Satan Is The Master Deceiver

  Satan is very clever at lying. In fact, one of his names is 'The Father Of Lies". He lied to Adam and Eve in the Garden, and he is still lying today. Whether you can see this or not, he is trying to lie to you and me.
  What are some of his lies to us? For some, he would try to persuade us that we have sinned too greatly for God to forgive us. Or, he might tell us that our sin is not that big of a deal. He probably has told us that we are basically good, and reminded us of some of the good deeds we have done. One thing I have noticed that the devil does is to tell a person things that are not true about another person. We can see this happen a lot in marriages. Both spouses end up with distorted versions of what the other person is thinking. Satan loves to stir up strife between people.
  Some other lies are that God doesn't really love us, or that when bad things happen to us, God is punishing us. He makes it complicated for us to bring our sin and guilt to the Cross. Why? Because of the event of the Crucifixion, Satan is now defeated. He is disarmed. But he is still around speaking lies. His end has not come yet, but his end will come with the victory of the saints (redeemed human beings) one day, and he will be here no more to bother us. But God has allowed him to stay on earth for a season. God has also given us some weapons so we can fight against him and those in the kingdom of Darkness.
   In Ephesians chapter 6, God tells us that the type of warfare we are involved in is spiritual, not physical. We are to be in prayer. We are to know God's word of truth. We are to live out the Gospel in our lives. The light of the Gospel dispels the darkness. We are to become discerning people so we can tell the difference between the truth and the lies. We need to digest the word of God, spiritually speaking, and be worshipers of the True and Living God.
   In Isaiah 58, God tells us that we can set the prisoner free (prisoners here are people who are enslaved by sin). If we can have a good understanding of who God truly is, and we could see what kind of work the Enemy of our souls is up to, we could be victorious in battle. There will be struggles and difficulties, but the chains can be broken because 'Greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world.'
   Satan uses half-truths as well, such as 'God is all-loving' and God is all-forgiving'. While the Bible says that 'God is love', God is still going to punish sin and sinners in hell for eternity. God's love is so great and deep that it caused Him to provide the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, so we won't have to go to hell for eternity, but we can have our sins forgiven, only if we repent and turn to God, and trust Jesus as our Savior from sin.
  So, I encourage you to be in God's Word continually, not in a legalistic way, but to feed upon it, grow in it, and be able to tell the difference between the Truth and the lies.

Treat The Weakest With Respect

“You can tell a great deal about a person, people, or faith based on how they treat the frailest of their own.” R.C. Sproul

  There's a tendency for all of us to go after the strongest, the most powerful, and the ones with money. That is what we do, by default. When we hire someone to work for us, we pick the best, most adequate person for the job. If we want a babysitter, we pick the one we trust most, and who has the best qualifications. Those things are fine to do, when looking for someone to hire to do a job, but we carry that kind of thinking into the church as well. 

  Many people really struggle with trying hard to please God. It seems that, even though we understand the Gospel and know of God's grace, we still try to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and bring something to the table to give to God. Why so we think so much like that? If we really understood the issue, we would understand that the only thing we can bring to God is our sin. And He has taken care of that through the Cross. I wonder if we also apply that thinking to others who come to us.

  But maybe you are like me. I have a tendency to think that people who are poor, for example, aren't really aware of what's going on. I sadly, have thought of people who are slow to respond, as if they were kind of like robots. But really, many times, just the opposite is true. The people who are disadvantaged or weak, have very deep feelings and emotions. God forgive us for thinking wrongly about them.

  We have a 'weak' man who has been coming to church. He follows us around like a puppy dog. I am impressed of how many people have taken an interest in this man. A few weeks ago, he wanted to know how to be saved. He dealt with guilt over some of the things he had done. Now he wants to come to a care group. We try to arrange for people to sit with him in church while we are not able to be there. This is a great opportunity for us to 'be' the church. This man will probably never be a pastor. He will probably never be on the streets sharing the Gospel. He will probably never write an article to be put in a magazine or blog. But he has a soul, and he is created in God's image. That is enough reason to serve him. We have no guarantee that he will be with us very long. 

   Sadly, someone did make a derogatory remark about him. It was disappointing to hear that, and I hope we can learn to be compassionate to others who come into our midst who aren't as fortunate as we are. At the same time though, I am very encouraged to find out how many have already ministered to, and are serving this man. 

  One observation I have also, is that when such a person comes into a church, you can tell, right away, the people who are gifted with mercy, or have compassion. Those are usually the people who gather around men or women, such as this newcomer.

   Some of our 'weakest' are our children. I don't know about you, but I know how I have overlooked children many times. Children are so cute, but when we adults are together for the serious work in the church, I practically ignore the children. I want to change in that area. They might be small, but they will remember how they were treated when they were in church, by others. We don't want them to be a statistic of the 90% of those raised in the church who leave the church when they become adults. Can we be more intentional in reaching out to our children?

   "At the same time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the middle of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Unless you are converted, and become as little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever shall receive one such little child in my name receives me. But whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hung around his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Matthew 18:1-6

   Finally, there was a guy who had a hard life, and ended up being a tattoo maker. He saw a lot of flakiness in the church, but he does remember the lady who taught Sunday School, I think, who gave him a birthday party when he was four. He did remember that and I can tell that it ministered to his soul, even though everything else he saw in Christianity was unreal. That Sunday School teacher was wise. She regarded a little boy who was hurting and ministered to him. She was acknowledging that this little boy was created in God's image and would need to have a Savior to redeem him from his sins. This was on the Truth Project videos, with Del Tackett, if anyone is interested in watching them. They are excellent videos.