Let us no longer be ashamed to share the gospel, by any means necessary. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes — the Jew first and also the Gentile. Reminding you of your past indiscretions and sin or current insecurities is another scheme of the enemy. Even more so, this shame will keep you from praying to God and even sharing the gospel with others. Remember, we are not a sum of our past behaviors.
An idol can be anything that we place before the Lord. In the Old Testament, this was clear to see as they worshipped literal objects. From worshipping our favorite celebrity, to spending hours on social media, to living a life that is extremely focused on self, we can make anything an idol. This trick of the enemy is much cleverer as it may not be realized right away. Thus, what started as a positive thing such as going to the gym daily, going on vacations, making money, or finding a spouse, can become our primary source of hope and happiness instead of God.
Before long, we can start to look to those things more than we look to God. He is up to something. He is very active. He is very persistent. He is very thoughtful and he invests in the future as well as the present. He has a team and they work together against the Lord and those who love Jesus. The devil is real, and if you ever doubted that in the past, when you look at the condition the world is in right now, I bet your doubts have subsided.
So what, exactly, does the devil want? Let me share a few things that he is interested in doing in your life. It doesn't matter what he has you distracted on as long as you aren't focused on God first.
Maybe he will even distract you with good things at first. He is fine with good things as long as they aren't as good as the things you should be focused on. He doesn't mind a slow erosion of your focus.
The political season, the news cycle, a never ending supply of streaming entertainment, kids sports, the pursuit of a degree The devil wants to distract you from your Lord. Not only does he want families destroyed, but he wants to stop them before they even start.
He wants to prevent the marriage by encouraging living together and degrading marriage to, "just a piece of paper. He wants us to view kids as a burden instead of a blessing Psalm But if the devil isn't able to keep us from marriage and bearing children, he wants to destroy our marriages and hijack the minds and hearts of our children.
He will use subtleties like unmet and unspoken expectations, selfishness, or budgets to put pressures on your marriage. He will slip perversions into your kids entertainment that you feel aren't quite bad enough to take it away, but begin to mold their hearts and minds away from the Lord. Nothing is more powerful than a hypocrite. Even a lost and dying world despises hypocrisy. If the devil get you confident enough of in your faith to profess it, but weak enough in your faith to not follow it, he has created a powerful weapon for his plan.
The devil loves fear. Riots in the streets and economic uncertainty are breeding grounds for fear, anxiety, depression, and all other forms of human suffering and he delights in them all. When we are afraid we just want to drown out the thing that is causing the fear. We want to numb the pain. Fear can be crippling.
And when you focus on fear, he is winning. He is greedy. He is selfish. Being a powerful angel in the Lord's presence wasn't enough for him. He wanted to be God. He will stop at nothing to take every good thing and destroy it.
He is relentless and will go until he drains us of all good! So what should we do? James tells us, " Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Submit to God. No more trying to control our own lives and make our own decisions and write our own story. If He is Lord, submit to His authority. He will do a better job than you anyways. Then we need to r esist the devil.
For too long we have tried to compromise with him, hoping that he would leave us alone. But in the end all we have done is feed the beast, let him grow, and now he wants more. His greed can never be satisfied and you cannot appease him by giving in. Resist him in the power and strength of the Lord , with the armor of God Eph. Posted in August , Pastor Chris. Reda - October 29th, at am. Francis Garens - July 25th, at am. Jacoby Olguin - November 7th, at pm.
Nobody - December 31st, at am. In the medieval period, however, because he dwelt on the boundaries between the human and the bestial, he was often depicted in animal form. He was often imagined as goat-like and depicted with animal features: cloven hooves, talons, horns, tail, webbed hands.
In demonological literature he was portrayed as a spiritual being without any bodily form. A master of illusion, he was a shape shifter. It was believed he could change gender and assume a male incubus or a female body succubus. As a spiritual being, the Devil was unable to create children. But he could assume a female form, steal semen from a man and then, in a male form, deposit it in a woman. According to that most famous of all the Demonologies, Malleus Maleficarum , the pleasure to be gained by a woman from sex with the Devil was equivalent or better to that with a man.
But the Devil and his angels gained no such pleasure. For them, it was just part of the job of inciting people to evil. As a spiritual being, it was believed the Devil could enter into human beings and possess them.
Demonologist Henri Boguet circa — told of a nun who, in eating a lettuce, swallowed the Devil hidden within it. Indeed, the Devil most often entered through the mouth. But he could apparently also gain access through other bodily openings or wounds. Demonologist Francesco Guazzo listed 47 signs of possession in his Compendium Maleficarum Just look at how most of the world believes and behaves today.
The truth No matter how many people believe otherwise, eternal truths are still eternal truths. Elder Quentin L. But we also know that the preferred strategy of the adversary is to lead people away from God and cause them to stumble by emphasizing the philosophies of men over the Savior and His teachings. Elder J. He is our perfectly loving Father, who yearns more than anything else to have all of His children come back home and live with Him as families forever. Elder Larry R.
He uses this tool effectively on the most faithful Saints, when everything else seems to fail. For me, when I begin to feel discouraged, it helps me to recognize who is trying to get me down. This makes me mad enough to cheer up, just to spite the devil. After all, who likes being lied to?
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