This article was written by Carey Nieuwhof, a pastor and communicator from Canada. We wanted to share it with you because it was just so good. Enjoy.
Only the crazy peoplebelieve in evil and an actual Enemy, right?
Well, that’s kind ofwhat I used to think, too.
As a young Christian,I believed that what the scriptures taught about evil was accurate, butaccurate in a this happened thousands of years ago kind of way. Andmost people who talked about evil today were, well, a little off-balance orjust didn’t understand science well enough.
Then I got into churchleadership, and suddenly, what I read in the pages of scripture about a battlebetween good and evil started to feel real;not every day, but some days.
Maybe you’ve felt thattoo. And if so, you’re not alone.
Talking about the workof the Enemy is not an easy task.
The challenge, Ithink, lies at the extremes. There are some Christian leaders who never talkabout Satan and others who talk incessantly about him. You know what I mean. Inthe case of the latter, every time the toast burns or something doesn’t gotheir way, Satan is behind it, and it’s time for an exorcism. Neither extremeis particularly helpful.
In a similar way, thegreatest mistake one can make with evil is to overestimate or underestimate itsinfluence.
It doesn’t haveultimate power, but it also isn’t powerless.
Evil is active. And insome way, it’s probably influencing your thoughts, ministry, and family rightnow. At least, that’s what the scriptures claim. And Jesus himself acted asthough evil was very real.
The scripture’sunderstanding of the battle between good and evil began to explain a good dealof what I was feeling inside of me as a leader, but also around me inrelationships, in culture, and even, sometimes, in the church.
Again, please don’thear extremism in what I am saying.
Even if you’reskeptical about evil, you might also have noticed that we do live in a strangeworld, with headlines that inevitably depress, good leaders that get derailedagain and again, and people who struggle against each other and againstthemselves.
It’s like there’s avirus in the system that we just can’t seem to shake. Because, of course, thereis. The key then to overcoming the activity and influence of evil in your lifeand your world, of course, is to recognize it.
Because when youexpose it to the light of Christ, evil loses its power.
So, in the hopes ofshedding some light on evil’s activity, here are some of the signs I see thatshow evil is alive and well in the lives of Christians and churches.
If there’s onestrategy Satan returns to repeatedly, it’s creating division. And why wouldn’the? It works.
Strangely, in ourculture, some Christians wear their divisiveness as a badge of honor. It’s not.It’s actually a badge of evil.
How do we knowdivision is a sign of the activity and presence of evil?
Paul actually defineswhich human behavior is motivated by God and which is motivated by the Enemyin Galatians5.
He begins by listingthe characteristics of people whose lives are under the influence of evil.
Ready for the list?Here it is:
Sadly, too much ofthat sounds like church.
Even if you remove thesexual sins (which, tragically, are often present, too), the list sounds like ajob description for self-righteous Christians.
But, actually, it’sSatan’s job description.
Contrast that withwhat the Holy Spirit generates in peoples’ lives. When the Holy Spirit getshold of a person, a culture, and a church, he produces:
The contrast couldhardly be sharper.
But wait, you say,what if my conviction is from God? Come on Carey, this doesn’t meanwe just all lie down and hold hands and sing songs, does it? Sure,occasionally, we need a Martin Luther to nail 95 theses to the door. But mostof us are not Martin Luther, and most of the time, it isn’t 1517.
And even if you needto ‘take a stand’ it’s probably not a stand for Jesus if it ultimatelyproduces more division and bitterness than it does unity and love.
Sometimes, love is toughbut love never ends tough. It ends sweet, in reconciliation, and injustice and hope. If your love doesn’t end with hope, it’s not love.
If your definition ofChristianity is characterized by hate and division, it’s not Christianity.
Arrogance can creep inso easily among church leaders.
There are two primaryways Christians succumb to arrogance: success and by using a common but falsedefinition of ‘maturity.’
Let’s start with thefirst. The most challenging test of character is not failure. It’s success.
Here’s why. It’spretty easy to be humble when you’re failing. It’s just far too easy to takeall the credit when things go well. As a result, leaders of growing churchesand ministries almost always have a daily fight with arrogance. Or at least,hopefully, there’s a fight. Because if there isn’t, arrogance will win. Everytime.
I know in my life whenthe church I led grew, or as listenership to my leadership podcast exploded, orI was asked to speak on bigger and bigger stages, the battle against claimingcredit is daily.
I remember that whenour church was little, I regularly prayed: “God, write a story so big here thatonly you can possibly claim credit.”
The truth is, God has.Our church and wider ministry have impacted far more people than I ever dreamedor could possibly have pulled off. But I still have to fight myself to makesure that I’m not trying to snatch credit for anything God has done in my lifeor ministry.
The goal of Christianleadership, after all, is not to get people to follow you. It’s to get peopleto follow Jesus.
If the battle againstpride isn’t daily, pride will win.
A second way thatarrogance creeps in is when Christians falsely characterize Christian maturityas knowledge.
If you listened tomany in the church these days, you’d think knowledge equals maturity. The moreyou know, the more mature you are.
Scripture suggeststhat’s a false test. After all, as Paul points out,knowledge puffs up; love builds up.
Knowledge makes youarrogant. Love makes you humble.
As a leader, I need tobe transformed daily by love and humility. When I do that, I resist the devil.
Occasionally, leadersmove from relatively deep obedience to an extraordinary moral breach overnight,but it’s usually far more subtle than that.
As C.S. Lewis says inthe Screwtape Letters, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentleslope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, and withoutsignposts.”
So, how does thishappen?
Often it happens whenyou start to compromise on the small things. Maybe you take a few deductionsyou shouldn’t on your taxes. Or you don’t report some side income. Or you get alittle too close emotionally to someone you’re not married to.
Sure, nothinghappened. But deep down, you know something is happening in your heart.
Or maybe you justshade the truth a little in conversations to make yourself or the situationlook better than they really do.
The first moral lapseis always the hardest. Then it gets easier from there.
You may be asking Godfor more in your life or leadership, but whenever you ask God for more, heusually asks you what you’re doing with what he’s already given you.
If you’re not faithfulin the little things, you won’t be faithful in the bigger things.
Obedience may seemboring or inconvenient in the short term, but it’s richly and deeply satisfyingin the long term.
If you refuse tocompromise now, it becomes much easier to resist compromise in the future.
So the first threethings were sins of commission.
But even if you avoidall that, the Enemy loves to take you out from the side. One of his favoriteweapons is discouragement.
Discouragement says:
We’ve all been there.But I believe that none of those messages are from God.
Want a little hack?Read the book of Ephesians, and everywhere it says “you” or “us” justsubstitute your name. Put your name in the blanks below:
Even before he madethe world, God loved _______ and chose _______ in Christ to be holy and withoutfault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt _______ into his ownfamily by bringing ________ to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wantedto do, and it gave him great pleasure.
I know that’s a littlecheesy, but it actually helps you battle well.
The best antidote to alie is the truth. So ground yourself in the truth and in the truth aboutyourself.
If you’re discouraged,just remember that God is less done with you than you are.
If discouragement isleft unchecked, it grows. Self-pity is discouragement on steroids.
Self-pity chisels instone what discouragement whispers.
It tells you there isno out. That this is the way it will always be. And it simultaneously tells youit’s all your fault, and none of this is your fault. Paradoxically, you believeboth.
Self-pity is dangerousbecause it moves you to the sidelines.
Living in a state ofself-pity means you don’t need anyone to take you out of the game becauseyou’ve taken yourself out.
It’s an incrediblyeffective strategy and completely counter to the gospel.
The final thingself-pity does is rob us of all joy. Satan can’t steal our salvation. But hecan steal our joy. And he delights in doing it.
Don’t let him.
If you’re stuck inself-pity, though, how do you get out?
Here’s what I’ve foundhelpful: Self-pity is basically confession without repentance and forgiveness.
Self-pity leaves youacknowledging that there’s a big problem but not fully owning it (confession)and moving forward (claiming forgiveness). It’s acknowledging sin withoutclaiming hope. The Gospel never leads to self-pity. It leads to transformation.
So, if you’restruggling with self-pity, you’re partway there. Just keep going. Get pastconfession and onto repentance and forgiveness.
