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

by Louie Giglio

It’s about God setting a table of nourishment and refreshment in the midst of trouble.

The table He’s prepared for you is one of peace, clarity, and abundance. You don’t have to give the Enemy a seat at your table.

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.

GOD the Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like those of a deer; He makes me walk upon the heights!’ I clung to those words when I was learning to walk again”

This is not the faith of a Christian who believes in God only when the sun shines. This is not a faith that wilts under pressure. This faith flourishes even though the pressure is on.

In Psalm 23:4 we find these words, and they set up the context of the verses to come: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil.” Did you see the “even though / I will” in that famous verse? It’s amazing that the Good Shepherd walks with us right through the valley of the shadow of death. God is there with us through real hardship. He’s with us when a loved one gets sick. He’s with us when we bury someone we care for. He’s close when our heart is shattered. He’s close when we lose some sort of good thing we’d hoped for.

The ancient spiritual leader Job described your dinner companion in comparison to the vastness of space, how earth is suspended as if over nothing, how God wraps up waters in His cloud and can cover the face of the full moon. God marks out the horizon and causes the pillars of heaven to quake; He can churn up the sea or blow upon the skies so they become fair. “And these are but the outer fringe of his works,” Job said. “How faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”

That person is definitely not invited, but he knows that if he can win the battle of your mind, he can destroy you.

assured: you have the power as a son or daughter of Jesus Christ to exercise faith that’s defiant of the Devil’s whisper. You can say, “In Jesus’ name, I won’t entertain your words, your thoughts, your influence.”

Interestingly, there isn’t one verse in the New Testament that encourages us to seek or to celebrate the “presence” of God. Why? Because God is now made visible (and for the thirty-three years God was in human skin, tangible) in and through the person of Jesus, who now lives in us through the Spirit. I no longer seek the presence of Jesus. I seek the person of Jesus. I’m not after the presence of the Holy Spirit. I want the person of the Holy Spirit and His power. I’m not calling on the presence of God. I have God (Father, Son, and Spirit) living in me.