"Full Court Press"

Full Court Press

The devil targets your heart. The devil targets your body. And, the third area the devil targets is your mouth. These are the three battlegrounds where the enemy puts on a full court press against the children of God. And if you are not aware of this strategy, you will be caught off guard. Now, the Bible says in 1 Peter 5:8 (ESV), “Be sober minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 

He is prowling. He is watching. He is looking for an entry point into your life. And today, I want to show you exactly where he aims his attacks so that you can guard yourself and stand firm in the power of God. The first area the devil targets is your heart.

There is a reason God’s word tells us in Proverbs 4:23 (NIV), “Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it.” Above all else, that means this is the highest priority. More important than guarding your money, more important than guarding your reputation, more important than guarding your career. Guard your heart because everything you do flows from it.

Your thoughts flow from it. Your actions flow from it. Your desires flow from it. Your decisions flow from it. If the heart is corrupted, everything that comes out of it will be corrupted. And so I ask you today, are you guarding what you allow to come into your heart? What is the state of your heart right now? The Bible says in Hebrews 3:15 (NKJV), “Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Now, what does it mean to have a hardened heart? Someone with a hardened heart is spiritually blind. They are insensitive toward the things of the Lord. They are only focused on chasing after their own desires instead of the things of God. A hardened heart rejects God. And that is exactly what the enemy wants. Because the greatest commandment is “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the devil wants us to be disobedient to the command of giving God all of our heart. 

So, what does the enemy do? He’s subtle. He doesn’t come with a banner that says, “I’m here to steal your heart from God.” No, he dangles people, things and desires in front of you. Anything to distract you, anything to erect a false god in your life that you don’t even realize you have. Think about Eve in the Garden of Eden. Her heart was perfectly aligned with God. She walked in his presence. She had everything she needed, but the serpent was subtle. He didn’t attack her with force. He dangled something in front of her.

The Bible says in Genesis 3:6 (NIV) that Eve “saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” It appealed to her heart. It redirected her desires. And one shift in the heart’s direction led to the fall of humanity.

This is how the enemy works. He doesn’t always attack your heart with something obviously evil. He attacks it with something that looks good, something that seems harmless, but it quietly turns your heart away from God degree by degree until one day you wake up and realize that God is no longer first.

Think about Solomon. the wisest man who ever lived. A man who had built the temple of God. A man who had stood in the very presence of the Almighty. And yet the Bible says in 1 Kings 11:4 (NIV), “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods. And his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God.” 

His heart was turned not overnight, not in a single moment, gradually through relationships that pulled him away from God. Through desires that replaced devotion, through compromise that harden what was once soft and surrendered. Guard your heart because the enemy is always looking for a way in. 

Now, the second area the devil attacks is your body. The Bible says Romans 12:1 (NLT), “I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”

Our bodies should be given to the Lord as vessels through which he can work. They are temples of the Holy Spirit. They are instruments of righteousness. They belong to God. But the enemy will tempt you to defile your body. And one of the primary ways he does this is through sexual immorality. From the beginning of time until now, many men and women have managed to overcome great trials and tests of faith but crumbled because of sexual sin. It has brought down kings. It has destroyed ministries. It has shattered families. And the Bible takes it so seriously that it uses a word that is reserved for very few sins.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:18 (NKJV), “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” Flee, not resist, not manage, not negotiate with. Flee. Run from it as though your life depends on it. Because spiritually speaking, it does. 

Think about how serious it must be for the Bible to use the word flee when talking about sexual sin. The Bible doesn’t say flee from lying. It doesn’t say flee from gossip. But when it comes to sexual immorality, it says flee. Because the damage this sin does is uniquely destructive. It is a sin against your own body, against the very temple of the Holy Spirit. 

Think about Samson, a man anointed by God with supernatural strength, set apart from birth, called for a divine purpose. But Samson did not flee from sexual temptation. He lingered. He entertained it. He allowed Delilah to wear him down day after day and it cost him his eyes, his strength, his freedom, and ultimately his life. But contrast Samson with Joseph. 

In Genesis 39, Potiphar’s wife tried repeatedly to seduce Joseph. And the Bible says that when she grabbed him by his garment, Joseph didn’t reason with her. He didn’t negotiate. He didn’t linger. He ran. He literally fled and left his garment in her hand. Samson stayed and lost everything. Joseph fled and God elevated him. Two men, two responses to sexual temptation. Two very different outcomes. Don’t open the door to sexual sin. Flee from it. Because if you open that door, the devil will get a foothold in your life. Only Jesus can set you free from those chains. 

Now, the third area the devil targets is your mouth, your words, your speech. The devil knows that we can cause tremendous damage with our mouths if we do not bring them under God’s control. The Bible says in Proverbs 18:21(NKJV), “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.” Death and life. Your mouth has the power to give life or to bring death. And the enemy knows this. This is why he wants you to gossip. He wants you to murmur and complain. He wants you to speak negatively and with profanity. He wants you to use your tongue as a weapon of destruction instead of an instrument of peace. 

Think about the children of Israel in the wilderness. Their mouths were full of complaint, full of murmuring, full of doubt and accusation against God and against Moses. And their words had consequences. An entire generation died in the wilderness. Their mouths, their words disqualified them from the promised land.

But think about David, a man who used his mouth to praise God in every circumstance, in the palace and in the cave, in victory and in defeat, in seasons of blessing and in seasons of being hunted. David’s mouth was always full of worship. And the Bible calls him a man after God’s own heart. The Bible says in James 3:9-10 (NIV), “with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” 

The same mouth that worships God on Sunday should not be gossiping about someone on Monday. The same lips that sing hymns should not be lying and slandering. The same tongue that declares the word of God should not be full of profanity and negativity. Our mouths should be declaring the word of God. Our mouths should be testifying of the goodness of the Lord. 

Our mouths should be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what the tongue was designed for.

So be aware of the areas in which the enemy comes after you. Be aware of his tricks, but don’t be afraid. Don’t be fearful. Because I want to remind you that regardless of how the devil comes at you, Jesus Christ can protect you, defend you, and deliver you. But this only happens when you run to him. When you seek the Lord, when you don’t let your guard down. The Bible says in James 4:7 (ESV), “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee. Not you fleeing from him, he is fleeing from you. Because when you are submitted to God, when you are guarding your heart, honoring God with your body and controlling your tongue, the enemy has no foothold, and he must flee. 

Just know and believe that we serve a God that is awesome and mighty. He is the God who protects, the God who defends, the God who delivers. and we should run to him today. The Bible says in Revelation 3:20 (NKJV), “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me.” 

Conclusion

Today, let’s open our hearts to Jesus. Ask him to come in. Dwell with us and purge us of all sin. To guard our hearts. Show us every idol we have erected without even realizing it. Show us every desire that has quietly taken his place and uproot it. Then ask Jesus to remove it and restore our hearts to the place where he alone sits on the throne. Ask Jesus to set us free from pride, from anger, from unforgiveness, from everything that has hardened our hearts towards him and others. Ask Jesus to give us hearts of flesh that are soft and surrendered and sensitive to his voice. Then thank Jesus for dying on the cross to save a “wretched like me.” To be our risen Savior. To be our Messiah. Jesus died for us. The very least we can do is give all of our heart to him. Amen and Hallelujah.