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Are
we responsible for Satan deceiving us?
We were
created in Gods image. When He made us in His likeness He also
made us immortal like He is. God has dominion over everything,
He gave us dominion over the earth, and He told Adam he could do
anything, even violate the one rule, which was in place. The only catch was with
the freedom to do as we please and dominion over everything we had to accept the responsibility for our actions. Freedom always has responsibility. If you are not free, you cannot be held
responsible.
With this God given freedom comes the ability to say NO to God
and when we say no to God we are really saying yes to Satan.
Joshua
24:15a But
if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for
yourselves this day whom you will serve,
Let’s face the facts, we either serve Satan or we are servants of
Christ, as Jesus pointed out in ,
Luke
16:13, it is not a matter of whether we serve, but whom we serve. Since we
are sinful by nature Satan will always be tempting us. He knows
if he can make the fruit on the tree looks good and if we
believe it will bring us pleasure, we will be tempted.
14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged
away and enticed.
15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth
to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
We seek self first; me, my, mine, what we don’t
have. Our desires are what we focus on. Even as we are commanded
not to covet, we covet what others have. God said He would
provide for our needs, and He does, however so many of us do not
realize the blessings He has given us because we are blinded by
our own desire to have what we don’t have.
Luke
12:15
We don't consciously and deliberately disobey God -- we simply
don't listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we
pay little or no attention to them—not because of willful
disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect
Him.” If you love Me, keep My commandments" ( John
14:15).
"Quoting from http://www.barna.org/
citing
the findings from a just-completed national survey of 2033
adults that showed only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview
as the basis of their decision-making, researcher George Barna
described the outcome. "If Jesus Christ came to this planet
as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to
act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the
love, obedience and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that
people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like
Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think - our attitudes,
beliefs, values and opinions. Although most people own a Bible
and know some of its content, our research found that most
Americans have little idea how to integrate core biblical
principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the
challenges and opportunities of life. We're often more concerned
with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and
significance."
For
the purposes of the research, a biblical worldview was defined
as believing that absolute moral truths exist; that such truth
is defined by the Bible; and firm belief in six specific
religious views. Those views were that Jesus Christ lived a
sinless life; God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of
the universe and He stills rules it today; salvation is a gift
from God and cannot be earned; Satan is real; a Christian has a
responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people;
and the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.
"( see link for complete article )
That means that 96% of adults don’t
have a clue as to what it is to Love, Trust and Obey God.
Far to many people are going with the flow, not realizing they
are helplessly adrift, only moving with the ebbs and flows of a
secular world. We need to live our lives as Christ did. We need
to be examples for those who are adrift without an anchor in the
storm. We need to open our mouths and begin to share Jesus with
all we meet, not only those we believe are lost in sin.
We must also remind them that Satan distorts the word of God.
Satan tempted Adam and Eve and even Christ; he
tempted with distortion of scripture and he tempts us today in
the same fashion. He tempts us through lack of understanding and
or knowing scripture. His plan works because so many Christians
are not sure of Bible truths. He tempts us with lack of being
able to see the long-term effects of our sin.
The
consequences aren’t really so bad (for now that is) is his
biggest lie. He (Satan) tells us it’s not really so bad that
God will hold it against me; he uses words like “doesn’t the
Bible say God will forgive me”.
“I can turn away tomorrow”.
But will you
have a tomorrow?
He (Satan)
tempts us: with the movies
we watch, what we read, the music we listen to, with the people
we hang with and he does this through conversation like this:
Satan, It won’t hurt to do it
once!
Self, I shouldn’t, but it won’t hurt anyone but
me.
Satan, No one will know!
Self, Yea, I can hide it.
Satan, Think of the pleasure!
Self, It would be fun.
Satan, Think what you will miss!
Remember;
he promotes bitterness and anger, he want us to be angry and
unforgiving toward others, he
wants us to blame others instead of having us take
responsibility for our actions.
He wants us lose focus about the end results of our
actions. By
showing us the short term out come of our actions and by playing
on our immediate fears; (Save myself, to heck with anyone else) Luke
22:54-62) He is able to make us do things we would not do if
we had a better understanding of Gods word.
As soon as
Satan begins the conversation, stand firm on Gods word
Before
you act on a thought ask yourself these questions:
Does it
glorify God?
Does it
advance His kingdom?
Will it
hinder me from being Christ like?
Will it make
me Christ like?
Does it
edify all involved?
If any of
these give a “no” answer, you need to be in prayer.
Many times we
don't consciously and deliberately disobey God -- we simply
don't listen to Him. God has given His commands to us; Jesus
said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John
14:15). If we keep this single piece of scripture in mind
our walk, as a witness for God will be much easier.
Clyde
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