Satan Lies to You
The Father of Lies can and will use any circumstance (divorce, sporting events, your job, going to school, your home environment, alone time) and anyone (parents, teachers, friends, classmates, employers) to deeply wound your heart. Listed are a few ways as to how he works:
The enemy uses life circumstances to create heart wounds.
The wounds come with messages that tell you something about yourself: namely that you are not valuable.
The messages will become deeply etched on your heart without your awareness.
The messages are lies. They aren’t true. You really are valuable, but you believe it’s true because your self-worth was bruised once again.
The lies engraved on your heart affect how you interact with God, your friends, and others.
Satan goes after your heart because the heart is the wellspring of life and your relationships. Whatever happens to your heart affects every other aspect of your life. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” God wants our hearts to be filled with the truth that we are a one-of-a-kind treasure that He handcrafted for a divine purpose. The enemy, Satan, wants you to feel cheap, empty and useless. He lies to you and wounds you in order to close you down which shuts you off from God and others. He knows all too well that marriages cannot succeed and families cannot thrive when hearts are shut down. Here are some of the most common lies Satan whispers to you: you’re worthless, valueless, defective, inadequate, insignificant, ugly, unloved, unlovable, unacceptable, helpless, powerless, out of control, unwanted, a failure, not good enough (just to name a few). The lies, wounds and messages written on your heart have far-reaching ramifications. You need to pray that you won’t get hurt, and that if you do, any wounds you encounter won’t etch messages onto your very vulnerable heart. Don’t believe Satan’s lies, it encourages you to behave in unhealthy ways because the lies are so powerful (and painful) that it can cause you to eventually shut down your heart. To protect yourself you want your heart to stay open and healthy. If your heart disengages your marriage will suffer (and) or end. Your job is to identify which of these messages may be etched on your heart. Go back to your childhood or teen years and identify events that may haunt you in your life. Negative messages may be etched even more deeply by ongoing conflicts. After the identification process you need to let God work to buff away those messages so they no longer drive you to feel negative emotions. Submitting to God’s heart surgery to remove the lies will give you the freedom to open your heart back up again. Remember, the only thing that can get rid of the lies for good is God’s truth: You Are Valuable (My thoughts with The Heart of Remarriage, pp. 57-61). Sherry