and defensively respond that you’ve got to have money to live on! Yes, you do…but it’s not pre-eminent. I haven’t found any way to live without it. But one day we will. As far as the here and now is concerned, it is not the pre-eminent thing in life.

Keep us from seeing ourselves as God sees us. God  sees us as his special children, who are loved unconditionally, eternally, without reservation. The Enemy wants us to think we aren’t so special. That we need our name in lights to be special. Otherwise, we are so ordinary and common, it’s painful to think about how unimportant we are. But the Scripture says we aren’t unimportant and of no value! John wrote, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).  

Not everything that happens to us adversely in this world can be traced to the Devil and his strategies. We have to be careful not to blame everything on him (though he is quite blame-able; but that doesn’t mean he is directly responsible). We often encounter days in life in which the world feels like it’s caving in. That our life is like a closet, and when we open the door, a bunch of boxes fall down on our head. We declare that we can’t take it any more! The Devil must be behind this! He might be, or it might be the result of other factors. I’m not talking about the Enemy orchestrating every upsetting thing that happens to us in life, as real as those are. The focus in this meditation is on the strategic attacks and engagement from the enemy. We need to discern what those are, and learn to be aware of how to combat them. If we have on all of the armor that God provides, then we will be ready for any of the Enemy’s potential strategies he throws our way.

“Father, make us aware of the Enemy’s strategies. We need the discernment you give, as well as awareness, decision-making, and equipping. We declare our dependence on you in the face of the planned attacks that are coming.”