James 4:7
The Bible does not support the idea of Dualism, which is a belief that God and Satan are the exact opposites of one another. This is an unbiblical view because God is supremely more powerful than Satan ever was, is, or will be; therefore Satan could never be God’s opposite because he is not divine like God is divine.
With that said, it is true that Satan does try to do things that are the opposite of God because he hates God. Therefore, since God has called many of his children to glorify him in a loving marriage one day, Satan seeks to prevent this from happening whenever he can.
So here are 3 signs Satan is trying to scare you away from love.
1. If Someone You Loved Hurt You in the Past and Now Satan Is Tempting You to Believe Love Is Not Worth the Risk of Getting Hurt Again, This Is a Sign Satan Is Trying to Scare You Away from Love
When Satan fires his arrows at our hearts, these arrows are tipped with poisonous lies. When someone we loved does something harmful to us, that is a serious wound which we must seek God’s healing for. But perhaps what does even more damage than the actual offense is the messages we often believe from Satan. For example:
- “You see? I told you love is not worth the risk. Never open up again. People are not worth the trouble.”
- “The only way to truly guard your heart is to never love again. Not loving is the only way to avoid getting hurt.”
- “Everyone is lying. Don’t ever trust anyone again. People lied to you in the past, therefore everyone will lie to you in the future.”
- “It’s just not worth it. You’d be happier single and alone than dealing with all this drama.”
God wants to use the pain in our past for good. Satan wants to use the pain in our past for bad. What you believe after you experience pain will determine what affect this pain has on you. Learn from this painful experience, but make sure you learn the truth from God and not lies from the enemy. As James 1:2-4 instructs:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
2. If You See All the Relationship Issues Out in the World and Are Trying to Avoid These Issues By Avoiding Relationships All Together, This Is a Sign Satan Is Trying to Scare You Away from Love
We have to be careful who we listen to. One of the dangers of the internet is that we can start to get a skewed vision of reality because we can become hyper focused on certain issues and consume ourselves all day online with these issues.
You can find groups of men online who hate women. If you listen to them all day, you will start to believe that everyone woman in the world is just taking selfies of themselves all day and just want a rich guy they can manipulate with sex. There are some women like this but when a man consumes video after video about the dangers of these women, he will start to imagine every woman being like this which is completely not true.
If you are a woman, you can find content online explicitly made for women who hate men. If you listen to them all day, you will start to believe the lie that toxic masculinity has infected every man on the planet and thus there is no hope for you if you want to be in a godly relationship. Certainly some men are toxic and have a warped view of masculinity, but to assume every man struggles with this is an extreme perversion of truth.
Satan wants to keep our eyes on the problems in this world rather than us keeping our eyes on the solution to the problems in this world – Jesus Christ. While we should certainly be aware of common dangers in relationships for our day and age, we must not become so consumed with these issues that we start to get scared away from love. We need to focus on Jesus more than anything else. For as Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV) states, “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
3. If You Are Afraid of Giving Up the Safety You Have Now to Experience the Possibility of a Relationship in the Future, This Is a Sign Satan Is Trying to Scare You Away from Love
There is a principle throughout the Scriptures that God usually requires us to give up what we have now before he will bless us with something even better in the future. God rarely gives us an even better blessing before we let go of what we are finding comfort in now. Usually God requires us to let go of what makes us feel safe before giving us the true longings of our hearts.
Before Abraham saw Isaac flourish in life, God tested him by asking Abraham to give him up. Only After Abraham passed the test did God confirm his blessing. In Genesis 22:15-18 it states:
And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.’”
This principle is most importantly applied to our very salvation. While grace is free, we do have to give up our former way of life to receive our new life in Christ; for as Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 16:24-25, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
While this is mostly about our salvation, this principle certainly also affects every other part of our lives as well. If you want to be blessed with love in the future, you have to let go of the safety you feel today. Love is always risk. We shouldn’t take unwise risks. We shouldn’t give our hearts to people over God. We must look for godly qualities in the person we date and then marry. But there will always be an element of recklessness in true love.
The cross of Christ is the highest expression of love, and it is rightly often referred to as the Passion of Christ. Christ’s passionate love for us caused him to forsake all safety and embrace sacrifice. If you hope to love like Christ in marriage one day, you will need to also sacrifice like Christ as well.