3 Lies Satan Wants You to Believe

3 Lies Satan Wants You to Believe

By Drenda Keesee

We have all been created uniquely in God’s image. But what happens when we start comparing ourselves to others and feeling like we don’t measure up?

Satan will try to convince you that you are not good enough for God’s calling. He will lie to you and distract you. And before you know it, you can get bound in a cycle of comparing yourself to others, looking for happiness and fulfillment in the wrong things, and wondering why you aren’t satisfied.

Read below to find out three of the most common lies Satan tells us and discover how you can combat these lies in your own life!

“I’ve Made Too Many Mistakes.”

Satan wants to isolate you so that he can lie to you. He will try to get you alone and get in your head. He’ll tell you that you can’t make it, you’re not worthy, or you’re not good enough. That you were supposed to be smarter, prettier, a better person, or make fewer mistakes.

Sound familiar?

These are all lies that Satan wants you to believe about yourself, but God has a different point of view.

The Bible tells us that we have been made in the image of God, that we are more than conquerors, and that we can do all things through Christ (Genesis 1:27, Romans 8:37, Philippians 4:13)!

If you feel like you’ve made too many mistakes to ever be loved or used by God, know that God has already forgiven you, and you can live freely knowing your sins have been paid for!

If you are struggling with condemnation today, I want to encourage you to take this verse to heart:

“Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us” (Romans 8:33-34, NLT).

 

“I Don’t Measure Up.”

Too often, we as women compare ourselves to each other. Sometimes, we even compare ourselves to unrealistic expectations of what a woman should be! We might compare ourselves to the photoshopped model in a magazine, or compare our messy house to the perfectly styled photo we see on Pinterest.

Doubt tries to get us to question our value.

If there’s one thing I want you to walk away with today, it’s this: Satan does NOT want you to be confident!

He loves to plant images and words in our minds that cause us to feel insecure, ashamed of who we are or lacking. You’re too fat, too skinny, too ugly, trying too hard, not trying hard enough… No matter WHAT you are, or what you look like, Satan wants to get you to believe the lie, “You’re not good enough.”

As long as Satan can control you with insecurity and shame, you won’t rise up to your full potential in Christ! 

When we are comparing ourselves to others or to what we see on social media, we are magnifying and dwelling on our flaws. This results in a WARPED perspective! Soon, we start to feel like failures, or like we don’t measure up. We may even feel hopeless.

If Satan can get us to throw ourselves pity parties, he can distract us from all God has blessed us with, and what we dwell on will grow!

If you sit around and focus on the fact that your house is messy or you feel like you need to lose weight, you will lose your joy. The Bible says the Joy of the Lord is your strength—so you’ve put down your weapon against the enemy!

We have to stop comparing. We aren’t all called to be exactly the same. We have different gifts and talents. We aren’t called to compete with one another but, rather, to function as the body of Christ together, each part supplying!

Paul talks about the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12. He says in verses 17-20 (NIV), “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:17-20).

God made you exactly how you need to be in order to fulfill the call He has placed on your life. He has given you the skill sets you will need to be successful for the plan He has for you! That doesn’t mean you won’t have struggles or temptations, but it is critical that you know your identity in Christ.

God has called us all to be unique, yet He loves us all the same. 

This is why it is so important to surround yourself with godly women who can love and support you, and tell you the truth about how God sees you! We are all valued and have a unique purpose to fulfill in the Kingdom of God!

 

“I’ll Never Be Happy.”

Have you ever felt trapped in your circumstances?

Maybe you feel like you’re missing something you need in life, or you’re broken, or you just can’t catch a break.

Gary and I used to be so poor, we lived in an old, broken-down farmhouse that had plants growing through the window panes. When Gary called his dad, the first words out of his mouth were, “How much money do you need this time?”

I think we have all had those moments where we wanted to quit, run away, or even hide. Our life looked like a nightmare for nine long years—not because God allowed it, but because we made bad financial decisions again and again. Our circumstances looked so big, so impossible. Satan tried to torment me with thoughts like, “This will always be your life. You will never be happy. Your friends are out having fun, but you’re stuck here changing diapers and trying to find enough money in your couch cushions to feed your kids.”

But as I said before, happiness doesn’t come from our CIRCUMSTANCES; it comes from our spirits!

True happiness and fulfillment can only come from God. 

That wasn’t the end of Gary’s and my story. We cried out to God, and what we learned changed our entire lives. We submitted our circumstances to God and started choosing joy instead of self-pity, we quit doing it our way and started doing it His way, and everything changed. We started successful businesses that paid off all of our debt in two and a half years, and later started pastoring a church and launched our television ministry.

Satan wants to isolate us and then get us to question God’s plan, goodness, and faithfulness… but God has a GOOD life for you!

Following God is the best plan, but it is not always the easiest. Satan wants to convince us that sin will bring us that same pleasure instantaneously. Sin may give us instant gratification, but it will have long-term consequences. He did this with Adam and Eve in the Garden. In Genesis 3, Satan asked Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’” (Genesis 3:1, NIV)? Satan does this in our lives today as well!

Satan will try to convince you that following Jesus is not worth it, that the world’s way is better. He will tell you to follow your earthly desires. Scripture tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV). Following what we think we want in our sinful hearts is not a good plan of action. When we follow God and His plan for our lives, our lives can be better than we could ever ASK, THINK, or IMAGINE!

Psalm 37:4 (NIV) says, “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

 

How to Combat Satan’s Lies 

So what should you do when the enemy starts feeding you lies?

First, remind yourself of what the Bible says about you. Find a list of positive affirmations of what God’s Word says and speak them out loud over your life.

Second, get involved in a Christian church and surround yourself with other believers who will love and support you. It is important to surround yourself with believers who will encourage you and speak truth into your life.

Third, be mindful of your thoughts. Don’t let your mind roam freely when you are comparing yourself to someone. If you notice yourself starting to slip into that comparison and having a pity party, fight back. Do so by reminding yourself that you are good enough and that God will provide what you need for your situation. Don’t focus on trying to be someone or something you aren’t.

Lastly, look to God for your identity. You can never keep up with what society is saying you should be. Rather, look to God, seek His plan, and have confidence in all the good things He has said about you in His Word!

We are all created to fulfill a unique purpose in the Kingdom of God. It is so important to know who you are in Christ and to be confident that He has a plan for your life!

 

Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.

A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.

Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.

Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.

Through their own life experiences, the Keesee’s have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.

That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.

She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.