Don't Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table: It's Time to Win the Battle of Your Mind...

by Louie Giglio

Don’t give the Enemy a seat at your table.

My task was to concentrate on the Good Shepherd, the One who owned the table.

My destiny was set. I didn’t need to be afraid. The Shepherd was at the table, and He would see to it that I was going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Day after day I sat with the truth of Psalm 23, letting it burrow its way into my soul. From 1 Peter 5:8, I knew that a major tactic of the Devil was to prowl around my life. So maybe I couldn’t stop the Devil from prowling around my table, but in Jesus’ name I definitely did have the choice whether I allowed the Enemy to sit down.

When it comes to not giving the Enemy a seat at your table, we have to start by wrapping our minds around this difficult truth: life is hard, yet Jesus invites us to follow Him anyway.

I will still be joyful and glad, because the LORD God is my savior.

Even when everything else is crap ill still rejoice because Jesus is my savior

Habakkuk basically said, “Even though there’s no harvest, and even though crops fail, and even though the fields are desolate, and even though the stalls of provision are empty, I will still be joyful and glad because the Lord God is my Savior. I have not lost my faith. In fact, my faith is even greater. I’m still going to rejoice in the Lord. I’m still going to worship God. I’m not going to get sidetracked by attitudes or actions that harm me. When I encounter hard times, my faith inflates.”

Even though bad things happen, I will still praise the Lord. Even though bad

things happen, I will not let my mind be lost to the Enemy.

Your shepherd might not be Jesus. But something is going to lead you. Second Peter 2:19 says, “People are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”

Unfortunately, when people take the reins of their own lives, they end up paraphrasing Psalm 23 into something like this:

This Will preach

I am my own shepherd, and I’m a mess. I don’t have everything I need. That’s for sure. I wouldn’t know still water if it were staring right at me. I haven’t taken a rest in a green pasture for quite a while now. I don’t walk along paths of righteousness, but I know what fear and evil are. I seek comfort wherever I can get it. I can’t stand my enemies. I want to hurt them. My cup definitely overflows—I’m full of angst, consumed by anger and sorrow and rage. I’m so full I easily spill over. I’m packed so tight, it doesn’t take much for me to explode. I don’t know what’s going to follow me all the days of my life, but I can tell you this one thing: My soul? Not so great.

But Jesus says, Lie down in green pastures. Get some rest. Stop trying to manage all the outcomes. Take a break in the midst of the craziness of your day and acknowledge that I’m a Good Shepherd and I have your best interest at heart. By the way, while you’re resting, go ahead and eat some green grass. Allow Me to nourish your soul. That’s how I operate. I love you and take care of you, and any directive that I give you will be for your own benefit.

The goodness of God can be found in all He is and says and does. Yet the emphasis of the mid-to-later portions of Psalm 23 is what I want us to focus on because these verses point us to the “even though” type of faith I’ve mentioned.

That’s why it’s so key that even though King David walked through such great difficulty, he declared, “I will fear no evil.” The Good Shepherd was there to guide and comfort him. Just as we did with Habakkuk’s prayer, we can make this psalm personal in our lives.

Jesus promises in Psalm 23 that peace, victory, and freedom will come in the midst of problems, pain, and loss.

This meal is at the core of your intimate relationship with God

It’s about who you’re at the table with.

Yet it’s important to see from the start that the ultimate benefit for us all is not something God gives us. It’s God Himself.

amen

That’s “even though / I will” faith being developed in you. Even though times are tough, God’s rod and staff are with you. Even though times are hard, you are not alone. God knows you’re going through a hard time. He knows the way is dark. He hasn’t promised to deliver you from the trouble. He’s promised to see you through the trouble. There’s a big difference.

This is how God delivered His people from bondage in Egypt. He didn’t build a bridge over the Red Sea; He parted the sea so they could walk through it. Oftentimes God’s plan is not to build a bridge over troubled waters. Instead, His miracle plan is to give you the grace and the power to miraculously go through the troubled waters. “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters—a pathway no one knew was there!” (Psalm 77:19 NLT). You are going through whatever circumstance you’re currently in. And your Shepherd is going through it with you.

Now, we’ve got to be really careful about this lie, because Scripture calls us to be humble. But as it’s been well said: humility is not thinking less of yourself; humility is thinking of yourself less.

But it doesn’t leave us wallowing in the misery of “I don’t measure up to anything” either.

Either to an overinflated ego or to an underappreciated sense of just how significant and valuable you are.

No matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, in your mind it’s never enough.

Here’s the thing: you need to know the “not enough” anthem was composed in the pit of hell.

Have you been called to lead a small group at your church?

This lie tells you that you’re not good enough;

This lie tries to convince you that you’re a spiritual reject. You’re a worthless sinner who’ll always be a worthless sinner. You’re not God’s child. He hates you.

When you believe the lie that everybody is against you, you are convinced everybody hates you. Everybody at your job hates you. Everybody in your family hates you. Everybody in your church. Your pastors. Your professors. Your parents. Your children. Your friends. Your colleagues. Your neighbors. Even the waiter spit in your soup.

Everybody is against you, the Enemy is sitting at your table.

voice that encourages you to mistrust eve...

The Enemy is great at sowing seeds of doubt, at working to undermine your confidence about what...

But it’s not likely that everybody’s against you.

Somewhere in the past you developed a defensive posture, an untrusting nature, and now it has become your default.

People have hurt you in the past, so you’re not going to let them ever get close to you again.

The truth is that you need to let the Good Shepherd lead you by still waters.

let Him cause you to lie down in green pastures. You need to ask God to refresh your soul and guide you along righteous paths of healing and restoration for His name’s sake. You may

The Enemy begins to devour the abundant life meant for you.

If the Devil sits at your table, sin can fill your mind and sour your conscience and ruin the intimate harmony you enjoy with the Lord.

With sin in your life, you lose your peace, effectiveness, confidence, and cheerfulness.

If a harmful thought enters your mind, it’s not from God. We must be awakened to this.

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

We’re stamped with the image of God and targeted by the Enemy who uses our own desires against us, as James says.

The way he’s going to start you down this road of destruction is by putting a thought into your mind that’s contrary to God’s best for your life and letting it entice you and fester.

God longs to restore you.

The preacher was acknowledging that people go astray and that God’s grace provides second chances.

“Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world.”

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (italics added).

We were sinners saved by grace at the start of our salvation experience, as Ephesians 2:8–9 points out. Yet that’s not the end of the story. That’s why you can’t pitch a tent in the sinner campground anymore. Your new identity is a sinner saved by grace who is a brand-new creation, as 2 Corinthians 5:17 points

out. The old has passed away. The new you has arrived. You were born again to a brand-new life, and in Jesus Christ you are not the same as who you were before you got saved.