“The
one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap
destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap
eternal life.” - Galatians 6:8
God created human beings to
live a life of worship and to fellowship with Him (Matthew
28:20). He originally gave us Paradise
to enjoy, and He wanted us to live there eternally. However, as willful humans,
we reject God and we choose to live life according to what feels right to each
individual heart. The problem with this tactic is that the human heart is the most
deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. It is actually worse than we
could ever even imagine (Jeremiah 17:9). Yet, we choose to allow this sinful heart to dictate what we do with our
life.
Satan manipulated the idea
of being like God to tempt Adam and Eve. Over the years, Satan continues using
very successful substitutes for faith in Christ to draw people away from
enjoying eternity with God. He deceives countless people into rejecting Christ,
motivating them to embrace surrogate theories, philosophies, practices or cultures in some
form or fashion. Most of these alternate viewpoints emphasize that each
individual is empowered to achieve their own salvation. They place an accent on
the individual’s need to work for salvation and they readily appeal to the
humanistic mind.
Some
of the “religions” that Satan invented to appeal to mankind’s spiritual side
and to detour them from filling the void in their life with Jesus Christ are:
Spiritualism, Gnosticism, Polytheism, Pantheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Theosophy, which is a combination
of Pantheism and Gnosticism, Baha’i, Mormonism, Unitarian/Universalism and the
other cults, as well as the New Age movement, which tries to incorporate all of
these beliefs under one umbrella. There are also the Jewish and Islam
religions, which draw many people into their fold, even if they were not born
into them.
All
of these spiritual movements head the list of Satan’s deviations. They entrap
humanity and steer them away from the truth of salvation through Jesus Christ
and the wisdom of God’s Word (Romans 8:6). There is a remnant, however, of authentic Christian
Believers, which do not participate in these replacement practices that are
pagan in origin, and which deny the deity of Christ and the unity of the
Trinity as one God. We recognize Jesus as the maker of the heavens, the earth
and everything that exists in them. God’s Biblical truth is our only guide for
our faith and practice (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Peter 1:14-16).
After mankind’s fall in
Paradise, and to insure our eternal security, God became man and lived among
us. Even so, most people who knew Jesus hated Him, did not believe that He was
God and ended up crucifying Him. Although, Jesus only lived on earth for a short time, He
left us the Bible to promote the strength of our beliefs and to give power to
our convictions. By His Spirit, He remains in us forever (Hebrews
13:5). The Spirit of God is eternal and
is the power of the Almighty. He came in
order to give us revelation, wisdom,
understanding, knowledge, counsel, power, comfort and truth (Matthew 10:20; Genesis 1:2; 1 Corinthians 2:11; Job
33:4; Galatians 4:6; Hebrews
9:14; Ephesians 1:17; Isaiah 11:2; John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; Luke 1:35). No matter where we go, what we do or what situation
we end up in, God is always right there with us (Psalm 139:8-10).
Prayer:
Father God, Your presence is
available within every Believer. We fellowship with You and worship You with
all of our spirit, body and soul – mind, will and emotions. Remind us to pray
without ceasing as we keep a listening ear intent on hearing Your directions,
as we listen to and follow after Your Spirit moment by moment throughout the
day. We dedicate our every thought, word and deed to Your glory.
Thought for the Day:
Even in the most mundane of
tasks, such as cleaning the house, going to work or carpooling the children,
God’s Spirit helps us to live in such a way that we bring honor and glory to
God all the days of our life.