Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil. Ephesians 6:11 (AMPC)
As believers, do we need to be afraid of the devil?
To find the answer to that question, first I want you to notice what today’s verse doesn’t say. It doesn’t say that we need to fight against the power of the devil. You see, Satan is not powerful; he’s just a deceiver. He doesn’t come at us with power; he comes at us with lies to try to wear us down and trick us into believing the worst so we give up hope.
But we can stand against the enemy’s strategies by putting on God’s whole armour—in other words, by renewing our minds in God’s Word.
Every time you grow in your understanding of a principle in the Bible, you’re putting on that piece of armour. The more you understand righteousness, for example, the less Satan can affect you in that area. If something bad happens to you, he might try to trick you into thinking that God allowed it because he’s angry with you. But the more you understand how Jesus won right standing for you, the easier it is to throw that thought away. You’ll combat it by saying, “No, Jesus qualified me and I’m blessed because of him, not because I’ve earned it!”
The more you get into God’s Word, the less Satan can deceive you. The truth is he’s powerless to hurt you, and every lie he tries to sneak by you can be deflected by the right bit of truth from God’s Word.