How Do You Overcome Like Jesus Did?

How do we successfully resist the daily evil and the temptation to consult the lethal tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Eve and Adam succumbed to Satan’s temptation to engage this deadly tree; therefore, their example will not help us. So, to whom do we look for a role model of successful resistance? Jesus himself is the best example of how to do this. He simply responded verbally to each of Satan’s enticing temptations with an absolute truth from God’s written word. The authority of that word completely annihilated the alluring power of Satan’s deceptive temptations:

(Matthew 4:1–4, 11 NKJV) Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (2) And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. (3) Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” (4) But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” ... (11) Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

The arena of our battle with the daily evil is the intellectual realm. Satan tempts us with lies and half-truths designed to lure us away from simple faith in God and his word. God’s truth is the only source of light that can obliterate these dark deceptions. Thankfully, we have God’s word available to us, but it can only benefit us if we consume it voraciously like our daily food. Remember, “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” implies both what he says to us by his Spirit and the words of the Bible as he dictated them to his secretary writers.

Paul confirms that those without God’s word lack life-giving light, saying that they have “been darkened in understanding.” As a result, he says they are “estranged from the life of God.” The result of having no inflow of life is death. This is the death that God said is the consequence of partaking of the wrong tree:

(Ephesians 4:17–18 EMTV) This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, (18) having been darkened in understanding, being estranged from the life of God, because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;

Let’s resolve today to ensure that we are never “estranged from the life of God.” And let’s achieve this crucial goal by avoiding “ignorance” because of the “hardness” of our hearts. In other words, soften your heart today; open it to receive God’s words—both written and spoken to you. Allow its light and life to enter, consume it voraciously, clasp it into your very being until it becomes part of you, and have it on hand to quote at the enemy’s lies as the Holy Spirit directs. This way, you too can obliterate the enemy's dark deceptions by annihilating them with the brilliant light of God’s living word.

What’s the Key to Winning?

(James 4:7 EMTV) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

This passage contains God’s answer for dealing with the enemy’s strategy to drag us into his deadly process.

At this point, I remind you that our assailant tries daily to hook us; and that he constantly tries new and varied approaches with his lies and temptations. He may try with the same temptation repeatedly for a time—especially if he believes we have a weakness in that area, or if he thinks he can overcome our resolve with a constant barrage. However, he will also try with subtle variations, or with complete surprise attacks—coming out of left field with an entirely new type of temptation.

Another of Satan’s strategies is to devise combined attacks. For example, he may arrange an attack of sickness to hit at the same time as overwhelming work pressure or relational stress. Simultaneously, he supplies someone to inject doubts about God, his leaders, or our spouses. Meanwhile, he douses us with draining feelings of self-doubt, self-pity, and depression. Throw in some unwarranted accusations, and he has you in the perfect storm. The enemy corners you in overwhelming temptation to receive and interact with his injected images, thoughts, and knowledge—fodder for partaking of the wrong tree.

However, in all these things, we can be “more than conquerors” if we simply follow the Holy Spirit’s formula for overcoming by God’s grace. What again is it?

(James 4:7 EMTV) Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

The first part of this instruction is to submit to God. Thankfully, the New Testament is full of directive instructions. (Jesus saves us by being a gracious, commanding Lord.) For example, in his loving desire to coach us in victorious living, Jesus said:

(Matthew 5:44 DKJV) “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you, and persecute you.”

This section of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is not simply poetic philosophy; it is an exact recipe for overcoming daily evil of specific types. If we apply this literally and word-for-word, Jesus guarantees that it will successfully overcome each of the challenges he lists: enemies, curses, hatred, mistreatment, and persecution. Wow! Could it be that simple? Yes, Jesus’s victory-prescriptions are simple and easy to understand, but we need his supernatural grace to enact them.

If we obey Jesus in these and his other directives—those written in his word and/or quickened to us personally—we fulfil the first part of the Holy Spirit’s prescription for overcoming the devil: “submit to God.”

Today, we have seen two aspects of God’s strategy for us to overcome the daily evil. The first is to consume his word—to hear it deeply in our hearts, and to digest it fully until it becomes part of us. The second is—in preparation for resisting the enemy firmly in our faith—submit to God. This entails submission to his personal instructions to us and to his written ones. The latter include some very specific instructions for overcoming various types of enemy attacks. Let’s ensure that we obediently follow them to the letter.

(Matthew 5:44 DKJV) “But I say to you,

love your enemies,

bless those who curse you,

do good to those who hate you, and

pray for those who mistreat you, and persecute you.”

We may have to fend off single attacks or multiple barrages of enemy onslaughts. We may have to fight back one lie at a time; and it may be quite time consuming. But by resisting God’s way with his word and our humble submission, we can certainly win and make progress—albeit gradually.