How Gwen Lost the Good Fight of Faith

The "good fight of faith" referred to in the title is found in 1 Timothy 6:12

Fight the good fight of faith and win the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made your noble profession of faith before many witnesses. (Catholic Bible online)

Exert all your strength in the honourable struggle for the faith; lay hold of the Life of the Ages, to which you were called, when you made your noble profession of faith before many witnesses. (Weymouth translation)

I gave two translations. I chose the Catholic Bible because KatieLyn's family has Catholic roots, although she now attends a Baptist church. I chose the Weymouth translation because, even though it uses British English of the 1800s, it has a reputation for being good with tricky Greek idioms. So whether you call it a 'good fight' or an 'honourable struggle,' I wanted the reader to see that Paul called it a battle, a conflict, a fight, when he wrote to Timothy. In fact, when writing to the church at Philippi, he indicated that the faith fight was common to all believers and that he, Paul, continued to struggle himself. So this is not any insult or name calling on my part; it is part of the package that comes with being a believer. Gwen lost one of her big battles, and this lesson from the runaway bride is going to partially explain what went wrong.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. ~ Ephesians 6:13

Notice that the verse says that we stand against the "schemes of" the devil, not the devil himself. Other translations choose different synonyms for schemes: wiles, tactics, stratagems, artifices, ruses. They ALL involve deceit. Count on it. The devil is going to try to deceive believers in order to stop God's plan on the earth. That is who he is and what he does. He tried deceiving Joe, but Joe stood against it.¹ He tried deceiving the codependents, Gwen and KatieLyn, and was successful. Because Gwen was the dominant figure in the codependency, the devil began his scheming with her. Gwen was useful in getting KatieLyn to reject the plan that the Lord had revealed to her.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against (a) the rulers/principalities, against (b) the powers/authorities, against the (c) world forces of this darkness, against the (d) spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.  ~ Ephesians 6:12 

 Paul identified four categories of dark spirits. This is not a blog about demonology, but we do need to acknowledge that the Bible says that these entities exist and that our battle is against their schemes and tactics. The (d) evil spirits in the heavenly places are often understood to be fallen angels. The other three are found on earth and Satan uses them to control the world. The (c) dark forces of this world dominate the unsaved and can possess humans. Believers most commonly encounter demons at the lower (a) first level, archē in the Greek, principalities in the King James, means the principal or starting level; and (b) exousia in the Greek, a level of authority to influence, including making choices. These malevolent spirits are assigned to bring deceptive thoughts, ideas, suggestions, feelings, and temptations against us continually. Failure to put on the armor and resist the archē level results in oppression, a background of disquiet. Failure to put on the armor and stand against the exousia level typically presents as an obsession when a person becomes preoccupied with a thought.

When a demon does an effective job carrying out his assignment, his targeted person will fail to recognize the source of that thought and believe it came from his/her own intelligence. In such cases, the deception is complete and they totally believe the lie is true. If the wicked spirit is only partially effective, his subject will have doubts and become confused about what is true/false. If a believer fails to put on the full armor of God and resist the devil, the demonic spirit will keep coming back with more actions to strengthen the deception, often involving relationships with others who are also deceived and can be supportive in promulgating the lie.

The devil is real and has assigned his cohorts to destroy a believer's faith because without faith, it is impossible to please God. cf Hebrews 11:6.  A demon may not be able to possess believers outright, but he can mislead them into a position where they are incapable of pleasing God, thereby robbing them of additional blessings.

The purpose of the armor of God is to assist in standing against demonic deceptions. It is beyond the scope of this blog to go into a deep teaching of the armor at this time. This lesson from the runaway bride is focusing more on 'how Gwen lost' than on what tools she should have used to stand against the devil.

God speaks; He will reveal His will. Yes, the ways of God can be mysterious, and they will be mysterious for at least two classes of people: those who neglect to ask and those who have hardened their hearts. Nonetheless, God has obligated Himself to provide for your needs, including what you need to know to take the next step of faith. Ignorance of that is not a good excuse. God speaks; some hear but don't like it. When we do not readily agree with God, we become demon bait. cf Mark 4:15, 'when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word.' Gwen's behavior has shown that she was not willing to cheerfully agree with God.

God tried to tell Gwen his plan for her daughter, but she did not like what was said. When the demons started putting faith-stealing thoughts in her head, she failed to identify them as such. She was deceived into believing that it was smart and perceptive to doubt what God had revealed to her daughter. Pride kicked in: "Surely you are wiser and more experienced than your daughter," came the whispered half-truth from hell; "You need to protect your daughter from her naiveté." And Gwen agreed, "That's right!"
More thoughts came. The demons told her that online dating cannot be trusted, and she said, "That's right!" But God can and has used the internet to put people in contact.
They told her that she was getting cheated out of wedding planning because KatieLyn was going to be married in a different state, and she said, "That's right!" But no one was out to cheat her; there were solid logistical and financial reasons to make that choice.
The demons told her that KatieLyn's allergies were not compatible with Joe's dogs, and she said, "That's right!" But that wasn't her problem, and God knew about the dogs when He made His plan.
The demons told Gwen a lot of things that she liked to hear, even though they all opposed God's will for this marriage, and she said, "That's right!"
She used these thoughts to pick fights with her daughter, grinding down KatieLyn's faith until she also became confused.

The Lesson
KatieLyn, because of the codependency with her mom, never fully questioned what was behind it all. She trusted her mother to have her best interests at heart, and her mother was near total deception herself, happily rationalizing that she was doing the right thing to protect her daughter. Gwen never took up the armor of God and resisted. She cast away her confidence in what the Lord had told her daughter, cf Hebrews 10:35. She had lost the faith fight by never arming against it in the first place. In fact, she ended up supporting the opposition.

In my next post, I will discuss further how Gwen became an accomplice in separating KatieLyn from her own faith.

 ¹ Joe had some experience with how this works. He had been the best man in two other weddings and knew that devil-sent jitters were to be expected, and he knew to cast down those imaginations.