So this weeks sermon was about evil/demons.
I have such as hard time with the personification of this and relating to it.
But then I decided to let my brain go there - I realized I had to let go in order to understand. You spend all the time thinking about what to do and where to go and what about this or that and then you have those ideas already cemented into your brain.
I like beauty and niceness and loveliness. I don't like evil and bad things and I don't like to think they exist.
Spiritual warfare... sounds so made up. I mean really - we don't live in a movie, we don't live in some alternate universe. We are in the USA on Earth in the Milky Way.
BUT...
if you believe in God, why would you not believe in the personification of evil?
if you believe in day, why would you not believe in night?
if you believe in good, why not believe in bad? K, so I automatically picture Clint Eastwood making my day, but I'm a child of the 21st century. Oh well.
if you are going to believe in the "Jesus" parts of the Bible, why wouldn't you believe in the "devil" parts of the Bible.
So I open my mind and I choose to believe and I choose to suppose these things do exist in our world. It could be an explanation for some things around me.
It's said that the devil wants to keep us from God. That is his job, b/c he thinks he can do better than God. So, he keep us from Him and make us followers of Satan. OK, so if you are NOT a follower of God, then he doesn't want anything to do with you. He has no work with you b/c you are already NOT with God. It's those of us that ARE with God that he wants to corrupt.
By that line of reasoning, as one begins a relationship with God and nourishes that, does s/he become MORE of a target for the devil/demons/Satan? Perhaps. Some would say, absolutely.
There is a story by I don't know who (C.S. Lewis?) about a church that is full of followers that just go to church and go home, never go out and try to spread Christ's word. The devil doesn't care about them. But as soon as they start to do God's will, they are on the list of the Devil's Most Wanted... b/c they are getting closer to God and Satan's mission is to keep us away at all costs.
I always picture a being coming to me and trying to sell me evil, like a bad car salesman or a door-to-door vacuum guy. But perhaps that isn't the case?
1 Peter 5:8
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Such a vivid picture. But, perhaps he wants to emotionally devour us. The devil prays on our weaknesses. Maybe all of our weaknesses aren't physical, but emotional, spiritual, or mental.
At this point, I listen to myself and I think I sound like a kook.
But I was wrong about Jesus and the Bible before. MAYBE I'm wrong about Satan, too.
So how do we combat this? Read the Bible and be close to God.
What if you don't know what to read? What if you are being blocked out by the negatives and you can't get to God? (again, sounding like a kook.)
Romans 8:38
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers [unseen forces of evil], neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can take God's love from us. No matter what.
But we always have free choice. Choice to choose to follow God, or not. Choice to follow evil, or not. As so long as we are obedient followers of God, he will be on our side. Not to say we will never be assaulted. Just as in any battle, there are scrums and confrontations. People are lost and people are gained.
And just as in every war, each battle has to be forgotten when it's over and the fundamentals have to be remembered.
Pray. Love. Follow.
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