Listen to Audio
Jesus calls Satan the “father of lies.” He (the enemy, not Jesus) wants to speak lies into our lives so we will believe these lies and not believe God’s truth about our lives and our world.
So we have to teach our children how to recognize the lies of the enemy and “resist the devil.” (James 4:7). This is an active resistance that was modeled by Jesus.
In Matthew 4, Jesus was tempted by the devil three times. It says in verse 3 “the tempter came to him and said.” He spoke a lie to Jesus in order to tempt Jesus to follow a path toward sin. Jesus resisted each time by quoting Scripture back to the enemy. In other words, he countered lies with the truth.
This happens to us and to our children all the time and we need to teach them to fight the enemy’s lies!
So often we think the enemy’s thoughts are actually our thoughts.
“I’m not good enough.”
“No one likes me.”
“I’m not pretty.”
“I don’t deserve to be loved.”
Who speaks that to our children’s hearts? Not them. Hopefully not us. It’s the enemy. The father of lies wants our children to believe his lies.
What do we do about it? We teach them to resist like Jesus. When those thoughts come into their heads, they recognize it is not their thoughts but the enemy trying to lie to them. Our job as parents is to help them put the godly thoughts into their head and hearts. Jesus was able to resist the enemy because he knew the Scripture and was able to have it at His disposal when the temptation came.
So when the enemy says, “No one likes me” to your child, they know without a doubt they are loved by God, their parents, their siblings and their friends. They can recognize the enemy’s voice and resist by telling the enemy and their hearts what he is saying is not true. And then you want to do all you can to make it safe for them to come to you and tell you about it so you can resist the enemy with them.
If the enemy spoke to Jesus, then he speaks to us and to our children. We overcome sin by seeing the lies of the enemy and countering them with the truth of God just like Jesus did.
