Blog Post title: The Devil’s Primary Tactic
Picture Adam and Eve…enjoying the love, the connectedness, the intimacy, the Voice and the beauty of God in the garden. What could have been better? The aroma of floral scents visiting them… The cool breeze of His love whisking over them… The sound of freedom regularly affirming who they were with Him… The wonder of His fruit at the ready. The fabulous connectedness of healthy family…
And then, the fall…
when they messed up…
and everything changed because it was all their fault…
and they saw what they did…
and hated their nakedness and ickiness…
and experienced a heavy weight of shame…
and tried to fix everything with their own hands…
to make everything better…
fashioning some fig leaves to cover over their mistake…
by protecting themselves…
by taking things into their own hands…
by hiding out from the One who would know how bad they were…
to stay out of His sight…
because He must be mad…
and because they knew they were bad, bad icky kiddies.
Shame is a primary tactic in the devil’s game. The confusion that comes in from sin tricks us. Then, it isolates us, driving us away from God, making us hate ourselves.
I can only write about this because I know about all this. Friends, I hate shame. I hate it!!!! It works like this: We mess up with a family member and then want to run away from them. We act how we don’t want to and then suppose God is angry at us. We remember that old sin we did long ago and think it is still making God angry at us. We remind ourselves how far from God we’ve been lately and determine the road is hard to get back to Him. We are angry at ourselves for how we acted and then want to punish ourselves to get better. We call ourselves names because we hate the sin we see. We judge our performance and try to make up ways to do better. We think we are not good enough, or we are too much and then judge ourselves.
What does shame look like in your life?
The devil uses shame to drive us away from His Name, The Name Above All Names. The devil insists we need to take things into our own hands because God will not be there for us anymore…
Yet, scripture tells us another story:
“Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.” (Col. 1:22-23)
Friends, the only way to beat the devil at his own game is to believe in the power of His Name, Jesus! Jesus has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of light. We are not striving to be in His love — we are already in it! Nothing can separate us from His love!
Now, it is so easy to repent of sin. We cast off what was and, immediately, move back into what is: we are holy, blameless, we stand before Him without a single fault.
Friends, nothing — no sin, no mess up, no mistake, no person — can separate us from His love!
Prayer: Father, thank you that we are not in shame anymore because we are in your love. Thank you for your son Jesus who saved us and is continually saving us. We are forever grateful. Help us to live by our new nature and not to revert back to our old nature. May we not return again to a yoke of slavery. We are loved, accepted, wanted, holy and blameless. We praise your name for all these things. We boldly come into your presence for all the grace and mercy we so desperately need. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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