December 31, 2018, I read the final verses of the Daily Bible Reading booklet you see above. The result of this year long effort was that I had read though the entire Bible. Then starting January 1, 2019, I started all over! My goal is the same; to read through the Bible again! For the last two years, I have maintained a consistency in daily reading my bible, thanks to this program!
Yet, off and on through the years, I have attempted to read my bible daily. But no matter how diligently I began, after a time I would fizzle out. Pretty discouraging!
Since writing Fiery Darts: Satan’s Weapon of Choice, I have come to understand why I was such a washout in developing a daily bible reading routine. Why negative thinking ruled my thoughts. Why I became susceptible to Satan’s manipulation.
If he (meaning Satan)can keep you from consistent Bible study and prayer, then you will not possess the ability to recognize the lies of fiery darts, and your thinking will be vulnerable to Satan’s manipulation. p 79, FD’s 3rd edition
Satan’s plot to render us ineffective as Christians is simple. “Just keep us from reading the Bible.”
If we didn’t eat, what would happen to our bodies.
If we only ate every so often, what would happen to our health?
Well, to a Christian, reading the Bible is like eating. To keep us spiritually healthy, we must consume a daily portion of God’s Word.
She doesn’t event realize that fiery dart thinking has contributed to her blindness!
Oh how my heart breaks when I see yet another Christian fall victim to Satan’s manipulation via fiery darts. And what disturbs me even more is that these very same Christians, who have been so duped by fiery dart thinking, have unknowingly cooperated with the enemy in allowing him to steal the peace and joy that once existed within their hearts and minds.
I know how it happens though!
Again I must emphasize the necessity to persevere in prayer and Bible study! We must grasp the fact that there is no other substitute. As we fellowship and worship in these two disciplines, everything we experience in life will be filtered through what we learn there. p 76 FD
May I ask you some questions?
Has your desire to faithfully attend church weakened? Are you easily hurt or angered by fellow church members-especially when things don’t go the way you think they should?
Do you find yourself dishonoring those you love by your words and actions? And in that same context, are your needs more important to you than your loved one’s needs? Do you become easily angered by those you love? Do you focus more on their wrong doings than you do your own?
Do you find yourself justifying actions and attitudes that you use to reject as disobedience? Do you feel you are more enlighten now about such things and therefore they are no longer wrong for you?
Do you find pleasing yourself or others trumps pleasing God?
If you answered in the affirmative for any of the above questions, it’s pretty obvious that what you have been filtering your experiences through has not been the Word of God and prayer.
Those who drift away from prayer and Bible study become easy prey to Satan’s anti-Truth thinking. Slowly and subtly his victims become blinded to Truth and the world’s concept of truth begins to sway their thinking.
Eventually, they will become blind to God’s Truth and they won’t even realize it!
By tempting us to spend little time in God’s Word, our ability to recognize the lies of fiery darts is equally diminished if we give in to that temptation. In the place of God’s Truth, the world’s concept of truth begins to define our thinking. p. 23-24, FD
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31-32
As God exposed the weapons of fiery darts that for years Satan had skillfully used against me, my spiritual walk underwent a dramatic transformation. By teaching me what fiery darts were and how to counter their attack, my walk along the path God had set before me so many years before was illuminated to such an extent that my skill in recognizing Satan’s tactics dramatically improved along with my ability to successfully fight against the fiery darts. FD p. 6
A Pivotal Question!
For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people?. . . Galatians 1:10 (HCSB)
No Christian ever wants to admit that they are more concerned about pleasing people than they are pleasing God. But that is exactly what I, the people pleaser, was doing! God revealed this to me several years ago in the midst of a tumultuous episode when a particular decision I had made resulted in creating discord among many.
For the first time in my adult life, people were severely displeased with me and I couldn’t handle that! At first! But after much counsel and doing some honest soul searching about the Galations verse, my course was redirected. My downward spiral was interrupted as God reached down and rescued me from the plans that Satan had concocted.
Pleasing God now trumped pleasing people! It was quite liberating to live life that way! And on top of that I had the reassurance that,
When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Proverbs 16:7 (HCSB)
Another powerful lesson learned during those days was how something that Satan meant for bad was turned into something good by God. Therefore, I saw all those involved as instruments of God’s will in helping me understand how important it was to please Him above all others. As a result there was no anger or bitterness on my part towards anyone.
As I look back on events such as the one I just described through the lens of fighting fiery darts, I gain clarity about the work of Satan’s manipulation. Of how he can take my weaknesses and victimize me with my own thoughts. Now when those fiery darts try to infiltrate my thinking, by God’s design, I have a plan in place to reject them thus averting the devastation those weapons formerly imposed.
No more downward spirals; depression has been defeated!
Fiery Darts: Satan's Weapon of Choice 