The Bait of Satan Thanksgiving Special – Purity 582
Purity 582 11/22/2021 Purity 582 Podcast
Good morning
Today’s photo of Autumn in the Adirondacks comes to us from the Adirondack
Aerial & Ground Imagery Showcase Page.
The photographer reported that they took a few preflight Dramamine and
were glad they did because to capture this photo they suffered through
turbulence stating that the “ups, downs, rock and rolling” had their stomach
going in many directions. They literally
thanked Christ for the creators of Dramamine stating that they would not have
made it without their help. I recommend that
my friends like their page because of the wonderful views they provide and the
dedication to their craft that lies behind their magnificent work.
It's Monday again and most of us have a short work week for Thanksgiving
but just because our jobs may not demand as much from us this week doesn’t mean
we will be free from work as most of us will be either hosting and preparing a
Thanksgiving meal on Thursday or travelling to a place where someone else is. Beyond
making a turkey or alternative main dishes and all the fixings, we may have to do
some work to maintain the peaceful atmosphere that we wish to have accompany
our holiday meal.
I am a teacher and student of spiritual warfare and walking in the Spirit
and I can tell you that there are literally dark demonic spiritual forces that
are looking forward to disrupting our peaceful gatherings and causing divisions
in our relationships. The enemy, Satan,
and his minions will be doing their best to create bitterness, unforgiveness,
jealousy, anger, and ingratitude to cause us to break the harmony of our
holiday as we gather to break bread.
One tactic that the enemy will use that lies behind those negative
emotions and that can draw us into temptation and into regrettable words and
actions is His deadly trap of offense.
John Bevere’s 1994 book, The Bait of Satan, exposes how the enemy loves
to instill our own sense of importance and demanding that our rights and needs
be honored to the point that any disagreements, opposition, or disappointments
to our expectations can be used to create a spark of offense that the enemy can
fan into a flame that will create a fire of discord that can destroy personal peace
and rip apart relationships.
So how do we avoid taking the Satan’s bait of offense, when we encounter
the stress of the holiday, the frustrations of family, and outright opposition?
Well ironically the reason for the season just so happens to be one
tactic we can use to fight the enemy at his own game.
If we are on the verge of offense or anticipate that we will encounter
situations and interactions with others that will cause offense, we can dismantle
Satan’s game plan by fighting fire with the Holy Spirit fire of gratitude. We can use thanksgiving to save Thanksgiving with
the spiritual practice of gratitude!
Even the secular world recognizes gratitude as a means towards mental
peace and, as Christians, we have even more to be thankful for because of the
Lord’s revelation in our lives.
As a daily practice, Christians should arm themselves for battle by
spending time in Bible Study, prayer, and taking time to thank the Lord for all
the blessings we enjoy. We can thank God
for our lives, our health, our family, our friends, our jobs, and our pets. We
can thank Him for our salvation and our assurance that we are loved by our
heavenly Father and that He will never leave us or forsake us and that He is
working all things together for our good.
As Christians we need to prepare for battle with an attitude of
gratitude and by reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ. In Christ we are
accepted, secure, and significant. We
have the assurance of eternal life and Lord’s love, so we have to lean on that
when we encounter a world that is unaware of the goodness of God and discontented
with just about everything.
Christ said blessed be the peacemakers, so we are to be on guard against
the bait of Satan and avoid offense by reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ
and of our purpose to share the love of God everywhere we go.
So as we have a couple of days before “turkey day”, oh and don’t that
offend you… easy.., remember that God has us covered for all eternity and that
the fruit of the Spirit of peace, joy, and love are ours to experience when we
stay connected to our heavenly Father in studying of His word, in prayer, and the continuous practice of gratitude.
So keep walking and talking with God. If you do, you will skillfully move through life and overcome the difficulties you experience, even on holidays, with the faith of who you are in Christ, your ultimate security, and your purpose in God’s kingdom.
Today’s Bible verse is
drawn from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Hebrews 4:12 (NLT2)
12 For the word of God is
alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting
between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost
thoughts and desires.
Today’s verse reminds us of the spiritual reality that the
word of God is powerful and living, exposing our innermost thoughts and desires.
I personally like the way the NKJV puts the end of this
verse as saying the word of God “is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart.”
I recommend that if people use the NLT for study and really
like a verse they discover that they should look it up in other versions
because the NLT was crafted for youth and the simplicity of the English
language.
While I love the NLT, I make this recommendation because it
sometimes misses something in its rendering of the scriptures. Sometimes the NLT simplifies the language or
rearranges the wording entirely to make it more user friendly so be aware of
that if your primary source of study is the NLT and consider using the NKJV as
a companion resource to get you closer the original translation of God’s word.
I have similar and even harsher criticism of The Passion
Translation (TPT) which more accurately should be called a paraphrase as great
license is taken with the “translation of the scriptures” where the authors
have not only rearranged the content of scriptures, or simplified the language,
but have made some questionable additions. I can’t recommend the use of the
Passion Translation because of those creative expansions and I am sharing a
link on the blog today to an article by Andrew Wilson that better states my
concerns than I can voice here (https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/whats_wrong_with_the_passion_translation
). Before researching the Passion
Translation, I enthusiastically sat down to read Galatians in it and came away
with a feeling that bad feeling in my spirit and realized that the authors’ interpretations
and creative expansions to the text made it feel alien to me. But you do you…
and ask the Lord to help you with His truth.
So anyway, I say all of that because today’s verse
highlights the truth that the Word of God is alive and powerful. Jesus is called
the word of God in John 1. More than a
cute analogy I believe that the Bible is being literal in a sense when it
equates Jesus and the Word as being one in the same and is thus very living and
very powerful.
Add this concept to the doctrine of the Trinity and we can
easily realize that there are some spiritual realities in Christianity that are
easy to speak of but that are hard to understand. The paradox of the word being a book, the
Bible, and the person of Jesus Christ should alert us to the fact that their
will be somethings about our faith that we will not be able to fully understand
or adequately explain to some one else.
With that said, I know, that I know, that we can know God and
understand a great deal about what He wants us to do as Christians through the
word of God.
The living aspect of His word is a spiritual reality that
includes The Father as the author, Christ as the word, and the Holy Spirit as a
revealer of all truth. So when I see the
NLT detailing that it “exposes our inner most thoughts and desires”, I agree
with that translation because the word will educate and convict us about our
sin. Any book that teaches something can expose our ignorance though and may give
us the desire to align with a teaching’s merits but the Bible, the word of God,
is not just another teaching book.
It's alive, and as the NKJV puts it “is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart.” That
translation leads me to believe that a spiritual form of communication can take
place when the Bible is read “in faith”, by a Christian who is seeking the Lord. The living word discerns the thoughts and
desires of the hearts indicates that when we are reading the word of God, the
word of God is reading us!
Our relationship with God is a dynamic and fluid process of
growth and discovery and today’s verse indicates that a study of the scriptures
can and should be a part of our relationship.
So before you sit down to read the Bible, pray to God for
revelation to let Him know that you want to know Him more and to show you
things that He wants you to see. Our
study of God’s word was never meant to be a dry academic chore, our approaching
the word of God is better understood as a communication between the Creator of
His universe and His people.
So seek the Lord by drawing close to the word of God. You
might just learn something about the Lord and because it exposes your heart and
desires you just may learn something about yourself and how it relates to your relationship
with your heavenly Father.
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with
their walk.
Today we continue sharing from June Hunt’s “Evil
and Suffering… Why? Is God Fair?
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase June Hunt’s books for your own private study and
to support her work.
D. What Is the Root Cause of Anger toward God over Evil and Suffering?
Although suffering is the result of "fallen humanity," God's
highest purpose is to use it to conform us to the image of Christ in all we do
and say. He uses suffering for our good, making us more and more like the only
One who is truly good! ...
"Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness
of his Son" (Romans
8:29)
Wrong Belief:
"It's not fair for God to allow good people to suffer."
Right Belief:
"God sometimes allows suffering to touch the lives of people, but He does
so only for a greater good both in this life and in the life to come."
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has
stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to
those who love him." (James 1:12)
Biblical Counseling Keys - Biblical Counseling Keys – Biblical Counseling Keys:
Evil and Suffering... Why?: Why God? Why?.
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
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