God’s Voice or Satan’s Voice?

… Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. 1 Peter 5:8-9 CSB

In our Christian journey and trying to discern the will of God for our lives, I feel like sometimes it’s so hard to tell the difference between the voice of the Spirit versus the voice of Satan. When Jesus is tempted by Satan in Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus counters Satan by the Word of God (quoting Old Testament scripture), and then what does Satan do? Quotes Old Testament scripture back to Him (vs. 6). Satan is extremely skilled, and as we discussed in the last part, Satan knows more about God than we’ll ever know in this life. So how do we combat this other voice and discern the voice of God? Here are four strategies I think are extremely helpful:

1. The Word of God. Jesus’ first immediate combat Satan’s testing was quoting Scripture to Satan in verse 4 CSB: “Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” When we are having these “nudges” in our minds, take it to Scripture. Where does it stand? Remember from a couple of articles ago, Scripture is our standard of truth! Our minds (with Satan) will play tricks on us. We are fickle and bounce around in the waves. We need a pillar to stand on.
2. The Greatest Commandments. Does this voice help me in fulfilling the greatest commandments? Matthew 22:37-40 CSB:

…“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command.  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

When we’re trying to decide anything, we should ask: Does this bring me towards God or away from God? Does this help me love people more or not?

3. Pray. Look at the model prayer in Matthew 6:9, 12-13 CSB:

“Therefore, you should pray like this… And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

Jesus knows that each time we pray we have an issue of sin that needs to be forgiven and also that we’re being tempted and need help. He knows that we’re constantly battling this. What’s His answer? Pray to  “not bring us to temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”

4. Who gets the Glory? 1 Corinthians 10:31 CSB: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”

Is this voice pushing me to give me glory, someone else glory, or glory to God? This is important… We are all subtily narcassistic (Me-Monsters as Brian Regan puts it). We crave the attention and praise: this is in opposition to God. We also tend to praise other things when that praise belongs to God (not that lifting up people is wrong, but we need to be mindful of why and how we do it).

I hope this will help you to be able to determine which voice we hear is the voice of Truth versus the voice of the enemy.

-Austin

References

The Conversation Company. (2004). I Walked on the Moon [DVD]. United States.