"Be sober, vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour."
We need to read this verse as a warning to us, for the devil is still "walking about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." We are his targets, and he will deceive us, lie to us, and lead us to do his dastardly will. I want to look at some of the tools that the devil uses to deceive us. (You guessed it: I personally know about these tools.) The first tool that I want to share is doubt. I have no doubt that everyone reading this has faced this temptation in their lives at some point, and have had to deal with it. When I was about nineteen years of age, I had a wrestling match with the devil, and with the Lord, over my doubt of God's existence. Since I was about twelve years old, I knew that God was calling me into the ministry, and the devil was doing what he could to call me away from God's call on my life. Needless to say, the Lord won that wrestling match and I went on to do what He had called me to do, but I did not make that decision without dealing with the reality of the existence of God and that He had a call on my life. I had to walk past the targets of hell to reach obedience to God. The devil also uses the tool of doubt to keep us from sharing our faith with other people. There is no clearer call in the New Testament that we are to share with others the joy and fulfillment that Christ has brought into our lives. Frankly, I still have to deal with this when I am in the world on vacation, shopping, or whatever I am doing at a certain time. Sometimes the Lord will put an urge on me that the person to who whom I am speaking needs to hear about Him. This doesn't happen in all of my encounters with people, but when it happens it is clear, in spite of my doubt, that God wants me to share Him with this person. The devil is always there trying to make us ashamed of our call to witness. I imagine that you know what I mean. All of us have to deal with this tool of the devil, and we can overcome it by our faith in Jesus, and because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Hey! Deal with it in faith!. (I said the same thing to myself.) 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
|