Expect Accusation from Within

EXPECT ACCUSATION FROM WITHIN

" ... the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night." Revelation 12:10

Growing up I hated tattle-tales! I got in enough trouble as it was, but there was always one in the bunch who had to tattle. A tattle-tale is a finger pointer and that is precisely one of the items on Satan's job description.

Pastor and writer, Kenny Luck, reminds us that, "emotionally, he is like a category five tornado swirling with anger, making large sucking sounds, yanking people up by the roots, displacing them without mercy, tossing them around, and dumping them in some distant emotional cornfield. That's what the Devil purposes to do every day to God's people whenever and wherever the opportunities present themselves ...

The good news is that because we have THE ADVOCATE (1 John 2:1) nothing he says sticks in God's courtroom! However he likes to put on trial with other men and that is where he loves to play. Pastor Kenny reminds us that "a lot of us have a past, some of us have regrets, and EVERYBODY owns hidden self-doubts, insecurities, frailties, wounds, defects and fears. These accessories of the fallen nature act like adhesive for the Accuser to pin accusations on our spirits and discourage us. When a man gets a healthy dose of self-pity, self-despair, or self-condemnation, he arrives to MAGNIFY those thoughts and views to feel fatal and final. He loves to exaggerate the NORMAL and elevate it to extremes:

"I made a mistake" becomes "I ALWAYS blow it!"

"I need to work on that" becomes "I'll NEVER change!"

"Well, that didn't go well" becomes "Well, what did I expect?"

"I may need some support in this" becomes "I could never talk about THAT!"

"This is making feel overwhelmed at the moment" becomes "Life is falling apart!"

"This isn't easy" becomes "How does this always happen to me?"

"I need to figure this out" becomes "This is just like God to do this to me!"

Pastor Kenny goes on to say: "Misery loves company, and Satan is happy to oblige. He magnifies misery to obscure God, isolate you, and get you to medicate your despair with substitute pleasures. Satan says, "Get angry, get high, get nasty, get drunk, get on the Net, get even, just get busy!" Whenever emotions, words, and conclusions begin to be EXAGGERATED, take a deep breath, take a break, and take inventory of reality ... If you don't deal with how you FEEL inside, Satan will use what you leave to manipulate, exaggerate, and motivate you to find 'solutions' that will harm you.' (from FIGHT - coming this summer from Waterbrook Press).

That's why it is so important for you to be connected daily in the Word, in prayer, and with a local church!!! We cannot do this on our own, guys! Stay connected! - Bill Welte is President and CEO of America's KESWICK

God's WORD for YOU: 2 Chronicles 10-12; John 11:30-57

Great Quote: Let us give ourselves to God without any reserve, and let us fear nothing. He will love us, and we shall love Him. His love, increasing every day, will take the place of everything else to us. He will fill our whole hearts; He will deprive us only of those things that make us unhappy. He will cause us to do in general, what we have been doing already, but which we have done in an unsatisfactory manner; whereas, hereafter, we shall do them well, because they will be done for His sake. Even the smallest actions of a simple and common life will be turned to consolation and recompense. We shall meet the approach of death in peace; it will be changed for us into the beginning of the immortal life. -- Francois Fenelon