Getting Out of the Pit of Enemy Lies

Editor’s note: Today is National Day of Encouragement — a perfect time to lift up a friend or neighbor with words of hope or a visit. Maybe you need some encouragement as well… Enjoy this excerpt from Beth Moore. We hope it encourages you!

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Lord, help me put down the shovel.

We tend to blame people we feel were used by Satan to throw us into a pit. But haven’t most of us also felt the sickening urge toward self-blame? It’s all my fault. That self-blame is often prompted by our own self-loathing. Satan the accuser knows that even when we’re innocent of any reason for being in a pit, we are well aware that we are far from innocent in other things.

So maybe the question is not “Have you done anything wrong?” Maybe the better question is “Have you done the wrong that fits the pit?” If you have, well, so have I, and we’ll deal with that. But if you’ve haven’t, you’re in a pit of innocence… whether or not you’re innocent in every other area of your life.

Satan is a master at using our own insecurity against us.

He knows that deep in our hearts we’re so fragile and injured by life that, with his faintest whisper, we can feel guilty even when we’re not. We’ve got some problems all right, but problems by themselves don’t dig pits. They just offer shovels. We provide the sweat.

Excerpted with permission from Looking Up by Beth Moore, copyright Thomas Nelson.

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Your Turn

From Beth: What problems are prompting you to provide the sweat and dig a pit for yourself? What role might the accuser be playing in your pit-digging project? Do you realize that, according to Revelation 12:10, he will ultimately be defeated? Why is that an important truth?

Fragile and injured by life, we are blessed to be able to run to the God of truth for healing, hope, and comfort.

Thank You, Almighty God, that You will defeat my accuser. In the meantime, help me stand strong in the truth that You love me so that I might recognize and rebuke my enemy’s lies.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say…“The accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” — Revelation 12:10

Come join the conversation on our blog! We want to hear from you about putting down the shovel! ~ Devotionals Daily