A sitting duck

Action (or inaction) says a lot about the way I think. If my thinking is off-kilter, it’s difficult to keep going, never mind have right priorities and do positive, helpful things.

In a broad sense, Christians need to have a sound, biblical theology. If my thinking about God is wonky, my conversation and behavior reflect that. Not only will I be misled, but so will those who listen and observe.

It seems straightforward. If someone asks if I believe God cares about me, I would say “yes” without hesitation. However, I have a spiritual enemy who tries to confuse the issue. Whenever life hands me lemons, that enemy whispers, “See, God is being mean to you” or some other lie.

The Bible is clear: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:1-6, NKJV).

The world is filled with folks who believe the enemy’s lies about God and think that Christians have it wrong. Instead of defending us, my answer to that is, “Sometimes we do, and you have picked it up in the way we talk and act.”

But if I was always thinking, talking and acting according to what is true of God, that is no guarantee that others would be better informed about Him. The Bible is clear; to know the truth about God, you have to first know God through having a personal relationship with Him.

The reasons that I get confused about God and listen to the enemies lies are the same reasons other people back away from knowing Him. Sin. I want to go my own way and do my own thing. As soon as I step into that decision, it is like a blindfold goes on and all the good stuff that I knew about God is hidden. I’m become a sitting duck for Satan’s potshots.

My protection is to test the spirits. Are the things that I hear, even from other Christians, the same as what God says about Himself in His Word? Do these ideas honor the incarnation of Christ? Or are they an appeal from the world to stop trusting God and trust myself?

I’ve always had a concern for those who know God but stop learning about Him. They can become targets. Yet from my own experience in that shooting gallery, I know that I am not sufficient to rescue myself. Jesus is still the Savior. His salvation includes being rescued from my own laziness, ineptitude and those sinful desires to stop reading His Word and run my own life.