Monday, February 15, 2016

Satan's "innocent" alternatives...

1 And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. 2 And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. 3 I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; 4 they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?” New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Re 13:1–4. There is an intrinsic power in worship. There is also an intrinsic spiritual nature in man that engages in worship, even if the worship engaged is secular in nature. This is both good and bad. Man wants to worship and adore things. Take a look around at the number of entities that gain the recognition and adoration of people. We idolize sports teams, athletes, musicians, bands, politicians, preachers, models, The problem is that Satan knows this, too. One of the things that Satan is absolutely best at is mimicking good things. He does this in order to provide substitutes to those things that are holy. Think about it. Satan provides alternatives to love so as to pull us away from God’s true desire for love. He provides alternatives for justice so that we are pulled towards our own brand of justice and away from Gods desire for pure justice. He presents us with alternatives for hope. Is it any surprise that Satan provides us with an alternative to faith, as well? If he can just get us excited about ANYTHING that has nothing to do with Jesus he can begin pulling us away. It all seems innocent enough at first, right? I mean, I constantly struggle with my anger. Why not give in to it just a little and feel the power of rage? Why not give my heart to a football team so that my heart is pulled away on Sunday? Church will always be there, right? Why not just sit and keep staring at the woman who isn’t my wife? She’s pretty and I like pretty things, right? Subtle pulls away from true worship are what cause us to fall into sin. I’m only processing this for myself at this point, but I really feel like when I am focusing on the Lord and worshiping Him and Him alone, my worship of the worldly is eliminated. The struggle is real, folks!