Just as a refresher, I’m writing some thoughts down about the Church and how we are charged with loving others in a world that relentlessly tears them apart. We’ve talked a little bit about how part of our problem as the Church is that we’ve targeted other people as our enemy when in fact our true enemy is hard at work and is actively seeking to destroy God’s kingdom. That derails us from loving others as we should. The real enemy, as you know, is Satan and one of his chief tools in tearing down God’s work is accusation.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.
Did you hear that? Our enemy is known as “he who accuses them before God day and night”? Do you ever feel like that? The voices are coming at you twenty different ways 24/7 and you hear it so often that we begin to believe them. Again, we dismiss them as logic or our thoughts. I know, you can’t see the Devil so it simply seems like reality at times. Here’s another description of Satan that I find helpful in Ephesians 2:1-2
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”
What a crazy title, “prince of the power of the air”! This descriptor is extremely helpful to me. You see, I can’t see Satan at work but I know he is there because I can feel that he is there, I see his effects in my life and at times it seems like his influence is wide sweeping. He is not a person, as I know a person to be, that I can identify and point my finger at but his presence is tangible and as real as someone that is sitting next to you. Much like the air or the wind.
Because of that, the voices seem simply like…your voice or the voice of your peers. Because those voices are wide sweeping and pervasive, we ignore the fact that they could be false and bent on our destruction. The moment we begin to feel that this is the voice of Satan, we think of the guy in the red suit with the horns and feel silly. The Voice has struck again! It has done so subtly without you even knowing it. The Voice is like a poisonous gas that seeps into the room without you being aware of it and kills before you even know it was surrounding you. The Voice deceives and directs your thoughts and actions quietly. Much like the air or the wind.
Accusation is only one of the Devil’s tools though. Next time we talk, we’ll uncover a few more.
mlsnellings 