Trapped or Deceived?

[ A Future in God ] So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” 1 Peter 1:13MSG

Do you ever wonder why some people never seem to change no matter how bad their lives are?  They seem to be oblivious to the situation at hand, when we can all see the disaster right before our eyes.  I used to feel sorry for those kinds of people until I took a good long hard look in the mirror and saw that I was one of those people.  When I had this great epiphany of what I was sitting right in the middle of, suddenly I felt trapped.  But…was I really trapped or just deceived?

Like a spider weaves a web to entice it’s victims, so does Satan.  It often starts with one lie.  One misleading.  One deception.  One twist of the mind.  Once we begin to believe the lie then he begins to bind us to that deception and soon we are trapped.  No matter how hard we try at this point, we see no way of ever getting loose and this is where we just give up.

As I have shared before I was in a 22 year marriage to a man bound by addiction.  I know that I am the one who chose to marry.  I know I was the one who chose to love for so long, but is it all me? I really don’t think so.  I believe that Satan knows God has great plans for each of our lives and he will do everything in his power to stop us from succeeding.

How often do we get sucked into something we just know is not right but we talk ourselves into doing it anyways? Even though we seem to already know that it will end badly we move forward with it.  Maybe it’s time for us to decide not to be deceived by the schemes of Satan.  Perhaps it’s time for us to stand up and shout to the Devil a big healthy NO!  How do we do this?  Study the Word and use it as our weapon.

When we come to the understanding that nothing can stop what God has started in our lives, we can begin to understand the meaning of life.  We were created by a God who just wants to be loved.  As He begins to move in our lives we will certainly come against opposition but when we have the Word of God as our sword, we cannot be stopped.