When We Must Recognize the Enemy's Lies

Submit to God.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
James 4:7

We all have a spiritual enemy. For those who don’t know or believe that, their ability to identify the enemy’s work in their lives and resist it will be nonexistent. The enemy wants to destroy marriages because God has joined together the people in them in order to glorify Him.

The enemy comes “to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10). He is the author of lies. “He is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). By enticing you to believe his lies, he can steal your joy, kill your love, and destroy your relationship. He will speak thoughts into your mind that contradict the Word of God, that play on your insecurities and doubts, and cause miscommunication between you and your husband. He will feed you suspicious and critical thoughts and try to make you think that his lies are true and that God’s truth is a lie.

When something happens between you and your husband to undermine or threaten your marriage, ask God to help you discern how much is due to works of the flesh and how much is the plan of the enemy in operation. Then take steps to resist both. Pray often that you and your husband will have the ability to recognize the enemy’s lies. In order to do that, you must have a clear knowledge of God’s truth. So fill your mind and soul with His Word. Ask Him to show you clearly what is true and what is not. Keep praying and God will reveal this to you. Resist the enemy by choosing to live in obedience to God’s ways and by worshipping God for who He is. The enemy hates that and has to flee from you.

My Prayer to God

Lord, I pray You would help my husband and me to discern the lies of the enemy—especially when there is strife or tension between us. Open our eyes to recognize any spirit of division or confusion as the enemy’s plan to divert us away from the plans of God. On behalf of my husband, I submit our lives to You. Help us to surrender to You in every way and choose to live according to Your laws. Teach us to submit to You by reading and speaking Your Word so that it is implanted in our hearts and becomes part of our lives as we live in obedience to it. Help us to submit to You in prayer, in praise, in worship, and in gratitude.

I pray whenever my husband and I have a disagreement that turns to strife, or have unholy attitudes, suspicions, and criticisms that destroy our unity, that we will stop and say, “Enough! We refuse to allow any spirit other than the Holy Spirit to have a place of influence in our lives.” Thank You, Lord, that You have given us victory over all the plans of the enemy. Thank You that he has to flee from our lives when we expose his plans to the light. Give us both wisdom to identify the enemy’s work in our lives and the power to resist him.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Adapted from: The Power of a Praying Wife Devotion © 2011 by Stormie Omartian. Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR. Used by permission.