By Author Emerald Barnes
(All Bible verses are in the NKJV copied from www.biblegateway.com.)

The greatest lie Satan tells is “what if…?”

What if this? What if that? What if? What if? What if?

And he’s persistent with it too. That thought gets stuck in your brain, causing it to be the only thought you dwell on. And why does he do that? To get you out of the Word.

I’m speaking from experience, but my experience also has OCD in it. I won’t go into more details here, but I recently spoke up about my experience with OCD and fear in my life on my personal blog.

Still, between Satan and the OCD, my life has been a constant fear/worry/anxiety-filled battle field, especially for the past year. And Satan knows what he’s doing. He’s really good at reconnaissance. He knows exactly how to hit and what to hit us with. He knows exactly what will bring us to tears and hold us back.

• “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” - 1 Peter 5:8

Satan is always out looking for some way to devour you, and when he finds that way in, he’s very adamant about it. He will do anything to keep you in a place where you can’t grow, a place that will keep you away from pursuing God’s will for your life. Like in my case, it was to keep me inside, away from the people I have the potential of reaching for Christ.

We all have a purpose, and Satan knows that. He knows that God has created us for greatness, and Satan doesn’t want us to achieve that greatness. Simply because once we step into what God has for us, we know that we have authority, and when we realize the kind of authority we have, there is nothing the enemy can do to stop us. We become unstoppable when we realize who we are in Christ, so Satan will do everything in his power to keep us out of the Word and out of faith so we will never discover who we are in Christ and accomplish what God has in store for us.

Yet, when the enemy comes against us, the best thing we can do is use the Word against him. Quote scripture to him; praise God; and use your words, the words that God has used. Your authority comes from the Gospel—the good news, the truth, and it's our job to stay in the Word, to study it and know what God has said about us. It's time to discover who you are and get out of the doubts, the what-ifs that Satan holds us back with. 

Whatever your "what if" is, don't let it define you. As Kenneth Copeland says, "Don't let the devil see you sweat!" Today, take that lie of "what if..." and counter it with the truth, what the word says.

What if I'm never healed? The Bible says that it is God's will that we ARE healed. 
What if I die alone? The Bible says there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother; that He will never leave us or forsake us.
What if sicknesses and diseases come against me and my family? Psalm 91 says that no sickness or calamity will come near our dwellings! 

There is always an answer in the Word. Take Satan's lies and tell him God's truths.  The truth will always set you free. 

"Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." - John 8:26

By Lynn Morgan

I don't think there's any subject that man has been able to cover exhaustively concerning Holy Scripture. We may have seen books entitled "An Exhaustive Study" on whatever topic in the Bible. But in truth, we can only handle what we're able to handle at the point we find ourselves in.

The Pharisees had an idea they knew it all so much so there was nothing left for them to learn. I believe some of the Pharisees are still around. What about you? How many times have we read a passage and seen some truth we've never seen before? It just kinda jumps on us.

Take a three or four year old child. You can tell them, "No, don't do that," not wanting them to harm themselves. But if you try to explain all the reasons why they should not, it'll be over their heads. At some point, it becomes one of those "because I said so" moments.

I heard a minister from Mississippi say this not long ago: "We never get completely through on any subject in God's word; we can only follow The Spirit of God 'til He says it's time to unplug from this topic for awhile." Could it be before we can go any further there are some other foundational truths to be stirred up? I think so. One thing's for sure, we have much to learn.

Paul was a faith preacher if there ever was one. God speaking to us through Paul's writings are just as much for the church today as in the early church, after all, there's only one church. "The just shall live by faith"...."we walk by faith and not by sight"....the word of faith which we preach"...."it's impossible to please God without faith" just to name a few.

We, as believers on and in The Lord Jesus Christ, must put God's word in us so much so that it comes out of us automatically. "The entrance of His word gives us light". God said through Paul: "They believed and they spoke, we believe also therefore we speak." We are either walking in the natural and tolerating everything as "that's just the way it is", or we are being "transformed by the renewing(continually) of our minds" to what God has said. It's "either or": walking by faith in what God says or walking by our natural sense and reasoning and our five physical senses alone. But to walk by faith—it has nothing to do with intellect or what we feel but what we trust and believe in as TRUTH in our hearts.

You can trust God. What He has said, He watches over it to perform it. There's none like Him; He's not a man that He should lie. We need to expect Him to do exactly what He has said. Trust in Him with ALL your heart. Remember, waiting on The Lord IS expecting Him. We are to put our confidence in God, not man. We need to be "FULLY persuaded" as Abraham believed "what God had promised HE (The Lord God Almighty) was also able to perform". Trust God today in Jesus' name. With God, nothing shall be impossible.