Have you ever questioned God’s goodness in a season of waiting? Felt shame so deep you couldn’t pray? Believed a lie so subtle you didn’t even recognize it as deception?

In this powerful episode of Born to be a Butterfly, host Nina Pajonas dives deep into the tactics of the enemy—and how he uses distortion, isolation, and shame to lead us away from God. Drawing from Matthew 4:1–11 and the story of Jesus in the wilderness, Nina unpacks how Satan twists truth, targets our identity, and tempts us to doubt the Father’s love.

You’ll learn how to recognize spiritual manipulation and strengthen your discernment in a world full of lies. If you’ve ever felt spiritually confused, emotionally drained, or mentally trapped by negative thoughts, this episode is for you! 

💌 Have a story to share or need prayer? Please email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you!

📖 Ready to go deeper? Order my book, From Broken To Butterfly, on Amazon today! ⁠⁠https://a.co/d/8kK4hj1⁠⁠

🔔 Don’t forget to follow Born to be a Butterfly so you never miss an episode!

Born to be a Butterfly © 2025 Nina Pajonas All rights reserved. The content of this podcast is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect those of any affiliated organizations. For a full disclaimer, visit ⁠⁠ninapajonas.com⁠⁠.

Have you ever questioned God's goodness in A Season of waiting?

Felt shame so deep you couldn't pray?

Or believed a lie so subtle that you didn't even realize it was a lie until much later?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, don't feel bad because you're not alone. The enemy is an expert at deception. It is the weapon he uses to defeat and destroy us.

But today I will explain how we can spiritually protect ourselves from his attacks.

Welcome to Born to Be a Butterfly, where we embrace healing and growth in Christ to experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajones, and today's episode is Deciphering Exposing the Lies of the Enemy.

This subject has weighed heavily on my heart.

It seemed to be a constant theme in situations I found myself in, which is why I'm tackling it with you, my sisters. In Christ.

The Lord led me to a specific piece of scripture to give us clarity, and I'm eager to share it with you.

We've got a lot to cover, or better yet, uncover.

So let's get started.

I'll begin with the meaning of the word deception.

Deception is the action of deceiving someone by distorting their perception of reality.

It is a slight alteration of a situation.

Notice that they use the word slight.

Sometimes we think that lies have to be big, to be hurtful and to have a significant impact.

But that's not always the case.

Sometimes small lies are more damaging and difficult to discern because they're the easiest to believe.

Lies wrapped in truth are the hardest to uncover. But I will discuss how we can decipher them by exposing the motives behind them.

Because when we can better understand the motives, we can clearly see the tactics that the enemy uses to try to take us away from God.

The enemy is the father of lies. He will lie to us, distort the Word, and shame us because he wants to mislead us.

Listen to what I just said.

Mislead.

He is trying to pull us off the path of righteousness.

The road is narrow, my sisters. It is not easy,

and the enemy knows it, and he wants to take us off of it.

And now I'm going to dive into Matthew 4:1 11 NIV because this is the scripture that the Lord led me to.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

The tempter came to him and said, if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

Jesus answered, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Let's stop here for a minute and dissect this.

The first word out of Satan's mouth is if he says, if you are the Son of God, which is a way of questioning and mocking Jesus.

Satan was trying to make Jesus live in his own will.

If Jesus had fed himself, he would not have been faithful, he would have been prideful.

Fasting draws us closer to God through sacrifice and discipline. And the enemy is fully aware of that.

Satan was trying to get Jesus to break fast because then Jesus would have been disobedient.

He would have been focusing on his own needs,

doubting God's provision and taking matters into his own hands.

There is a lot going on here.

There is massive manipulation through temptation.

But let's also look at how Jesus combats this.

He quotes scripture and reaffirms his allegiance to God.

He makes it abundantly clear that he prioritizes pleasing and obeying his heavenly Father rather than satisfying his immediate needs.

Sacrifice strengthens us spiritually.

So over those 40 days, Jesus kept growing stronger and Satan did not want that.

Let's move on to the next verse.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the bull. If you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down for it.

If you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down. Down. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus answered him. It is also written,

do not put the Lord your God to the test.

The devil uses the Word if again,

he's still trying to cast doubt and suspicion on Jesus identity.

It didn't work the first time, but that doesn't stop Satan.

The enemy quotes scripture to seem as though he can be trusted. He is trying to validate himself and what he says by using Scripture.

The evil one will even resort to distorting the Word to get his way with us.

That's why I'm always emphasizing the importance of Scripture,

of reading the Bible and living it.

The enemy was trying to use the Word as a weapon against Jesus.

But the Lord was and is the living Word, so he could not be fooled.

In the Bible we are told not to test God.

If Jesus had tested God, it would have meant that he didn't trust God.

The enemy is cunning because he's trying to mislead Jesus by quoting only part of the Word, which is a massive Misinterpretation of it.

Let's move on to the next verse.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me.

Jesus said to him, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him.

Satan was trying to get Jesus to be dis.

He was tempting the Lord by promising him power.

He was trying to appeal to Jesus pride. But the Lord put the enemy in his place.

He recited scripture that stated, we are only to serve the Lord our God.

The enemy said he could make Jesus more powerful, but he doesn't even have that authority.

So even that was a lie.

He brings Jesus to the top of the temple, to the highest point.

And we need to ask ourselves why?

Why would Satan give Jesus the physical experience of feeling like he was above everything?

Because it would give Jesus the feeling of being superior.

We must see the details here.

Satan is very sneaky and everything he does is is intentional, diabolical and evil.

We must not lose sight of that.

The evil one is trying to provoke Jesus ego and pride in this moment.

And the enemy will do the same to us because he knows just how quickly both can take us away from the Lord.

He knows it well, because ultimately that was his downfall.

Satan no longer questioned Jesus identity because he realized it was an ineffective tactic.

Instead, the evil one implied that Jesus identity was something to be ashamed of, that he should be more, and that God was in the way of that.

Before I go any further, I want to point out something.

The enemy never stopped attacking Jesus. He simply changed the method of his attacks. And he will do the very same thing to us.

I say this because we can't pat ourselves on the back too hard if we don't fall for one of his tricks. Instead, we must be aware that he will try to deceive us in another way.

We must not get too comfortable in the victory or we will be his victims the next time.

There are many lessons to be learned here, so stay with me.

The enemy was trying to put a seed of distrust into the heart of our Savior.

He was trying to trick Jesus into thinking that God was withholding power from him and that Jesus should be dissatisfied.

Now let's dig into this.

What happens when we are dissatisfied?

Well,

we might take matters into our own hands.

Much like Adam and Eve in the garden.

The serpent convinced them to eat the Fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

He deceived them by convincing them that they should have what God didn't want them to have.

But the truth is that God was trying to protect them. That's why he said no. That's why he said they couldn't eat from the tree.

The Lord knew that eating from it would ultimately destroy them. And it did.

Sin and shame immediately entered the garden. And then Adam and Eve were made to leave.

We have to look at this sometimes. God doesn't give us what we want because he knows that ultimately it will hurt us.

But Satan wants us to believe that God's protection is a lack of provision.

He does that so that we become dissatisfied and resentful, because sooner or later that will lead to us becoming disobedient and walking in our own will.

We are far more likely to walk with the Lord faithfully if we believe with all of our hearts and souls that he is taking great care of us.

So what does the enemy want to do?

He wants us to question God and lose faith in his promises.

He doesn't want us to live fully in our identity because he doesn't want us to fulfill our divine destiny.

The Lord says he will never leave you or forsake you. So Satan tries to get us to leave the Lord.

The Lord won't take his hand off of us. But what if we rip his hand off of us in disgust because we listen to the lies of the enemy who told us that we aren't enough and that we will never be enough.

That God is not for us, he's against us. That when we don't have what we want, it's because God is being stingy and he'll never supply.

Sounds silly when I put it that way, doesn't it?

I wish it was that simple, to see the forest from the trees. But when we are in the wilderness and vulnerable,

the lies of the enemy,

they sound really believable.

But it's really important that we don't listen to a word that he says.

Recently I saw a movie where there was a con artist who convinced a woman of a world he wanted her to believe in.

He said that he was a spy and that he wanted to recruit her so she thought she was in training to be a spy.

After years of molding her into the incredible spy she wanted to become,

he left her alone in the middle of nowhere with no resources.

He left her to die.

He told her it was a spy assignment. And I thought to myself,

this poor woman is a prisoner of her own mind.

But aren't we all when we believe the lies of the enemy?

The woman didn't know the truth from a lie anymore because she had been living a lie for so long.

The con man had changed her perception of reality.

But he was also able to deceive her because she didn't know who she was anymore.

It was the ultimate case of mistaken identity. But it was with herself.

The con man had pulled her away from her family, and he kept her isolated.

He made sure that his voice was the only one that she heard.

He succeeded in destroying this woman's life by changing her identity,

isolating her, and shaming her.

That's why we must live in the Word.

How did Jesus fight Satan in the wilderness?

He kept referring to the Word.

How do you think Jesus stayed spiritually strong against all those temptations?

Jesus says that his sheep know his voice,

and we are his sheep.

But how will we recognize his voice if we aren't in the Word constantly,

or in prayer or listening to the Holy Spirit?

There are three ways that we can hear from him, yet we must participate and put forth the effort.

Jesus is a gentleman.

He doesn't force his way into our lives.

In Scripture, he often says, come to me.

It's a daily invitation,

and we need to accept it.

Now I'm going to jump back to the movie that I was talking to you about.

How did the conman get the girl to believe his lies?

He isolated her, lied to her, and put her in shackles of shame mentally.

The woman looked terrified when he left her, but she was even more terrified to reach out for help.

He had her right where he wanted her, and that's exactly what the enemy wants to do to us.

It doesn't matter where we are. If we believe his lies, we can create the illusion of a wilderness in our own minds.

I was amazed when I saw that the woman in the movie was cowering and hiding from the world.

But again,

isn't that what we do when we are in the shackles of shame? When we feel defeated, when we feel like we're not enough?

Don't we hide away from the world and even sometimes the one who created the world?

The sad part is that it's easier to believe lies rather than the truth sometimes,

and there are multiple reasons for that, but I'll focus on one of them for now.

For those of us who have experienced trauma or abuse in our stories, it can be easier to believe the negative things that the enemy says about us because we've had horrible things happen to us in our lives.

And that can make us feel horrible about ourselves.

It can make us vulnerable in our walk, because we're not used to walking in victory.

We're used to walking in weakness,

in defeat.

The enemy knows that it's easier for us to accept what we're accustomed to, even if it's anguish and anger.

That's one of the tactics that the devil uses to defeat and destroy us.

And the other one is shame.

Satan wants to shame you so that you don't turn to your Lord and Savior for help.

The enemy tells you lies about yourself and then tries to trap you in his snare of shame so that you'll lay there in the wilderness, wounded and bleeding, and you won't even feel like you have the right to call out to Christ.

That's the tactic that the enemy uses to get us to imprison ourselves without an actual jail.

We must always seek God,

even when we don't feel worthy,

even when we think there's no way he could forgive us.

We must seek the Lord.

We must turn to Him. We must cry out to Him.

We have a Savior,

and he wants to save us.

So don't ever deny yourself the opportunity to be helped and healed by the Lord.

That's literally what he is there for.

So in those moments when you have doubt and you think, oh, no, no, there's no way he would want to deliver me from this. Please stop yourself immediately in your tracks.

The enemy does not want you to call out for help.

He does not want you to call out to Christ.

But don't you dare.

Don't you dare deny yourself your Lord and Savior when you need him the most.

We have covered so much today, and I bet at this point you're probably thinking,

so what should I do?

What can I do when the enemy is attacking me every single day and he's trying to deceive me in all these different ways?

The answer is make sure you seek the kingdom first in everything you do. Make sure you commit yourself to reading the Bible consistently.

And last but not least,

establish a solid foundation of sisterhood.

There are three reasons you should do this.

When I say, make sure you seek the kingdom first in everything you do, I say that because when you seek the kingdom first,

you're constantly seeking God.

And God is the only, only one who can give us clarity through the gift of discernment,

which is when we rely on his wisdom, not our own.

But we can only do this by spending time in his presence.

We do this by praying every day and asking the Lord to guide us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We ask him to give us clarity where there is confusion, and we practice patience while waiting for his answers.

Number two. We must also stay grounded in the Word because we learn lessons from it quite often. I've heard people say I can't hear God,

but we must remember that when we're reading the Bible, we are hearing directly from from Him.

And I would also encourage you to write notes about what you're learning,

especially the things that you know that you struggle with.

3. Sisterhood supplies us with the support we need so that we don't grow weary on our walk.

It helps us when we lock arms with other women who are warriors for Christ.

And sometimes they're the ones that God uses to tell us where there are weaknesses in our walk.

Now, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, and I encourage you to put some time aside to reflect on them through prayer.

Number one. Have you believed any half truths that sound spiritual but lack the foundation of Scripture?

For example, God helps those who help themselves or that you're too broken for God to use?

Think about any misinterpretations of the Word that you've heard and that you've accepted as truth.

Are there blessings or breakthroughs that the enemy has kept you from by convincing you to settle for less,

stay silent or stay stuck?

I really want you to take some time and ponder these questions because the goal of the enemy is to keep you from running the race that God has for you.

The goal of the enemy is that you never make it to the finish line of glory so that you do not get to spend eternity with our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior.

And you want to know why that's his goal?

Because he could never go back.

He will never be forgiven for all the things that he has done yet. We are children of Christ who have sinned. Sinned incredibly, but yet we are sanctified through the Spirit.

But yet we are forgiven.

Jesus blood washes away our sin.

It did then and it does now.

Jesus blood washes away our sin,

but it will never wash away Satan's sin.

So what is the best way that the enemy can hurt our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior?

The best way he can hurt both of them is by preventing their children from getting to live with them in paradise for all eternity.

The way he hurts them is to get us to walk off the narrow road of our own accord and start living a life of sin again and never repenting and destroying our relationship with the Father and the Son so that we cannot spend all of eternity with them.

That's why he's so eager and willing to do anything to get us off the path of righteousness.

Do not be fooled, my sisters. Do not be fooled.

You are crowned in glory and you are running a beautiful race.

Do not let him convince you otherwise.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for being the God of truth in a world full of lies.

Please expose any doubt or deception that has taken root in our hearts.

Give us spiritual eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart that discerns your voice above all others.

We surrender every lie we have believed and ask you to replace it with your healing truth.

In the mighty name of Jesus,

Amen.

I'd like to leave you with one more thing.

If you remember whose you are,

you'll never forget who you are.

Now repeat after me.

I am a daughter of the Most High,

the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord loves me.

He calls me his beloved. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Now go out there and conquer the world today.

Live boldly in the identity that God declared over you before the very beginning of time.

You've got so much to offer,

so much to give.

Shine your beautiful light gloriously everywhere you go and in everything you do today.

I pray that you have a blessed day.

If today's episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend and and follow Born to Be a Butterfly so that you never miss an episode.

If you would like to learn more about my journey of healing and transformation, you can get my book From Broken to Butterfly on Amazon.

If you have any questions or want to connect with me, send me a DM on Instagram @ Born to Be a Butterfly or email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com. I love hearing from you.

Until next time. Remember,

the Lord can turn your wounds into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.