To hear this Morning Devotion, click Satan never gives up
It’s one of the sad facts about high school.
We see the trouble caused by the teen who wants a certain person as a girlfriend or boyfriend but who does not get his or her way.
Most unrealized, heartthob hopes for teens eventually dissolve into renewed hopes for relationship with others.
That’s how it should be during the journey through the emotional minefield of adolescence.
Sometimes, though, a rejected teen listens to darker inner voices and turns to vindictive sabotage rather than a redirected search for a healthy relationship.
“If I can’t have a relationship with him (or her), then I’m going to make it to where nobody will want a relationship with him (or her),” the shunned teen thinks.
And so the lies and the gossip begin.
The mission has become twinning the battle for self-acceptance rather than to win the heart of the now-enemy.
It’s a terrible thing that I witnessed in high school. Perhaps you did, too.
Where is Satan in this process? He’s lurking in the shadows of the teen’s soul, providing a hidden, yet flowing fountain of poison, filling and re-filling the troubled teen’s squirt bottle of staining slime.
Satan knows very well what it’s like to desperately want something, to fail and then to focus on destroying the one who did not give him what he wanted.
That’s why he is so willing to assist those lured into his trap of doing the same on a person-to-person level.
So why I am writing about this today?
I want remind you and myself of how Satan never gives up in his effort to multiply his malice into the lives of mankind.
His primary purpose as he sees it is to destroy everything that is important to the One who kept him from getting what he wanted.
“If I can’t be the boss of heaven, then I’m going to make it to where nobody will believe it exists or they’ll not be willing to stand up to me until they get there,” the banished, corrupted worship leader thinks.
And so the fountain of lies and gossip and countless cues for sinning flow from him into the hearts of man as if it were Niagara Falls.
My heart was wounded this morning while reading from Mark 15. In vv. 30, 32 and 36, the enemies of Christ repeated their veiled desire for Jesus to forfeit His place as the crucified Messiah.
- “Come down from the cross and save yourself” – verse 30.
- “Let this Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe” – verse 32.
- “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down” – verse 36.
Satan knew that he could never have the authority and intimacy with God that Jesus did, and so he pushed hard through the hinted lies of people to lure Jesus into destroying His own plan and perfection.
If Satan couldn’t have it, then he would do everything he could to make sure that nobody could have it.
Luke 23 contains three other torpedoes against man’s salvation in the form of taunting pleas from Jesus haters that He should save Himself by giving up the idea of dying on the cross.
I thank God that Jesus didn’t listen to those who were listening to Satan.
I have the hope of eternal life because I trust Jesus rather than Satan.
Yes, I have to be on my guard against the lure of sometimes-easier paths faced by those who don’t stand up for decency and dignity and godliness and Christ-based faith.
It’s so easy put down the cross we are to carry and to save ourself from earthly hassles.
Remember, though, who will be smiling if we do.
It won’t be Jesus, that’s for sure.
Please don’t let Satan has his way in your life. The more he hassles you because you’ve rejected him, the more value your faith will have in the eyes of the Lord who conquered him.
As always, I love you
Martin
