One of the Devil's most powerful deceptions

One of the Devil's most powerful deceptions is the oppression of free volition. He is a slavemaster seeking slaves, those who follow him blindly and passively. One of the primary ways he does this is to rush us, to overtake and overwhelm us, like a roaring lion. The devil permits no time to think or consider.

But this is his subtlety: because he knows we must choose freely to commit iniquity, there must come a point, initially or ultimately, in which we knowingly, willingly, and deliberately rebel against God. Otherwise, he cannot accuse and condemn us.

In the garden, the woman could not deny knowing God's command. She, though knowing God's command, used her own judgment and reasoning to determine her actions, instead of submission to the God of Creation. Adam was not deceived. Thus he from the beginning knowingly and deliberately disobeyed.

So it is with us. Yet from this deliberateness, Satan likes to rush us. If our normal state is one in which we thoughtlessly sin against God, he has an advantage that is tremendous.

This is why Peter commands awareness: "Be self-controlled, be watchful." In this passage, the Devil is the roaring lion, the one who paralyzes his prey, stunning her into passivity.

The moment before we think, speak, or act is the difference between life and death, heaven and hell. The awareness of the ability to choose must be guarded. I believe this is what the scriptures mean where it is written, "Guard your heart, for it is the source of your life." We are to guard our wills like a prison guard does an inmate or a prison. He determines who enters and who exits. He has the the keys the open and close doors. Our will is the key to our lives. We ultimately have one choice: to accept or reject our Creator's will.

Regret is knowing we could have done otherwise. The devil condemns and accuses us right here. He goes back to that moment of decision, that moment of deliberate rebellion or passive omission. He takes us back to the crossroad, the fork in the road of our lives. And he shows us how we knew we could have done otherwise, and how God even put obstacles in the path of sin that we ignored.

The Spirit takes us there as well, but not to condemn us. He convicts us so that we may come to the crossroad of repentance. God's Spirit wants us to turn around and go back in the direction God led. This too is a moment of truth for us. Will we return, or will we remain in rebellion and accusation?

The choice is ours. It always has been.

The united characteristics of love

It is written, "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud; it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always hopes, always trusts, always perseveres. Love never fails."

It is also written, "Love does not harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."

I noticed that patience is first in the list of what love is. I also noticed that patience is one of the fruit of the spirit (along with love, and seven other fruit.) The connection between the fruit intrigue me. These connections convince of what some theologians seem to think: that there is one fruit (love) and eight descriptions.

To decide to "suffer long" before speaking results in joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and especially, self-control. I can see why patience is listed first.

As God showed me a long time ago, patience implies a time limit. It doesn't not imply waiting indefinitely. The "three strikes and you're out," rule seems to be what Jesus gives the apostles in dealing with offenses. If a believer is offended or sinned against, he or she is to go to the offender alone, then with a witness, then before the body. The offender is given "three strikes." In other words, the offended does not have to wait indefinitely before dealing with the offense.

I've personally experienced the value of limits placed upon patience. Once when I had a very long distance to walk, I used the telephone poles to shorten the distance in my mind. I thought, "I only need to make it to the next pole." If I had focused on the whole journey, I may have lost heart.

A second experience involved me deciding to wait a whole minute before repeating a request at work. Because I knew the minute would end, being patient was alot easier.

Thus love was alot easier. I saw it as an act of love to wait, resulting in joy (or satisfaction, or a maintenance of the state of well being), peace (between me and the person I waited on). It felt like an act kindess and goodness. I felt faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. I felt free. I did no harm. I experienced the united characteristics of love.

What it means for God to be Spirit

I'm reading "Miracles," by C. S. Lewis. In it, as well as his book, "The Great Divorce," he illustrates this truth: Spirit is reality. God is reality.



When we think of spiritual things, we think of them as less tangible than the physical. But Lewis shows that they are more tangible; they are actually too tangible for words. In "The Great Divorce," a blade of grass in heaven cut like a knife. Flowers were too heavy to lift. People from earth were like mist, while people in heaven were as solid as mountains.



This is one of Lewis' most powerful quotes concerning God having no passions, "The passion of love is something that happens to us, as 'getting wet' happens to a body; and God is exempt from that 'passion' in the same way that water is exempt from 'getting wet.' He cannot be affected by love, because He is love."



Because there are concrete things, the source of all things concrete must be even more concrete than all we know.



God is reality. This is what it means for him to be Spirit.

Our true enemy

Satan and demons are our true enemies.

It is written,

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places."

This is hard to remember. We can see people, not demons. But I believe it is possible, and necessary, to know the schemes of Satan. Then we can effectively resist him, and not people, as our true enemy.

We can recognize demons through their primary weapon: Deception.

Imagine this: A wife misunderstands her husband's intentions. Instead of saying "Thank you," for the gift she bought him and put on the kitchen table as a surprise, he takes it and puts it in the closet. He never calls or acknowledges the gift from work.

The truth is, she does not know why he did this.

It is written, "No one knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him." It is also written, "From the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." In other words, unless her husband expresses in words why he put the gift in the closet, the wife simply doesn't know or understand his actions. This, and this alone, is the truth.

But if she starts to open her mind to speculation, then the devil attacks her imagination with deceptions. The husband's "silence" becomes selfishness and ungratefulness. The wife starts to feel anger welling up inside of her. The longer she goes without hearing from him, the more angry she becomes.

Furious!

The phone rings. She looks at the caller i.d. It's "him!"

She answers.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry I haven't been able to call. As soon as I got to work, my boss called me into his office for an emergency project. This is the first opportunity I've had to call. I saw your gift on the kitchen table. I wanted to wait and open it in front of you so you can see how happy you made me. Just seeing the gift made the thought of the approaching day bearable. I love you so much. You make my life good and easier to live."

Conviction.
Regret.

Earlier that day, the wife went to the closet, took the gift, and threw it away in rage. After this, Satan accused her relentlessly.

Do you see what happened?

When she focused on speculation, the devil introduced deception. She assumed that her husband was her ungrateful enemy. She retaliated.

If she had waited to find out the truth of his action, being quick to listen to him, slow to speak to him, and slow to get angry with him, she would know the truth. The truth defeats the lie.

So we can always know our enemy by deception, and the temptation of the assumption of opposition instead of unification and reconciliation. This assumption of opposition is a primary weapon of the enemy. This is what causes defensiveness. This is what causes us to have imaginary arguments in our heads about what a person will say, verses dealing with what they have said (if they've said anything at all.) This is when we take things personally that were not meant personally.

We can avoid the assumption of opposition when we seek and focus upon "what we know, and testify to what we have seen and heard." We can refuse speculation. If we do this, we will save ourselves many arguments and broken relationships. We will avoid misunderstanding and misrepresenting each other.

We will see our true enemy.

Hearing, listening, and understanding

What is the difference?



I may hear you, but I may not be listening to you. I may not be focused on understanding what you are saying and why you are saying it. I may not be focused on seeing things as you see them, whether I agree or not.



To see as others see. This is to understand.



How do we come to this?



The will.



I find and continue to find that we will hear only what we want to hear. Our wills are the keys to the doors of our ears. This amazes me.



How is it that we hear the wrong things? What makes our minds inaccurate filters of information or communication?



The will. If I am set on something in my head, I will interpret everything according to my mindset. I've seen this so many times. Arguments are pointless because of this. Two wills set. Two minds closed.



Now we need to be closed to somethings and open to others; closed to lies, open to truth. Yet are we usually in this situation in our relations or communications? Yes, there may be misunderstandings. But are we usually dealing with people who are deliberately out to deceive us?



How can we understand God if we cannot understand men and women made in God's image?

yes or no

why is it so hard to say yes or no?

what is the difficulty with simplicity?

is it so hard not to speak until one can act upon one's words, or not to promise until one can fulfill one's promises?

what if we only spoke what we knew, or testified to what we saw and heard, like the Lord Jesus? what if we spoke then acted, or promised then fulfilled, like God does?

would this not be a kind of power or perfection? imagine the impression left by one who does this. imagine a father who only speaks what he knows to his children, testifying only to what he personally saw and heard. this man would NEVER be wrong in matters of his experience, if he is honest. what if he always did what he said he would do, backing up all of his words with actions? this would be a powerful impression, an impersonation of Father God Himself.

words.


"To say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.

Never exaggerate. Never say more than you really mean.

The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that."

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them."

C.S. Lewis

beauty and authority are in these words, and in all words, when they are spoken with simpicity and honesty.

The will of God in two words

Many who believe in the Lord Jesus seek "the will of God for their lives." They seek it in the context of their entire life, identity, and destiny.

If we focus on the first words of the Lord to his disciples, the words that made them his disciples, we see that this is unnecessary. For the will of Christ for our lives can be summed up in two words:

FOLLOW ME.

By following the Spirit of Christ on a moment by moment, day by day basis, he will make us "fisher's of men," meaning he will lead us and empower us to preach the gospel and make disciples. He will also, by His Spirit, conform us to his image.

Therefore, as Francis Chan, the author of the book "Crazy Love," said wisely, we should seek to follow the Spirit every day, verses seeking an outlined or detailed plan for our lives.

As Chan said, this doesn't mean that God doesn't give plans and destinies, but it does mean that he does not promise us this. However, he does promise that if we live in agreement with the Spirit, keeping in step with him moment by moment and day by day, we will bear the fruit of the Spirit, the godly character traits that come as a result of following the Spirit.

This fits what we see in scripture from beginning to end, and what happened when the Lord called his disciples. God put Adam in the garden, and Adam worked it. He brought the animals to Adam, then Adam named them. He brought the woman to Adam, and Adam named her.

God initiates, we respond.

God told Noah how to build the ark, and Noah followed his instructions.

He told Abraham to leave his home and go to a place THAT ABRAHAM WOULD BE SHOWN! Abraham did not know where he was going or why.

When the pillar of cloud, which was a manifestation of God's presence with Israel, remained, the Israelites remained. When the pillar moved, Israel moved. Whether the pillar remained where it was for days, weeks, months, or years, Israel moved when it moved.

The apostles simply followed the Lord Jesus.

We are to simply follow His Spirit.

But some of you say, "This is not so simple."

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