Do you ever feel like it’s hard to follow Jesus?
I know that may seem like a relatively simple question. But think about it longer than a second. Do you ever struggle with the fact that you truly desire to follow Jesus and be obedient to Him, but it just feels like there are things in the way? That your intentions aren’t enough by themselves?
You are not crazy.
From the beginning of the Christian Church, they have identified and agreed on three main sources of interference or resistance when it comes to following Jesus in our lives. I actually dove into one of these three enemies in the ZH article from a few months ago called “Get Over You” and this topic is so interesting and raises a lot of questions for discussion, so I decided we needed an overview of all three enemies, and how they interact.
I know something called the three enemies of the soul sounds ancient, and we don’t often talk in this way, but if we look back to what the historical church taught and believed about these three original sources of interference, it will actually give us so much perspective and a framework to understand why we often feel like we can’t hear God’s voice in our lives. I often say when talking about the importance of church history that why we need to be so is because often by looking back, we will find a better way forward.
As it’s been said many times before, You cannot fight let alone win a battle that you don’t even know you’re in. You cannot defeat an enemy when you don’t even know that you’re being attacked. By walking through this ancient framework of the three enemies of the soul (that was written and popularized WAY before the age of constant distractions and noise that we live in) we will have a first step for quieting the noise around us, and in some ways turn up the volume of God’s voice.
Let’s go one by one through these enemies, and then we will see how they all come together…
ENEMY #1: THE WORLD
This is the source of interference that is most easily noticed. The first layer of this conversation if you will. This enemy is the one that says, “This is just how things are”. Cultural values, assumptions about success, what it means to be happy, and who we really are are all impacted by this first (and loudest) enemy. John Mark Comer in his book Live No Lies described this enemy as, “the world is what happens when Adam and Eve’s sin goes viral and spreads through a society. The result is that the distorted (that’s what sin is) becomes normal.” The interference that we face in the world is a lot of people (way past the majority) giving in to their sinful desires and drifting away from God and it becoming the standard.
The world usually isn’t in our face saying, “Stop believing in God!!” Sometimes that happens, sure. But this enemy is actually all about tolerance and everyone doing whatever they want. The world just tries to subtly convince us to stop listening to God as an authoritative voice. It can be ONE of the voices you listen to but there’s so much else to listen to in the world, so it sneakily puts God on the same level as all the other voices. This is dangerous! Read 1 John 2:15-17 to go a little deeper on this enemy.
ENEMY #2: THE FLESH
Read “Get Over You” if you haven’t yet. I do a bit of a deep dive into this enemy that is so prominent and not talked about enough. We are deceived from within!
ENEMY #3: THE DEVIL
This is one that so many of us have a lot of misconceptions about. Don’t look to movies and cartoons for your understanding about the devil. He is not a tights wearing red guy with horns and a pitchfork who rules in hell. He is a deceptive, cunning, half truth spitting deceiver whose kingdom is this world. Satan isn’t his name, satan is a title meaning, “the accuser.” From the beginning of time he has lied and deceived and accused God and us. His MO is to steal, kill, and destroy. To distract us into oblivion and get us to question God’s character. He will not get in your face and say, “I’m the devil! Follow me!” He doesn’t even want you to know he exists. But at the center of the interference and tension that we face, there he lies.
One of the most important things for us to understand about the devil is that he rarely introduces brand-new temptations. His strategy is hardly ever dramatic, but it is always deceptive. He takes what the world is already normalizing, what the flesh is already desiring, and then he just feeds us lies about it. Jesus tells us very clearly that when the devil speaks, he lies, because lying is his native language. Which means spiritual warfare for most of us doesn’t feel like attack, it feels like our own thoughts.
Here’s how these three enemies play together to stand in the way of us following Jesus even when we desire to do so…
THE WORLD DISTRACTS AND DECEIVES YOU.
- It’s loud. It’s accepted. It’s overwhelming. It desires for God to be one of the many voices.
THE FLESH RESPONDS WITH DESIRE.
- It’s internal. We can’t escape it. It will be broken until we move on from this life. It sees the loudness and alluring nature of the world and says, “wait… we want that.”
THE ENEMY LIES AT THE CORE.
- The devil is at the center of it all. Lying. Accusing. Feeding you half truths that God just wants you to be happy and do you. Telling you you’re not good enough anyway. Selling you the idea that God can’t be trusted anyway.
