Your Daily Devotional for March 29, 2006

March 29, 2006

 

The Subtlest of Enemies

By Dr. Paul Chappell

 

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

Colossians 2:8

 

One day while I was out soulwinning, I saw a sign at someone’s front gate that read “beware” and there was a picture of a dog on it. My partner bravely opened the gate, and started walking up to the door, but before he could knock, the biggest, ugliest, meanest-looking dog came bounding up the steps. It was only by the grace of God that he came out of that yard unscathed.

 

Friend, “beware” is a serious word. The Bible warns us to be on guard against those who would like to confuse us regarding what we believe. Today’s verse speaks of spoiling; the word means to “carry away.” The philosophies of this world war against the truth of Christ. Men in their own wisdom think they know more than God knows. Do you know that the power of positive thinking is opposite to what the Bible teaches? God’s Word tells us to humble ourselves, not to promote or glory in ourselves.

 

The force behind temptation and spoiling is the devil. Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” The Apostle Paul also exhorts us in 2 Corinthians 11:3, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

 

The devil never stops working. He wants to take every believer out of the race. He does not want any of us finishing our course. He will do everything in his power to derail us and to cause us to stumble. Satan has a whole slew of tricks up his sleeve. He works so subtly that oftentimes, we don’t even realize that we’ve gotten off track. How many of us have been hooked by peer pressure? How many of us can honestly say we haven’t been tempted to climb the corporate ladder at the expense of family, or be blinded by the power of money? Years ago, someone said to me, “If you have money, that is good; if money has you, that is bad.” 1Timothy 6:9 says, “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”

 

It burdens my heart when God’s people are flippant about spiritual matters. It burdens my heart when Christians are up one minute and down the next, not sure if they love the Lord, not being faithful in their church attendance. They that waver in their doctrine are Satan’s easy prey. Satan knows that he can never take away our salvation, so he will use various techniques to render us useless for Christ. If he can’t get you one way, he will try to get you discouraged through some other means.

 

We need God’s power to be able to withstand the wiles of the enemy. Let’s ask the Lord to be our strength as we go through our day.

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