“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with God.”
If you are a Christian, you do not need to be convinced that evil is pervasive in our world. It didn’t start with our times; it started in the Garden of Eden and has continued through history. Why did God send a flood to destroy all living things on the earth? It was because of pervasive evil. Why does Revelation describe in colorful language the wrath of God that will visit the earth in the future? It is because of pervasive evil. Paul reminded the Romans, and ostensibly us, by commanding that we not be “overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” When we think of evil, we think of sexual sins, lying, cheating, stealing, etc. But there are pervasive evils that we really need to look out for, because we do not normally see them as necessarily evil, but they take a toll on our Christian living and our witness. What are these subtle evils that we Christians need to look out for? The first of these is doubt. Now, I know that all doubt is not bad, because there are some things that we need to doubt in order to go forward in life. But the devil likes to cause us to doubt our beliefs. He wants us to doubt the existence of God. He likes to point out that the natural world just happened and did not need a God to create it. He likes to cause people to doubt that the crucifixion of Jesus is really enough to finish God’s plan of salvation. He likes to cause people to doubt that it does any good to live a good Christian life. After all, Christians get sick, get in trouble, even sin, so there is nothing to the faith that Christians preach. Satan really loves causing people to doubt the word of God. Criticism of the Bible is rampant today. There are many programs on television that shed doubt on the divine inspiration of scripture. Don’t let the devil lead you to “doubt your beliefs and believe your doubts.” (Quote from Dr. Ted Adams, one of my professors at Southeastern Seminary.) The second of these is a “don’t care” attitude – indifference. All of us have to guard against this, because it sometimes hurts to care. A lot of our hurts in life come because we care deeply about something, and when what we care about falls through, we want to guard our hearts from further hurt. Make no mistake about it; Satan is the author of this attitude. He is the god of indifference in this world, and especially in Christ’s church. If he can keep us from caring about the lost souls around us, he will have won a great victory in our lives. And when a whole church develops this attitude, it is tragic. Don’t allow yourself to become indifferent about the spiritual things of life, like Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, witnessing, etc. The third of these is discouragement. If Satan can get us discouraged, he can cause us to give up and to quilt. I’ve seen it happen too many times in church work and even in the lives of preachers. When we get discouraged, we feel sorry for ourselves and forget that life is not all about us. When we think that we are the center of the universe and that everything hinges on our success, Satan has a field day with our lives. Another problem with discouragement is that it distracts us from dedication to Christ and to our service for Him in our lives and through our churches. Don’t let Satan convince you that you don’t have anything to offer in Christian service. Don’t let Satan turn your thoughts only to yourself. Instead of getting discouraged, we need to think about all that Jesus went through to save us. He did not get discouraged and quit. We also need to remember great Christian disciples like, Peter, Andrew, James, John and Paul. All of these men made great sacrifices for the Lord, but did not let discouragement keep them from doing what they were supposed to do. Women like Mary Magdalene overcame negative things in their lives and went on to serve the Lord. Don’t let discouragement rule your life. Don’t let these evils, or any others, overcome you. Instead overcome evil with good, Bro. Joe
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|