Temptation

I sat for hours this weekend alone and in constant prayer. I find this really hard to do because I usually get distracted by my thoughts and what needs to be done around here. But I pushed past it because I have found these moments to be some of the best time with God I have ever spent. It is in these moments when God seems to come to me with the most unusual concerns and thought provoking communication. The pondering from this weekend surprised me, because I really hadn't thought about it much before.

It seems that Satan very rarely confronts us directly. His attacks come gradually and subtly, when one is least aware of his presence. He tends to tempt one in little ways that one is not always conscience. I think he wins a lot of people over just by taking them baby step by baby step until they can no longer comprehend what is right anymore. There has to be an explanation for our current social acceptance of such un-biblical behavior. In our journey to cultivate a closer relationship to God I find that we have become jumbled and confused combining different religious views to suit ourselves. I wonder how wise this is and am concerned that perhaps this is the enemy’s way of winning us over.

We allow certain practices like yoga into our lives without a thought that it could be harmful or in some way hurt us. We just accept that it’s there for us to use in the gyms not realizing there is a little more to it. Some people practice yoga as just an exercise but some believe that it can alter consciousness and degenerate into a cult of the body. Some say equating the bodily states with mysticism could lead to psychic disturbance and to moral deviations. Some reject it because yoga teaches one to look within to the internal goddess of the heart, to worship it and that faith comes through mystical inner knowledge. It incorporates the chanting of religious mantras and has been banned by several religious groups. Some think we are gods already.

All things seem to start out innocent enough, but then they take on a life of their own and we realize we have opened Pandora’s Box. We accept something seemingly small on the surface and then it explodes into an evil creature that tries to take over our world.

I will use women’s rights as an example, it should be good right? The right to be treated equal and fairly at work, with equal pay and the right to vote are all good things in and of themselves. But look at what it has led to. If we were to sacrifice our children to Baal as they did in the Bible we could see that it was wrong. Picture if you will, the golden statue of Baal with an opening at the base, an altar that the child was thrown into and burned to the God. We could see physically that this was not something most mothers would want to do.

However, in this day and age, we do sacrifice our children to other Gods that we have placed before the true God of the Bible. Namely the God’s of money, convenience, selfishness, appearance and personal rights. We literally kill thousands of unborn children because of those reasons. To me, that is sacrificing children to Baal but most people see it as a woman’s rights issue. That, my friends, is exactly what Satan likes to do. He fools many people, many good people are deceived, ones who claim to be Christians, claim to honor God and yet still they cannot see through the veil Satan has put over their eyes.

I encourage you today to look around in your life and see if there is anything you have accepted that perhaps you should not. Something Satan has sneaked into your life that has caught you unaware. Don’t take things at face value, take the time to really check them out and pray about them. Ask yourself if they would be God honoring before committing any of your time and allowing them into your life.