Christian Living

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WHEN SATAN WHISPERS IN YOU EAR
© June 30, 2007
By
Frances Loftiss Carroll


I have lots and lots of pleasures give to you if you want them.
Just this once, it won’t matter and what will it hurt.
Nobody will ever know.
God didn’t really mean you couldn’t do that!
Ah, come on, just try it.
But it feels so good!
She’s just begging for you to do that.
YOU deserve this, you’ve worked so hard for it.
Gotta have, gotta have gotta have
Spend, spend, spend, you can make it up later
Just look at that will ya!
Just this one little lie and nobody will get hurt.


Ever heard that voice in your head? It’s there but it’s really not there. It keeps telling you to do something you know you shouldn’t do. It nags and nags and nags. It addresses issues you know you should avoid saying, “just this once” you can get away with _____________.” It’s the voice of temptation luring you into trouble. It is the one who tempts us. His cunning use of words maneuvers us and causes us to ponder giving in, just this once, and we often promise we’ll never do this thing again…but we will because his attacks are calculated and designed to lead us away from the goodness of God into the raging waters of sin.

There are those among us who say the devil can only be in one place at one time. I’m sure that is so but he has plenty of willing workers, friends of sin, to do his bidding for him. They enjoy attacking our spirit and flesh and helping us to falter just like their father Satan does.

Christians we are in frequent spiritual warfare because Satan doesn’t want us to adjust our old ways and habits. Satan craves dragging us down to spoil the good we do in life. He wants people to look at us and call us “ religious hypocrites who say one thing and do something else”. He has one way of thinking and that is to destroy the good that God has begun to establish in us. I say has begun because I trust God is always working to improve His new creations.

We who believe in Christ were made new when we believed and committed to Jesus as Lord and Savior. The old us is reasoned to be dead to the things we once held as our favorite sins. But not all of us grasp that we are now to be in a total commitment to serve Christ. Christ changed us so we must make changes and live differently than we once did. We are to stop pleasing ourselves and stop being self-centered and be focused on the Lord. We are at war, on the battleground of life struggling with old thoughts, wrong actions and behavior patterns that we willingly cling to and carry with us as part of our old polluted way of living. And, we have not let the commander of our army show us how to overcome the enemy. Many of us still adore dinking with our old sins and we strive to keep a hold on them in our new walk with Christ. That, my friend, is not agreeable to the Lord. We can’t straddle the line between good and evil and continue to do anything we want. That is sinful logic and it must go.

Satan knows precisely where to attack us and when. He knows what “pushes or buttons” and he knows that we still cling to a part of our old selves. Many of us haven’t handed over ourselves completely to Jesus and we still want everything our way. We choose what we will do. Where we will go and who to be with daily influences how we live. We either want to live under God’s direction or under Satan’s but that isn’t going to cut it with God. He demands all we have and are to be laid down at the cross. The cost to follow Christ demands seeking God in everything we do.

We have been given free choice to live God’s way or our own way. Each day we face choices to live for God or with our sin. We cannot habitually live seeking the God of grace and running like the devil to play in hell. A Christian cannot run back and forth between the old life and the new life. God will eventually make known to you that he has had enough. Sin cannot hold hands with God. He is repulsed by it.

But still the voice strives to make his point, “It will give you a lot of pleasure to ___________. “

A lot of people are trapped in Satan’s maze of trickery and don’t even know it. People we just can’t continue to keep on living to please ourselves. Life is about God it’s not about me. God is the creator and we are the created. If you can’t make a commitment to Christ you ought to question your salvation. Christians demands us to live differently because and truly grasp the gift Christ offered at the cross.

God’s plan for us Christian is that we live and behave more like Jesus did each day we live. That means we have to stand firm and tear ourselves away from the arms of fleeting self-satisfactions and purposely say no to sin. This is what is happening on the spiritual battleground of life; Christ is showing us how to resist the devil and He is at the head of the battle. He shows us how to defeat the enemy. He equips us and prepares us and it is He who has already won the battle. We must submit to the leader of our army, the Lord Himself and heed His directives. It’s all about letting Christ holding priority in everything that comes your way.

It takes commitment to live for Christ. It takes sacrifice, right now, to take up your own personal cross and be crucified with Christ. We must deny the call and teasing of evil and seek the Lord. The rewards of following Christ far out weight moments of short-lived greed and self- importance. We must live knowing we belong to Christ and stop running away from God’s direction. We must resist the enemy and the Captain of our army will defeat Satan.

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