The Devil.
Luk 8:11 Now the parable is this: The seed is
the word of God.
Luk 8:12 Those by the way side are they that
hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest
they should believe and be saved
People pride themselves on being smart. They do!
They take great pride in not being outwitted by others.
Unfortunately for a lot of so called SMART people- in
their endeavors to be smart at all times they overlook the truth of the matter
in favor of what they believe is real intelligence. If the truth doesn't appear
to be intelligent enough for them they'd rather sacrifice truth to keep up the
appearance of being smart.
Right now in a lot of circles it is fashionable to
consider yourself too smart to be duped by believing in God and Jesus Christ,
and of course the Holy Spirit.
Atheism is on the rise as is believing in a God who
advocates violence over peace. The God who advocates violence is a God who
obviously believes in action whereas peace isn't quite so active. Not believing
at all is supposed to be a sign of the smart person's superior intellect. Amid
the droves of sheep who they believe are following blindly they stand out,
separating themselves.
When these people who no longer wish to consider
themselves sheep in need of a Shepherd do in fact separate themselves
from the sheep it's because they aren't really sheep at all, but wolves, the
attackers of the sheep, the devourers of the sheep.
They aren't pleased to simply go off and be
intelligent sheep, too intelligent to follow a Shepherd, they transform into
attacking wolves viciously defending their right to have no Shepherd at the
expense of any sheep they might come in contact with.
The sheep who at one time followed a Shepherd, however
briefly, don't realize that a malicious, evil force, the chief of all wolves,
has succeeded in using its own supposed superior intellect to rip the truth
from their hearts. The chief of wolves does not want the sheep to be protected
by the Shepherd, but would rather pull sheep out of the fold and make them
believe they too are really wolves so they can help him destroy as many of the
flock as possible, even while destroying themselves.
The Devil is REAL. And the Devil dwells in the
PRIDE of each and every one of us. The Devil plays upon that pride and if we
allow him to, he will infuse us with his pride the very same pride that was his
downfall.
Was there pain and destruction, was there death before
the Devil? Not in our world. Not a single lie existed until the
Devil. Yet how incredibly many supposedly smart people decide to side
with the father of all lies, the inducer of pain, the architect of destruction,
the bringer of death, rather than the One who would promise them salvation- a
life without pain, destruction and death.
The supposedly smart would hold up the fact that
salvation is a myth because it isn't given instantly but a promise that cannot
be verified, as proof of its non-existence. The supposedly smart will call us
the duped and deluded because we live on faith- the promise for the future
unseen. The supposedly smart would rather cling to their delusions taking
pride in their wolf-self right now and get the accolades of other wolves than
have hope of ever living a life free of all that is evil. They would rather
embrace the evil as being something undefeatable calling it a part of life,
than believe in the potential of life without any evil at all.
Unfortunately the lovers of evil are wolves, and often times wolves in sheep
clothing.
While evil appeals to all that has been sin perverted
in us, we don't have to embrace the perversion and call it good. Every
temptation towards evil that is strong inside of us doesn't make us lovers of
that evil unless we choose evil over God and all that is love, all that is
truly good. Those temptations to us are battles, they are enemies, they are to
be resisted, they are to be fought against and never truly embraced and
accepted, never fully yielded to by allowing them to be call good and right in us.
We who would be sheep with a Shepherd to guide us, do
not hate the wolves, we realize the wolves exist and we will constantly pray
that the wolves seek to become sheep in need of the Shepherd. We will love the wolves even as they attack
us, for we are simple sheep only we know better and choose to love.
All by the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, now and forever! We would follow Him, our Great Shepherd.
Amen!
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