Standing Against the Devil’s Schemes.

As Christians we must not under estimate the Devil and his intentions. He cannot win and will never have victory over God but his sole intention is to ruin people’s lives and bring as many souls with him to the lake of fire. I wanted to share a few things that we can do to fight against him.

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

1 Corinthians ⁹ Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men^{[a] 10} nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

(The above passage lists a few sins and practices that if done you cannot enter the kingdom of God and Satan wins.  Notice the part men who have sex with man or homosexuals. The last part of the scripture gives hope to people struggling with any of these sins; you can be washed in the blood of Jesus and sanctified.)

John 10:10 the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it full of power.

Matthew 13 ²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
²⁷ “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

(I’ve heard it said by homosexuals, “if God made me this way, how can it be wrong?” God didn’t make you that way; He planted good seed and has a plan for your lives. But the enemy comes in and attempts to plant corrupt seeds in our lives that is why we must stand strong against him.)

²⁸ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

Ephesians 6: 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted^[a] by the devil. ² After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. ³ The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’^[b]”

(We fight not against flesh and blood but the devil uses our fleshly desires to tempt us to sin.)

Matthew 5:28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

(Satan will use our natural desires that God has given us for sex which is right through marriage and try to cause us to sin and fall short of God’s glory just by simply putting images in front of us on a daily basis.)

 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand . 14 Stand Firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place.

(The enemy will try and distort the truth, he knows what it takes to turn us into weeds so if he can change what we accept as sin he can make us miss the harvest for example once saved always save.)

15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the sprit which is the word of God. 18 and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and request. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

(The armor of God is all defensive with the exception of the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, prayer in the spirit and prayer. I find it interesting that one of the tools God has given us to fight against satan has been attacked so much that most denominations believe it is wrong to speak in tongues and the majority of Christians think it is strange or weird. If satan can limit a Christian to always and only be on the defensive then he is limiting your ability to tear down the high places and attack his kingdom.)

Jesus and the Miraculous Catch of Fish (God's Blessing and Provison)

In Luke 5 Jesus was preaching the word of God by The Sea of Galilee He saw two empty boats belonging to Simon Peter who at the time was a fisherman cleaning his nets. Jesus asked him to take the boat out into the water so He could be better heard by the crowd.

After he preached, Jesus asked Peter to go out into deep water and put down the nets. Peter said that he would but worked all night and hadn't caught anything. After obeying Jesus he caught so many fish they had to bring the other boat over to help and keep the nets from breaking. After this Jesus called Peter to be a fisher of men and follow him.


After Jesus was persecuted and raised from the dead; Peter and a few of His disciples were once again by The Sea of Galilee. I assume the disciples were sitting around pondering of everything that happened and how much their lives had change in a short time and now the Man that they left everything is no longer around. Then Peter says John 21:3 "I'm going out to fish." The other disciples decided to go with him.

At that time Peter was trying to figure out what he was going to do since Jesus was no longer with them and he decided to do the one thing he knew how to do best, fish.

⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
⁵ He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”
“No,” they answered.
⁶ He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

At this time Peter probably remembered the last time someone told him to cast his net and he caught more than he thought possible.

⁷ Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. ⁸ The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.^{[c] 9} When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

In a time when Peter and the disciples needed an occupation to provide for themselves Jesus blessed them to the extent they could hardly contain the blessing. At that same moment Peter had such a Love for God that he jumped into the water to go spend time with Jesus. He was willing to risk losing all the fish they just caught and the blessing just to spend a little bit of time with Jesus.

Now when they got back to shore Jesus already had gathered fire wood, started a fire, had it burning long enough to build hot coals, had already caught fish and had bread available for them to eat. Before He even provided the means for the miracle he was already prepared for it.

When you need a miracle and you are out in the sea fishing for it, believe that Jesus is already on the shore with a fire burning waiting for you to come back to shore.

After this Jesus gave Peter and the disciples directions that they were still going to follow Jesus and have a new occupation being shepherds of Jesus' sheep.

The biggest key to this passage is God provided not only a need but so much provision it could hardly be contained. But to get to that point of provision you must love God. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him at the end of the passage and Peter told him He knew he loved him. Jesus said in John 14:15 If you love me you will keep my commandments.

If we love God and follow his commandments he will provide our every need to the point of not being able to contain his blessing.