Announcement: God sees your goodness.
God sees your beauty, your strength, your light— because He’s your Creator. He knows the amazing stuff He put in you. The Bible says He created you in His image (see Genesis 1:27).
When He sees you, He sees Himself in you.
Read the Gospel stories.
This is what Jesus did when He dealt with sinners— Zacchaeus the tax collector, the woman caught in adultery, and the Samaritan woman.
He didn’t look at how bad they were. He focused on the good that was in them. He loved them.
Reject Self-Rejection
Let me give you a little history lesson.
For ten years, the Greeks were trying to conquer the city of Troy but with little success. The city of Troy was impregnable, with high thick walls and a massive gate that the Greek soldiers couldn’t destroy no matter how hard they tried.
But one day, the Trojans (the people who live in Troy) saw the Greek soldiers sail away but they left behind a giant wooden horse.
The Trojans brought the horse into their city as a trophy of war. They didn’t know that the Greeks just pretended to sail away and that their soldiers were hiding inside the wooden horse.
That night, when the Trojans were asleep, the Greek soldiers came out of hiding and opened the gates of the city to welcome their returning comrades. They marched in and destroyed the city of Troy.
Read carefully: you fall not because of the strong temptation outside you but because of the weak situation inside you.
The temptation shouldn’t have been powerful.
But someone opened the gate.
Who is that someone?
Your Trojan horse. This Trojan horse is the deadliest weapon of the devil. And I believe that Trojan horse is self-rejection.
When External Spiritual Activity Isn’t Enough
Self-rejection opens the gate of your soul to temptation. That’s why you lose the battle.
Let me tell you something that only a few people will tell you: Behind every sin is a cry for love. You crave for love so you look for a replacement. A painkiller. An anesthetic. That narcotic is sin.
Sin is a fake version of love .
The problem with the fake version is it will never truly satisfy your deepest hunger. Instead, it will increase your need. What used to satisfy no longer does the trick. Over time, you’ll need to increase the dose of the narcotic.
If you want to win over temptation, you have to heal your relationship with yourself. You have to focus on your goodness.
This is why I said that the greatest weapon of the devil isn’t lust, greed, or pride, but self-rejection. And to get rid of self-rejection, you need self-acceptance.
Let’s now talk about the other ways evil tries to affect our world.
*This excerpt is taken from We Are At War: How to Fight and Win Over the Enemy by Bo Sanchez, ebook and paperback versionavailable at www.feastbooks.ph!
Featured image is from Unsplashed.com.
