The devil loves our attention ... on him

Previously: Guard your heart with all diligence, part two

We had talked before about the ways the enemy tries to deceive even the elect, if possible. We had learned that Jesus told the Saduccees that they were in error, because they did not know the word of God, or the power of God. From that we learned the enemy will use our ignorance of the word of God -- what is true and what is a lie -- in order to try to deceive us, to work stealing, killing, and destruction in our lives - his stealing from us, his killing of us, and his destruction of us. We also learned that there is the deceitfulness of sin -- that if the enemy can get us entrapped in some sin that we continue to walk in, that the sin itself works deception in our lives to get us off track.

So this week, I ran into another Christian mom, and she got to talking to me about her husband -- well, her ex- husband, I suppose, because she was in the middle of a messy divorce and a custody battle. When I heard the word, "divorce," a red flag immediately went up, because the Lord says, "I hate divorce;" Jesus said, "Anyone who divorces his wife except for immorality commits adultery;" and Paul said, "Are you married to a wife? Do not seek to be free," and "Let not the wife leave her husband." The divorce statistic is the same for Christians as the world; nearly half of Christians read these words of YHVH, and choose to ignore them, or are deceived into thinking, "This word of God does not apply to me," and divorce anyway. They are in error because they do not know the word or power of God. (Hmmm ... the statistic is also that only 50% of Christians read their Bibles, and 50% of Christian men admit to using pornography. I was wondering if there was a reason Jesus said in the parable of the ten virgins, that 50% of them were wise and 50% were foolish.)

This mom was telling me how everything she was going through in her custody battle and with her husband was an attack of the enemy. How she just prays every day, taking authority over the devil, because the devil is doing this in her husband, and the devil is doing that through the lawyers, and the devil this and the devil that. And while she was talking, the bitterness, rage, and unforgiveness were just distorting her face, and the hurt and anger she has gone through just escalated her voice to a fever intensity.

Now she did not ask for advice at all. If she had, I would have said, "There is a reason Jesus said to take the log out of our own eye before we try to take the speck out of our brother's eye; there is a reason the Scriptures say to let the wife see to it that she respect her husband; to forgive everyone of everything; to love our neighbor (that includes husbands) as ourselves; to do unto others as we would want them to do unto us (have any of us ever wanted our husbands to extend grace to us and overlook our faults? Hello!); to consider others (husbands included again) better than ourselves. The devil is mighty pleased he has you thinking all this is his doing, because it keeps you from examining yourself. But if you yourself would just begin to obey the word of God, he could do nothing, and you would begin to see the power of God at work in your life and in your husband and marriage, to bring about the blessing which follows obedience."

To be continued ...