Chapter 1 - Introduction to This Book

Everyone loves fairy tales, especially children. Who doesn’t love those famous stories of heroes and heroines?

When I was a young kid, I loved the stories, especially when the bad guy got sorted out, and everyone lived happily ever after. Growing up, I could not handle pressure at all, so I lived in a fantasy world that was always peaceful and stress-free.

I have to laugh now, because when I was about 16 or 17, I decided to try and write a kids’ book. In this book, two young girls stowed away on a ship. They were caught, but in the story, I still had the people who caught them having tea and cookies with them.

How unrealistic can you get! I soon learned that this was not the way life went, and I had to learn to start facing the stresses and realities of life.

Getting back to the fairy tales, the stories I loved most were the ones that included a genie who gave you three wishes. Or the fairy godmother waving her magic wand, and in an instant everything changed.

Your needs were met, you had abundant finances, and you never had to worry about that again. Or whatever was wrong with you physically miraculously came right. You had abundant energy, and could do amazing things that you couldn’t do before.

Wouldn’t living in that kind of fantasy world where such things happened be nice? But the harsh reality is that it doesn’t usually happen, and not very easily. Your life most likely consists of being the victim of the bad guy, who puts pressure on you and stops you from succeeding.

In the Beginning

In the beginning of the world, there was a perfect situation. There was no stress, no pressure from the ‘bad guys’, and no restrictions.

Adam and Eve had a life that I’m sure you could describe as heaven on earth. Actually, they didn’t know what it was like to live any other way.

It must have been wonderful, but they didn’t know anything different. I guess it was what they considered life to be like.

And let’s face it, they should have continued to live in their utopian-type world. Then, as they began to multiply and replenish the earth as God told them to do, all those who came after them would have also lived in that beautiful, stress-free world.

That is the way the Lord designed it to be in the beginning. And I don’t think He even considered that there would be any problems. It would carry on like He had created, being full of peace, beauty, and good things.

God gave Adam and Eve the authority to rule and reign on the earth. They could say what they wanted, and they could command the way things took place on the earth. That is pretty much having ultimate power in your hands.

As they kept God in the picture, nothing could go wrong because their attitude would be correct. They would not want to usurp the authority the Lord gave them, and everything would continue as normal.

Enter the Antagonist, the Bad Guy

This story would have continued to be like a fairy tale, with everyone being happy to the end of time. But Satan became jealous and wanted the authority that Adam and Eve had.

Why was this? Because he wanted to use the power and authority that the Lord had given them for himself. He had already tried this stunt before the earth was recreated.

Isaiah talks about this in Isaiah 14:12 to 14. It says,

Look how you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer [light bringer], son of the morning! Look how you have been cut down to the ground, who used to disable the nations!

For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Satan had tried to rise up and take over the power of Almighty God. Up until that point, he had been the head of the Worship Angels, and he caused music to sound in heaven 24 hours a day.

But now he was no longer content to do that. He wanted to become like God. He wanted to have that power and authority in His hands like the Lord had.

But here is the difference. The Lord never designed man to use that power and authority for evil. Satan, however, wanted to change things from all the good that God had made and use his power for evil.

God threw Satan out of heaven, and he became a serpent, a despicable, despised creature. If you look at the account of the fall, starting in Genesis 3:1, the word serpent means a snake. So there was nothing good or uplifting about him.

If you think about it, Satan received the ultimate downgrade in status. He went from being one of the highest angels in heaven to being a snake. I don’t think you can get anything worse than that.

Falling for the Bait

A snake tries to worm its way in and harm people. And that is exactly what he tried to do with Eve when he first tempted her.

He tried to make Eve change her way of thinking. Until then, she thought God’s thoughts. She knew that they were pure, uplifting, and focused on the good. But now Satan tried to make her think that things were not all good.

He did this by trying to make her think that God was withholding something from her and Adam. And unfortunately, Eve fell for it and gave in to his tricks.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. We know that all the nonsense entered the earth, and things began to go downhill. The blessing that God had poured onto them in the Garden of Eden was no longer there, and a curse entered the world.

The Nature of Satan

Let’s look now at Satan’s nature because it is the total opposite of God’s nature. Two things stand out the most in this regard.

Here is the first thing. Satan is a liar. He cannot tell the truth, even if he wants to. Jesus says this in John 8:44. He was speaking to those who had rejected Him as Savior, and He says,

You are from your father the devil, and the cravings of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not remain in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature: for he is a liar, and the originator of it.

God, on the other hand, only speaks the truth. And when He speaks the truth to you, it sets you free, as it says in John 8:32.

And you will come to know the truth [real thing], and that truth [or reality] will set you free.

Here is the second thing that stands out about Satan’s nature. He wants to try to wipe out all the good that the Lord introduced when He created the world. If you read Genesis Chapter 1, you will see that it says all the time,

And God saw that it was good.

In the beginning of the creation, God created nothing bad at all. There was peace, love, security, abundance, etc. But Satan, the antagonist, wanted to reverse everything and pour his evil nature into the earth.

This is what it says in John 10:10.

The thief comes to do nothing but steal, kill and destroy: I came so that they may continually have [zoe] life, and have [it] in far greater measure.

We have found that there are three clear things that Satan tries to do in your life to bring a curse. They are to steal, kill, and destroy, and they can affect any of these main areas of your life: your health, wealth, or relationships.

God’s Plan to Change Things

God does not want you to continue to walk under a curse, which is the way Satan would like it. He invested too much into His creation in the first place, and He wanted you and me to walk in continual blessing.

So when Satan ‘upset the apple cart’, so to speak, God immediately made a plan to step in and change things for the better. He took action to reverse the negative things and make way for blessing to come into our lives again.

That is why He sent Jesus to be our Savior, and He became the ‘good guy’, or like the protagonist in a story. When He was crucified and died on the cross, Jesus took away every negative and destructive thing that Satan tried to bring into our lives.

It’s like Jesus swept it all away and threw it into the sea. And now He has made a way for every negative thing in your life to turn around. How? By believing in Him and acknowledging what He did for you. When you do this, you cause abundant blessing and victory to come into your life.

Even as a believer, the antagonist, Satan, still tries to bring destruction and problems to you. It is as though you joined the opposition team, and now he will be gunning for you to stop the Lord’s blessing in your life.

Hope for the Future

Right now, you may be thinking that all is lost and there is nothing that you can do. You will always be target practice for the enemy.

But I want you to know that there is hope, and that you can walk in the blessing that the Lord has for you. You just need to know how to close the doors that Satan tries to get you to open so that he can gain access into your life. And then you need to open the doors of blessing that the Lord has for you.

Satan is subtle. He tried to lure Eve to sin so that he could get access to the blessing in mankind. And now he will often try to do the same with you.

He wants to lure you into a place where he can get access to you to cause problems in your life. But he cannot win if you know his strategies and how to block them.

Your spiritual life is a lot like a movie or a novel. In either of those media, you always have the antagonist or bad guy, and the protagonist or good guy, who is trying to change things.

So, this book has two practical parts to it. In the first part, I want to show you how Satan, the antagonist, tries to get access into your life. I will show you how he tries to steal, kill, and destroy, and bring bad things into your life.

But then in the second part, I want to show you how you can stop Satan’s plans and turn your life around. I will show you how the Lord Jesus is like the protagonist. He wants to bring every good thing into your life and reverse what Satan tries to do.

Your spiritual walk doesn’t need to be difficult. You can walk in the abundant life of blessing that the Lord Jesus gives to you.

There is a third part as well. In this part, I share a whole lot of Scripture promises that can help you get victory in your spiritual life. I will share more about how you can use these Scriptures in the second part of the book.

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Always Blessed - Chapter 1 of 25