Who Am I? Part 3

Who Am I? Part 3
Wednesday, October 23, 2024 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Spiritual deception / Spiritual warfare / Thought for Today

Who am I? Who influences me? Who do I listen to?

We’ve discovered that who we listen to matters. We tend to become like those we highly regard. Proverbs 13:20 warns us: “He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Perhaps a person is living what many would describe as a “moral” life. But if that person starts spending most of their time with those who do drugs, get drunk, and are promiscuous, that is what that person will likely become.

It is certainly true that Jesus was a friend to sinners. Jesus met with, talked with, ate with, and ministered to, those the Pharisees called “sinners,” those Jesus described as needing a doctor.

But is that who He was with 24/7? Are they the ones Jesus spent his private time hanging around with? No. He spent his private time alone with his Father, and primarily with his twelve disciples. His time with “sinners” was time spent in ministry. When that ministry was completed, He departed from them. We need to do the same. There are many good reasons we are urged to think on what is pure, lovely, true, excellent, or praiseworthy (see Philippians 4:8).

You may ask: What does this have to do with the accusatory voices we sometimes hear? The spiritual forces who hound us have numerous goals. These goals can include: to get us sidetracked, to get us distracted, to discourage us, to keep us from, or at least hinder us from, completing tasks God wants us to do.

But there is another possibility, one that even as believers we must be wise to; one that those in the world are particularly susceptible to: to believe those voices and act in line with what they are proclaiming. If they can get us to act on their lies, they win. Then their accusations will get more harsh, and our succumbing to a downward spiral becomes possible.

For Christians, those who truly have the Holy Spirit residing in them, victory over them is possible. For those in the world, succumbing is much more likely, as one only has one’s own resources to combat them—one doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, the only power that is greater than them. Christ has already defeated them, having risen from the dead. He has already made a spectacle of them. At the name of Jesus, every knew will bow! No created being, whether human or spiritual, is excluded. Some will do so in joy, others through clenched teeth in abject hatred.

We are commanded to resist the Devil. God’s promise is that he will flee. We are commanded to stand firm, and having done all to stand. God gives us the armor in Ephesians 6, so that we will put it on and use it. We are to resist those firey darts from the enemy, those thoughts that come in to our head, those thoughts that purport to be our own, but are in reality lies.

So, we aren’t to listen to those voices, but to resist them. We aren’t to spend a lot of time with those whose lifestyles will negatively impact us so that we don’t become like them.

Who do we listen to? Where do we get our identity?

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