Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Halloween part 4

Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only' " (Matthew 4:10).

For the past few devotions, I’ve been comparing the fantasies of Halloween to the reality of God’s love shown us in Christ. Today we’ll wrap up this topic.

On Halloween, Satan gets a holiday. By that, I don’t mean that he gets a day off; I mean that he gets the kind of treatment that he wants from foolish humanity. Some people honor him by devoting time and money to thinks he promotes—astrology, magic, spiritualism. A very few even worship him directly. Others laugh at the supernatural and dismiss it as a bunch of make-believe. This pleases the devil, too—if no one believes that he exists, he can operate in plain sight without being recognized or opposed.

The deadliest enemy is the one you don’t see. Just ask any policeman who comes under sniper fire. Just ask any soldier who has tripped a roadside mine. Also dangerous is the enemy you don’t take seriously; how many angry young men have filled classrooms with blood because no one saw the warning signs? How many stalkers have ended up committing hideous crimes?

When we don’t take the powers of darkness seriously, we open ourselves up to terrible danger. This is why God warns us away from the devil’s playthings: Let no one be found among you who…practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD (Deuteronomy 18:10-11). This is why Scripture urges us to regard Satan as a serious enemy: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

We must take the powers of darkness seriously. Yet at the same time, we must not be afraid of them. In the past, people who feared the spirit world tried to please the powers of darkness with their devotion. They became slaves of the devil because they feared his power. But we don’t have to share their fate; we don’t have to be controlled by fear. Jesus has defeated Satan, crushed the serpent’s head under His mighty heel. The light of Christ dispels all darkness, and unlike Satan, Jesus rules our lives with love and compassion. He gives us courage to face every situation with hope and joy.

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