Over the years, satan has used countless weapons to deceive and alienate people from God’s presence. Amongst his favourites are:

- Pride: The person becomes so blinded by his pride that he is unable to hear the voice of God or the voice of reason.

- Prosperity: Satan may confuse the person to focus more on new found prosperity, believing it to be a ‘gift’ from God and little by little become completely distracted with this blessing and divert his attention from God and his faith

- Adultery: Another special weapon satan uses to take someone from the presence of God, by placing a ‘love interest’ on their way, especially if this person has faced diffi culties in his/her sentimental life. Satan uses this ‘love interest’ to cause the Christian to ‘fall inlove’ and commit adultery. The guilt and shame of this sin soon removes the person from God’s presence. The list is endless, but one of the most effective and most used weapons of the devil to date is probably the weapon of  TIME.

Many are those who’ve succumbed to this stealthy plan of delayed blessings and have become cold and weary. They started their journey of faith boldly with God, but because of unanswered prayers, these once faithful Christians become despondent and weak. They start believing the lies satan plants in their hearts: God does not care about you, otherwise why would He not give you what you’ve asked for? Why do you even go to church anymore, participate in chains of prayers or campaigns anymore? Don’t you see you’re wasting your time? You pray but nothing happens.

These thoughts haunt you every time you see someone else receiving what they asked for. Or every time you remember an unfulfi lled dream. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” (Matthew 4:1-3) Physically, Jesus was probably extremely weak from not eating for 40 days and nights, so the devil took that opportunity to tempt him.

He knows that it is when we are at our weakest that we are most susceptible to his ploys. Answer the following: Has satan fi lled your mind and heart with doubts concerning the faithfulness of God? Have you started wondering whether or not God even WANTS to give you what you’ve been asking for so long now? Have you stopped using your faith because you don’t believe it will work? If you answered yes to any of these questions then satan has successfully used his number one weapon on you. So where to from here? When faced with this method of attack from the devil, you must start looking at your thought patterns.

The way you look at your situation will play an important role in your victory. If you’ve prayed for something and it has not been answered, your thoughts should be: I did not receive today, but I will receive tomorrow, or, my prayer was not answered yet, but God is with me and in due time He is going to answer me. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

Dear child of God, do not become weary. Satan knows how close your victory is, he knows that God has something great in store for you! And since he can’t impede you from coming to church, he will try and make you lose hope and faith in God. Time is a very powerful weapon, but if you manage to overcome your doubts over unanswered prayers, your chance for victory is great!

Bishop Marcelo Pires

Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/bpmarcelo

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