February 12, 2011

Read Daniel 2

You, like Daniel, are in the midst of a battle of the gods!!!  In Daniel’s day, various kings and their gods pitted themselves against Israel and her God, Yahweh.  Today the god of this age has pitted himself against the Lord Jesus Christ and all his followers.  See Rev 12:17, 13:7.  Though the evil one cannot remove your salvation (see Ephesians 1:1-14) he can distract you and make you ineffective in your work for the  Lord.  How might he do this? Let me list briefly several schemes of the evil one that are commonly used to distract Christians.

Ü Busyness - often the demands of life are so heavy that we just don’t have time for God. Pray times, meeting with others midweek and even Sonday gatherings fall off our agenda because we are too busy. This is no accident. The evil one wants you to be too busy to encourage other believers, to worship God and to be productive in reaching out to non believers.

Ü Money and Assets.  These things can be real weeds in our ’spiritual garden’. The more money and assets we have, the more we are tempted to spoil ourselves, live it up and enjoy the good life. There is a high correlation between money and forgetting about God. Jesus said, ’How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God’.

Ü TV. Yes TV. How many hours are wasted as we sit in front of a television numbing our brains and drowning out the voice of the Holy Spirit. How much of our thinking and reasoning is shaped by the worldly rubbish and ungodliness of things we see on TV? How many men are tempted to lust and covet as they see semi naked women on TV often in immoral sexual situations? Satan would rather you spend 2 hours watching TV than praying, reading your bible or encouraging another believer.

Ü  Non Christian Music. While there’s nothing wrong with non Christian music per se, if it fills our head constantly then it’s drowning out the voice of the Holy Spirit and stopping us from meditating and thinking about things of God. See Phil 4:8-10. Constant thinking of worldly songs will determine the way we think and view things.

Ü  Anger, Unforgiveness, etc. The evil one will continue to remind us of those who have hurt us or betrayed us. He wants us to be hating them so that division and disunity rules our churches. He hates the thought of reconciliation happening and will do anything to stop it. See Matthew 18:15ff for what to do if you need to be reconciled.

Ü Self Indulgence. We live in an age of self indulgence and entertainment. We think that the world is there to entertain us 24/7. While we are seeking to be entertained we are putting Christ aside and seeking to please ourselves not Him. Christ’s work is never done in a heart of self indulgence.

Prayer:

þ Pray that we all will be wise to the devil’s schemes and act appropriately. Pray that everyone in your congregation will serve God whole heartedly.