Know the Nature of Your Enemy

Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”

We have a spirit a soul and a body. Our soul is the intangible area between our spirit and our body. The soul consists of our mind, will and emotions. It tells us what we think, what we want and how we feel. Of these three areas of the soul it’s our feelings that get stirred up the fastest and can lead us into temptation the quickest. Once my emotions get stirred up they deceive my mind. After that the voice of my conscience, which operates the spirit get confused and is denied its normal standard of judgment. If I allow my emotions to continue to run me and neglect my conscious I become confused about God’s will for my life and walk right into temptation. This is a dangerous state for me because I am libel to pick up old habits and old ways of life.

The enemy that I deal with is cunning, babbling and insidious. It doesn’t just want to stop me it wants to kill me. The enemy will not just use my family and friends it will use me to stop and destroy me. There are so many things that I have been delivered from but I am by no means cured or nor have I arrived. I say the enemy is insidious because it just keeps coming. It changes its form and attacks me from different angles. Webster’s dictionary defines insidious as having a gradual and cumulative effect, subtle. The enemy is aware of my weaknesses and uses them against me. It will attack me with the most obvious my family when that does not work (because I’ve learned to identify that mode) it does not go away. It simply lays quiet for a while. What I realize is that every time I do something new in moving in my life, face and overcome challenges, I am sure to be under attack. I do not have the luxury of being comfortable resting on yesterday’s prayers or reading. I must constantly be on guard. Renewing of the mind is ongoing. The hardest thing for me to deal with is when I attack myself. Most of my life I suffered with low self esteem, low self worth. In Christ, I find my esteem and worth. The attacks on myself are the hardest for me because it does not come all at once. It is a subtle build up. It begins by the bombarding of my mind with little nagging thoughts, suspicions, doubts, and fears, direct attacks on my insecurities, weakness.

Let me break it down just a little:
When I fall short in my life, when I find myself to lonely, tired (emotionally, physically, spiritually tired), when I am not following my daily plan of action of protection I am leaving myself open for attack. When I listen to what the devil says about me and not what God says about me, when I linger too on old tapes, wallow in self guilt and pity, I am opening the door for attack. Temptation does not sneak up on me there is a process: the temptation is presented; at that point my initial response is to stand in the word or to succumb. I will then think about the temptation, play the scene in my head I will either play the tape all the way through pass the point of it feeling good to the bitter end where I must deal with the guilt and shame that will arise as a result. Or I will stop at it feeling good and never reach the bitter end. It is at this point I can check in with reality or not. The temptation will present itself again it is here the choice is made. From this point on I will experience the result of my choice. God allows us free choice.


Weapons of warfare: pray, fasting, reading the word, seeking Godly counsel.

Do you know yourself as well as the enemy knows you?

Do you know all the areas of attack?

How do you stand?

How can you resist temptation?

• Avoid loneliness; there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. When my husband is away I make a plan for myself in keeping busy.
• Do not yield yourself to unhealthy influences. You know right from wrong follow your gut.
• Be accountable to someone; Keep yourself accountable to someone Godly. Someone who is not afraid to call you on your stuff.

Debra Sledge - Chrisitan Life Coach
Deborah4Greatness

My Attitude I Promise Myself

To be strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person I meet.
To make all my friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best and except only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievement of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance smile at all times and every living creature I meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of myself that I have no time to criticize others.
To be o large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and happy to permit the presence of trouble.
My attitude is my life.
You can change your life if you change the way you think.
Don't let your thoughts take over your mind.
Always have faith.
Author Unknown

Debra Sledge - Christian Life Coach
Deborah4Greatness
www.deborahsarmy.info

I Chose To No Longer Hide

I close my eyes knowing that I have been here too many times before. Here you know at that place where it seems impossible to move forward because you can’t see the path. You know here; where it seems that just last week you knew exactly what God put you on this earth to do and now suddenly you have no clue and you can’t move.
I would love to say that it is outside forces that place me here, but really it is I who place me here. It comes from not believing what has been whispered in my being. It comes from hearing the call and just not ready to start the journey, or how about starting the journey realizing the significant and thinking it’s all about me. It’s not about me it truly is about God. It’s gotten to the point that I am tired of the excuses. If I buy one more piece of organizing equipment I am going to scream. I tell myself I can not move into my gifting because I am not organized and can not make heads or tails out of what is in front of me. I tell myself I can not move forward because there are too many things on my plate I need to finish everything first. Well that is really cute because in the confusion and procrastination that I cause for myself I find it impossible to move anything into being.
I can allow others dreams to become my reality, I can pile so much on my plate believing or making myself believe that I am superwomen, I can generate all type of excuses which are all nice covers for something very simple called fear. You see fear is forgetting everything and run. Run because the call is bigger than me, run because if I follow thru change is inevitable and my God I can not take anymore changes. Run because in my head I am unworthy for such a thing as this. What God calls for you he equips you for. There is no mystery why he uses the least likely. Those who are the least likely candidate are very clear that is was God. That without the leading nothing would have been accomplished.

There are many biblical accounts of great leaders and my attention has been drawn to one such leader Nehemiah.
Nehemiah upon asking and receiving news about the surviving Jews and the destroying of Jerusalem his heart immediately ached.
What is it that tugs at your heart, what is it that makes you cry silent tears? It is said that our greatest source of pain is in fact our gifting. I immediately recognize women who are afraid of their own power. My heart aches for women who feel trapped in their own minds. My fear of self allows me to see the fear in others. I know that my gifting is for women. In realizing that, I really kind of chuckled because I was one who wanted no parts of women. I did not want to deal with the cattiness and deceptive practices that women employ. I know the tricks because I am. But then I had to realize that what I expected from women was I have done to others. I know longer wanted or needed to hurt my sisters. The more I learned to accept me and truly began the process of loving me I know longer needed to cause others to feel my internal pain. I began to put aside the fear and distrust of self and approached women with an open heart. In doing so I realized that everyone was not called to be in my space. I realized that God would open the hearts of women whom he chooses to occupy my space; my job was simply to open my heart to be approachable and to open my heart to approach. I became willing to effect change and willing to apply the steps. In being willing I became a vessel for God to use to effect change in others.

Deborah 4 Greatness

No More Than We Can Bare

God does not give us more than we can bare, funny I have always thought of that when it came to heartache and pain. Always looking for the light at the end, knowing that if I just continue to believe and trust in the most high he would see me through. I trusted because I believed God knew my breaking point and my experience has shown me, the point of escape is always just in time. Well right now I am not in pain, not going through, however I can still hear in my spirit no more than I can bare. As I continue to build my practice, God will give me what I can bear, what I am able, equipped to handle. So God does not give me more than I can handle not just in times of adversity but in also in terms of blessings. I am ready for the overflow, are you?

Debra Sledge - Christian Life Coach
Deborah 4 Greatness