My Musings: My Enemy, My Savior, and Me

By Trevor Hugh Campbell

I am caught up in a war between the demonic forces of Satan and the good forces of God. I have chosen to be on God's side. As a result of choosing sides, my enemy becomes Satan and his forces. These demonic forces have led the world into evil and are prowling the earth for souls to capture. I live on this earth with these unseen demonic forces, and they are messing with me. The battle is for my soul to either enjoy eternal life or condemnation.

I once was an enemy of God, and then I rebelled. I rebelled against Satan, the devil. I rebelled against the devil by accepting Jesus the Messiah as my Savior and, hence, was brought into the presence of God as holy and just. Subsequently, the devil personalized me as his enemy and started pursuing and harassing me.

The enemy endeavors to compromise my conviction and journey to be a true disciple of Jesus. My daily focus is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and do God's will, whatever it may be. The enemy will endeavor to use all his wiles to prevent or discourage me from doing God's will. This musing is a mechanism for me to readily identify the enemy's schemes, isms, schisms and to dismiss them and focus on God's will.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638447238

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My Musings

My Enemy, My Savior, and Me

Trevor Hugh Campbell

Copyright © 2021 by Trevor Hugh Campbell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Setting

My Spiritual Upbringing

At War

The Value of Knowledge

Know Myself—Who Am I?

Know the Enemy—His Desire

Know the Enemy—His Will

Know the Enemy—His Ways

Combating the Enemy

Combating the Enemy—an Experience

Strategic Approach to Combat the Enemy

Tactical Approach to Combat the Enemy

The Enemy’s Success—Flirting with the Devil

The Enemy’s Success—My Idolatry

The Enemy’s Success—My Disobedience

Fallacious Living

The Enemy’s Defeat—My Obedience

The Enemy’s Defeat—My Savior

The Enemy’s Defeat—Come Out of the World

The Setting

These are my musings, my convictions, my thoughts based on personal reflections of my experiences with God and without God. I accept full responsibility and ownership for my behaviors, my thoughts, and my expressed words. I am accountable to God only for my thoughts, words, and actions. And God will hold me accountable. So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.¹ And Jesus said, But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.²

I am not preaching to anyone, not offering suggestions to anyone, not lecturing anyone, nor trying to convict anyone. What follows are self-realizations and self-convictions arrived at from daily reflections in my pursuit to become a more Spirit-filled, clearheaded, and ever-increasing-in-glory disciple of the Messiah Jesus, my Lord, the Son of God. I depend on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God only to truly convict me. Right or wrong, my conscience is clear about my convictions. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.³ These musings, my convictions about my Savior, my battle with the enemy, and my convictions about the enemy are personal. Hence, in this musing, I do not use inclusive personal pronouns such as we or us or you or our or they apart from when represented in a biblical quote. The word I is used frequently to take personal responsibility for my convictions and not to exalt myself.

The primary audience for this musing is God Almighty, the Father; Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and Messiah to the world; the Holy Spirit; Satan; and me. Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are the audience of my heart, my thoughts, my obedience, and my disobedience to their words. The devil is the audience of my obedience and disobedience to God’s words. I am the audience of God’s words and the devil’s temptations to negatively influence me. At times I am the audience for me as I will speak to myself, or I may be of two minds. The secondary audience is all others. I aim to please God. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.⁴ The secondary audience is a spectator to my struggles and convictions.

The biblical quotes used in this musing are either from the New King James Version, the New International Version, or the New Living Translation. All three translations of the Bible are in parallel on my computer screen for reading and meditating. I have found in places that these translations of the Bible have different nuances that place God’s words in differing revealing lights. I used the translation that best supports my thoughts. Behind this musing is always the question, what does the Bible say? As a result, biblical quotes are repeated to justify the written thoughts at the time. The Bible and the Holy Spirit are the sources of my absolute and universal truths and the sources of my true convictions.

God is my Rock, my Savior, my Redeemer, and the Truth. Goodness is from God. No one is good but One, that is, God.⁵ My archenemy is God’s adversary, the devil. Evil influences are from the devil. The devil is not my rock, not my savior, not my redeemer but is the source of falsehoods. God is sovereign over all things and is mightier than the devil, the orchestrator of lies.

My enemy opposes my belief that Jesus is Lord. My enemy’s actions have led to a world that normalizes his way. I live in this world, and at times, I wonder if my life mirrors that of the world the devil normalizes or that of God. It is my goal to remove all embraces of the devil’s world from my life. It is my desire to be out of the devil’s world and truly become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.⁶ As a citizen of heaven, I must obey the laws of heaven rather than the laws of my archenemy that normalizes evil.

To me, evil is the embodiment of thought or speech or actions that are not from God. My enemy is any being (human or spiritual), organization, institution, culture, circumstance, or event that promotes evil in me. Any second I do not have the presence of God in my life, then in that second, I have the presence of evil in my life. There is no neutrality. Either God is in my life, or the devil is in my life. My life comprises all my thoughts, beliefs, values, words, and actions.

Spiritually, I have been duped and led astray by the false teachings of the devil’s world systems, cultures, habits, and the people who practice them. By not testing what I was hearing, reading, and seeing against Scripture, I allowed myself to be duped. I have allowed myself to be duped by religious organizations that present themselves as churches. I accept the responsibility for being duped.

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.⁷

Fortunately, the more I read the Bible, meditate on biblical teachings, pray, and follow God’s commands, the more in tune I become with God and the behaviors he desires of me in this life. Frequently, I question what is secularly and religiously acceptable and normal and, subsequently, have come to realizations and convictions that are different from the norm. Some of my convictions are outliers. Even though people and systems have duped me in the past, I have the Holy Spirit that teaches me what is true.

But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.⁸

I reject the world that Satan tested Jesus with. Satan tested Jesus by offering him all the kingdoms of the world. I accept and embrace the word of God as the truth and the antidote to the devil’s world systems, cultures, habits, and tendencies however normal, innocent, and secularly logical they may appear.

The enemy endeavors to compromise my conviction and journey to be a true disciple of Jesus. My daily focus is to be filled with the Spirit and do God’s will, whatever it may be. The enemy will endeavor to use all his wiles to prevent or discourage me from doing God’s will. This musing is a mechanism for me to readily identify the enemy’s schemes, isms, schisms, and to dismiss them and focus on God’s will. In a nutshell, God’s will for me is to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with⁹ him. I must do the works of God by believing in Jesus and make known his teachings to others through my words and actions. Because I am doing the works of God and striving to live a Godly life, the enemy will harass and harangue me. It is a given that my enemy will persecute me. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.¹⁰

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¹ Romans 14:12

² Matthew 12:36–37

³ 1 Corinthians 4:4

⁴ Galatians 1:10

⁵ Luke 18:19

⁶ Colossians 3:2

⁷ 2 Peter 2:1–3

⁸ 1 John 2:27

⁹ Micah 6:8

¹⁰ 2 Timothy 3:12

My Spiritual Upbringing

I grew up poor, in a poor community. Actually, the word poor in this usage is a euphemism for seriously materially challenged. I was barefoot going to elementary school. I experienced the results of faith in the Messiah Jesus through the actions of my mother. My mother was a faithful stalwart of Jesus. She led services proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God in a local assemblage. I was told of a time when a mentally challenged man came into a service wielding a machete, and my mother faced him down and said, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, leave. And the man left mumbling something incoherent. As a result, Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you¹¹ became very meaningful to me.

There was another story of faith that my mother related to me. Once she had no money for food or anything and she went to the building in which services were held and she prayed and prayed and prayed. After she finished praying and was walking back to her place of residence, she saw a likeminded sister headed toward her smiling. My mother asked the sister why she was smiling so much. The sister responded by saying, The Lord told me to give you this. She gave my mother one shilling and sixpence. This helped to ease the pain of having nothing to feed her children, including me as a child. Every time I think of that story, it touches me spiritually.

My earthly father died before my eighth birthday, and my mother never remarried. She dedicated her life to the Lord. I believe my mother took this advice from the Apostle Paul.

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but only if he loves the Lord. But in my opinion it would be better for her to stay single, and I think I am giving you counsel from God’s Spirit when I say this.¹²

My mother remained without a husband or a man in her life and dedicated her life to loving God and her neighbors.

Even though my mother was poor and single, she would accept and help to nurture a number of other people’s children, and she was happy doing so. She had faith that God would provide, and God provided. Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.¹³ The life my mother lived was a witness and verification that there is a living God and that God is faithful and just and hears the cry of the downtrodden. She gave up her burdens to God. Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.¹⁴

Among other reasons, my mother’s example was enough demonstration for me to, after a while, not worry as much and seek the kingdom of God.

So don’t worry about these things, saying, What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.¹⁵

I have faith. My mother’s life of faith is an example of strength in times of distress.

My mother died at age ninety-six and left me a beyond-earthly priceless legacy in my heart, a legacy left through her examples of sharing, caring, love for people, love for God, and an indomitable faith living a life pleasing to God. My mother’s life of faith