Knowing Self and Others in Christ & Satan's Strategy

Lourdes Pinto

Knowing Self and Others in Christ and Satan`s Strategy

Lourdes Pinto, Jan 18, 2018

By steadfast attentiveness to the Lord at all times and by remaining in trust and faith under trial, we allow the Holy Spirit to show us our weakness and sin, and we receive the power to be one with Christ and thus defeat the devil. 

How to win the battle against demons, by St. John of Avila Doctor of the Church.

The demons envy our well-being so much that they try all sorts of ways to keep us from enjoying what they have lost. When, in a battle, they are overcome by us, or to put it better, by God in us, they stir up other battles to see if at some time they can find someone careless to devour. They change their weapons and strategies, thinking that those they cannot overcome in one way, they will overcome in another.

Christian doctrine teaches us to place ourselves within the most just will of the Lord and to suffer patiently what He (God) sends us, interior or exterior. When they (the demons) have seen that, because of this, they have been unable to ruin us by cunning, they try more open war, in which the one that was before a hidden dragon becomes a ferocious lion (cf. Pt.5:8). No longer does he tempt in one thing in order to end up in another, but rather, he clearly wants to make himself feared and plans to achieve by fear what he could not achieve by cunning. Here he will not be seen as a fox but as a fierce lion that wants to inspire fear by his roaring…

When a soul, by the love of God that is the life of faith, despises the prosperity and adversity of the world and believes and trusts God, whom he does not see, there is no way by which the demon may enter. Also, the light of faith teaches us to trust in God's mercy when there are dangers. If the one under attack wants to take advantage of this mercy, he may gain a lot of courage to struggle against the demon, a thing that is very necessary for this war.