Week of May 26
Your Enemy is Deceitful There is an underhanded way to sell products called the bait-and-switch method. Here is how it works: A retailer entices a person to purchase an item. Yet when the consumer gets ready to buy the product, he is told that there are no more in inventory.
Immediately, the deceptive retailer tries to sell the consumer another product that is inferior to the one first offered. If the consumer buys it, the retailer makes a handsome profit, while the customer is swindled.
In the same way, false teachers use biblical words to capture attention and gain the trust of someone seeking Jesus Christ. They use trusted terms to lure people away from the salvation message of Jesus Christ. Essentially, they are the masters of the bait-and-switch method.
Deception is a principal tool used by the enemy. Names such as devil and Satan are significant words because they mean “deceiver” and “slanderer.”
Like the false teachers in the New Testament, those who seek to deceive us through misguided religious interpretation have one goal, and that is to keep us from establishing an intimate relationship with the Lord. Satan directs them because he wants to deceive us into believing there is another way to know God other than the one God has given us through Jesus Christ.
It has been said that Satan is not fighting churches, he is joining them! He can do more harm by sowing tares than by pulling up wheat. How do you become spiritually “in tune” to God? Ask Him to make you sensitive to His voice. Refuse to listen to or to spend time with ideologies that do not line up with the Word of God.
Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name (Luke 21:8).
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