Finding God and resisting the devil

After living a life void of any sort of relationship with God, we started attending a small church in our town. As previously mentioned, I started volunteering and pouring myself into the church. 

At this time, I was learning what it was to be a follower of Christ and I certainly didn't know that there was an actual ENEMY! I learned that very quickly though. As I got more involved in the church, I started having really horrible nightmares of hell and the devil. These were reoccurring, vivid dreams. They were the scariest dreams I've ever had. I'd wake up crying and shaking every night. It was brutal and made me not want to even go to sleep. After several nights of these dreams, I started to pray to God that He would help me to stop having them. And even though I was praying, they kept happening. It was terrifying.

After weeks of having these nightmares, I mentioned it to my pastor. He told me that the devil was trying to intimidate me because I was moving towards God and away from him! My pastor encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing and to keep seeking God. He said "the devil is scared because his grip on you is loosening". What he said completely made sense to me, and after I understood it, my nightmares stopped!

What I learned at that moment was something I never even thought about up until then! Friends, we have a REAL ENEMY and he is studying your every move and every weakness in order to destroy you. And until we truly realize this, we will not be able to resist his attacks! It's not enough to believe in God. We NEED Him in our daily lives so that we may put on the full armor of God! Without God's strength and the Holy Spirit, we will lose the spiritual battle that is waged against us by the enemy. Heck, most people don't even know there IS a spiritual battle to begin with.

The enemy tried to scare me and intimidate me so that I would stop seeking God. What he actually showed me was that he is real, BUT SO IS GOD, and that was all the affirmation I needed!

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