For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 11:14 (NKJV)
Background: About 6 years ago now, I started attending “School of Worship” taught by my spiritual mama, Cheryl Salem. I’d known of Cheryl since I was a little girl watching her win Miss America way back when. I actually met her in the early 2000’s, but lost connection until Covid.
I don’t know how I discovered her channel, but I’ve been connected to her in real life and online since then. She has taught me so much about myself and my relationship with God. She was the first person that I truly connected to that I felt understood me as a worshiper.
And she also introduced me to my best friend, Pastor Laura Cokonougher. From the moment I “met” Laura online, we clicked. We just…clicked. I don’t know how else to describe it. We just get each other. We don’t have to talk all the time, but I know that if I needed her she’d be there and vice-versa.
It is through Laura and the House of Prayer Church in Haslett, MI that I was introduced to Terry and Renee Mize. Not formally, but watching them when they’d visit Laura’s church.
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Now, that might seem like a long introduction to what I will talk about in this post, but I wanted you to understand how I came to watch The Mizes YouTube channel this week.
I started following their channel last year. Truth be told, I haven’t watched a lot of their videos, but I was subscribed and got notifications on my phone. On Wednesday, I decided to click on one of them.
“What the Devil Knows That Many Christians Forgot” was the title of the video. I was only casually listening because, well, I get distracted easily sometimes. But I heard Brother Terry say this:
The devil is poking at you because he is trying to see what will distract you.
Whoosh. Did I just say I get distracted easily or what? It is all about distraction, I wrote in my journal. Then his wife, Renee, said:
He (the devil) will try to distract you with fear.
How many of us can say, Don’t I know that? I started thinking of how long I have walked in anxiety and fear in my life. It started when I was a child and has continued to this day. It isn’t as bad now, but I still deal with it far too often.
As I kept listening, one of them said this:
The devil is trying to start fires within you.
PING!!!
My ears perked up and suddenly I was all in on this teaching.
I wrote in my journal, “The devil’s fires bring turmoil and chaos. They are counterfeit fires.”
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Genesis 15 tells the story of Abram. After Abram rescued his nephew, Lot, from captivity, the Lord visits Abram in a vision. This is where God made His covenant with Abram about his offspring – God would make them as numerous as the stars.
Abram believed & it was counted to him as righteousness (verse 6). It is at this point where the Lord instructs Abram to bring a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Abram prepared and laid them out as the Lord instructed.
And here is where fire is mentioned for the first time in relation to God, verse 17 (ESV): When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.
Fire is often mentioned in the Bible as a sign of His Presence. Moses saw the bush that was burning but not being burnt. The Israelites traveled by a cloud by day and a fire by night. Hebrews 12:29 (NKJV) says, “For our God is a consuming fire.”
That is God’s Presence. His Holy Presence.
Repeating myself here, but what did I write in my journal? “The devil’s fires bring turmoil and chaos. They are counterfeit fires.”
2 Corinthians 11:14 talks about how “…For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” John 8:44 (ESV) says this about the devil, “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
He transforms – one translation describes it as masquerading – as an angel of light. He’s a liar. Counterfeit!
Counterfeit is defined as imitating something or, as one dictionary puts it, “to try to deceive by pretense or dissembling”. Do you see that? “Try to deceive!” The devil is a deceiver. He can transform himself into an angel of light to deceive.
He is the father of lies.
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Let’s go back to what Terry Mize said, “The devil is poking at you because he is trying to see what will distract you.”
Over the past few years – no, off and on since the early 2000’s – the word fire…I have had such a connection with that word. I can remember after I got saved, we would sing this song with the lyrics that said, “Consume me, Consume me with Your fire, O Lord. Consume me. Consume me with Your love. Consume me with Your Spirit, O Lord. That I may know the fullness of Your love.”
That was 35 years ago and I still remember that song.
Even earlier this year, the Lord was talking to me specifically about fires again – His Holy Fire in me because of His Holy Spirit. Fire has come up so often that I almost thought “fire” or “kindling” was going to be my word for 2026. (It wasn’t. But it did play a part in my word, “new”. See What’s Your Word?)
At the most recent “School of Worship” this past January, it felt like all I kept hearing was “fire”. I even wrote these words in the image down in my journal:
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There is a reason why I have always identified with fire since I got saved. I am a fire starter.
Meditating on what The Mizes were talking about, it dawned on me that the devil is constantly trying to stir things up in me, particularly in the area of fear.
Fear. Fire. How do they connect?
What did I say earlier? “The devil’s fires bring turmoil and chaos. They are counterfeit fires.” How about this? I also wrote, “The fear of man is a fire stirred up by the devil.”
So, if the devil is trying to “poke” or, my words, stir me up so that I am in fear. Fear about what? Anything that matters to me, I guess is the best way to put it.
That fear, for me, manifests in different ways. The most common way for me right now is anxiety. I fight anxiety over relationships, with my husband, kids, family, friends, co-workers, other Christians, etc. But the biggest area of fear is my relationship with myself and God.
Am I hearing God? Am I in God’s will? Should I do this or that? Did I miss it? Why, God? That anxiety and fear can so grip me that the mental gymnastics becomes exhausting.
The devil’s fires bring turmoil and chaos. They are counterfeit fires.
That’s what anxiety feels like to me; turmoil and chaos. I am a fire starter, but the devil tries to poke and prod me with fear, thereby creating a counterfeit fire within me with his turmoil and chaos.
Does that make sense? The devil is poking and prodding me in the area of fear to create a counterfeit fire because I am a fire starter. The Holy Spirit dwells within me. Holy Spirit carries the fire, not me. If the devil can get my eyes off of God, he will keep me from speaking and preaching the fire that God has called me to do.
The enemy loves to stir up fear and anxiety in people. But the Bible talks about another kind of stirring that is a much better way. In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul encourages young Timothy to “stir up the gift of God which is in you”.
Stir up the gift of God which is in you.
Commentary on this verse says the Greek word there for “stir up” denotes the kindling of a fire. In other words, keep the fire going, Timothy. Keep the fire of God’s spirit, the fire and spirit of that first love, flowing in you.
Keep stirring it up! I can’t just do it once and call it good. Otherwise, the fire will go out. No, the Christian faith, this walk with Jesus, demands that we stir it up each and every day. Demand may sound harsh, but the devil isn’t playing fair.
Right now, there is a counterfeit fire at my feet. The devil is working hard to keep me there by stirring it up to keep it going. But I have a holy fire inside of me.
There are rolling flames of fire shut up in my bones, flowing over those I intercede for. God is sending me to places to start fires. I am a fire starter. The more of Him in me, the greater the fire. (1/21/26)
Just as Hebrews 10:23, I hold to that as my confession of hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
I am a fire starter.
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