THE WILES OF SATAN
Kathy Bernard -
Publisher
“For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realms.”
Ephesians 6:12
JAMES 4:7
tells us, "Submit
yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you."
WE, as
Christians, try hard
to abstain from Satan's evil temptations that follows us. He
knows our dreams and desires
and
joyfully acts on them. Satan is
everywhere, cloaked in beautiful clothing, with friendly smiles that
make us forget
that he
surrounds us all, trying to steal souls.
How
does
he do this? How does he know what we want as human
beings?
How can he know our "so called' personal needs"?
SATAN
knows
all about us. If we let him, he will
place our greatest passions in our paths so we can
begin
to crave the things we know are wrong and sinful. If we are not strong,
he will break through our faith and tell us that God
does
not
want
us to enjoy the gifts Satan wants us to have. And sadly, some
of us will
surrender to his so called enticements.
MANY
follow
Satan's offerings without realizing
that they
are falling into his trap. He appears to be friendly but
he attacks through
deception. We
fall for this
because he has offered us exactly what we were hoping for. This
allure comes in many forms
and
we
become tempted
because we are human. Even though we think we are strong and
believe we can resist, Satan is wily and crafty, cunning and
deceitful, and he will use every ploy to steal our souls since
he knows all the secrets of our hearts, knows
our
weakness as
well as our
strengths, and he will put temptation squarely in our path and make it irresistible for he makes his offerings very enticing,
and our
desires come alive and before long we will be stretching out our
hand to Satan, finding his offer too
inviting to let go. "Just
this once" we say as we start our bargain with the devil…on his
terms. He is shrewd and cunning,
wise
and deceptive.
IT
is only later that Satan will whisper,
"Why stop now? You have already become a sinner and are lost
to the Lord so you
might
as well enjoy
yourself while you can!"
But the bible tells us …. "be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on
the full armor of
God, so
that
you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For
our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but
against
the
rulers,
against
the authorities, against the powers of this dark
world and against the spiritual forces of
evil in the heavenly
realms.
Therefore put
on the full armor of God, so that when the day of
evil comes, you may be able to
stand your ground,
and after you
have done everything to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled
around your
waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and
with feet fitted with the readiness that
comes from the gospel of
peace. In addition to all
this
take up the shield
of faith, with which
you can extinguish all the flaming arrows
of the evil one.
Take the helmet of salvation
and the
sword of the
Spirit, which is the word
of God." - Ephesians
6:10-17