By Pastor Jack Wellman

5 Things Satan Wants For Your Life

Here are five things that Satan wants for your life.

Avoid Fellowship

Avoid FellowshipThe Apostle Peter gives us the adequate warning about the Devil as he wrote, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1st Pet 5:8). What do lions do in hunting prey? They seek out the straggler, or the one separated from the sheepfold. He looks for the one that’s hurting and has left the sheepfold. That’s a dangerous place to be. There is no “lone ranger” Christian anywhere in the New Testament. We need the fellowship of the saints, so Satan wants us to separate from the sheepfold so that we’ll be more vulnerable to him.

Famine of the Word

When we fail to get into the Word on a daily basis, we are losing a source of God’s power (Rom 1:16; 1st Cor 1:18), and that means our day will be lived without the strength of abiding in Christ and in His Word (John 15:1-6). We can’t do anything apart from Christ (John 15:5), and Christ is found in Scripture, so avoiding the Word of God is like avoiding the God of the Word.

Silencing Prayer

Why would we not want to pray to God, the most important Person in the universe? We need to communicate to Him, and ask Him to help us avoid temptations, to give us our daily bread, both physical and spiritual (in the Bible), and to help us to glorify Him in our lives. If we are not praying to God, we can lose a source of godly wisdom (James 1:5), so prayer is our lifeline to heaven and to the Father. Satan wants to cut that line.

Fear and Shame

I really struggled with having fear and shame as a young Christian. After I was saved, I fell into sin again and again. I felt the fear of God’s judgment and then the shame for what I had done. It was like a cycle that I couldn’t break. Only later, through reading the Word, I found that God forgives all of our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness (1st John 1:9). I clung to His promise that “none who wait for you shall be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3).

Dread and Doubt

After fear and shame, I still had dread and doubt, because I felt saved one day and lost the next, then saved, then lost. There I was again, on another cycle. But again, the remedy of the dog chasing his tail was to read more of the Scripture, like where Jesus says “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29), and He also says, “that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37), and “that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39). Satan wants to rob our joy by making us live in a state of dread and doubt, but he’s a liar. God cannot lie (Num 23:19; Heb 6:18). Trust God’s Word, not your feelings.

Conclusion

Since we know Satan wants these five things for your life, we know that God doesn’t want these five things for your life. Determine to stay in fellowship, stay in the Word, stay in prayer, and this should help you avoid fear, shame, dread, and doubt. Doubt can keep you out of the Word, but the Word can keep you out of doubt.