One would think I’d be beyond seduction. After all I’m the Jesus Chick. Even as I write those words my stomach twists and turns knowing that I’m just a sinner saved by grace. I try hard to walk the talk (and fail.) I don’t want to be just another hypocritical living child of God.
I loved the funny tale of the man who wanted no part of religious, hypocritical living Christians, but at the coercing of a friend decided to go to church. He watched as the people from his small town filed into the church; one by one their sins rehearsed themselves in his mind. He listened intently to the sermon, sure he’d find discrepancies of truth, but the strangest thing happened… at some point he stopped looking at the people, and the Pastor’s words began to pierce his heart and within him he could feel his soul tremble. The Word was truth, and it had not pointed to the sins of his peers but to his own. When altar call came his heart nearly beat out of his chest as his white knuckles relinquished their grip on the pew and he made his way down the aisle. As he got up from the altar the man was amazed that God had not only saved him, but the entire church of hypocrites as well, he couldn’t spot a one!
I love that story! It’s not my own, nor do I really fit into it as my story of salvation. I was a lost sinner living a lie. I didn’t look at other “Christians” and think of them as hypocrites because I didn’t understand what Christians were supposed to be. That my friend is a sad indictment on society. I knew right from wrong, the moral sense of the law but was clueless to what a Spirit filled Christian looked like. I was seduced by Satan who had convinced me that there was no need to seek a relationship with Christ; that was for Preachers and fanatics. But then “it” happened, Shari got saved, really saved! Holy Spirit filled, call me a fanatic, I don’t care – saved! And a different type of seduction started. Satan could no longer seduce me into idleness but would rather seduce me with busyness.” Regardless of whether or not it was work, church or family related, I was still being seduced away from the relationship with Christ.
1 John 2
26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
The Anointing
God’s plan of action for every believer. Every day He has a job that only you can do, and He’s anointed you with the power to do it. Every day Satan works to get you off focus.
The Abiding
God’s place within the heart of every believer. Everyday God makes your heart His home and begins to fill it with godly possessions. And every day Satan strives to overcrowd that space with pretty pieces that serve no purpose in eternity.
The Appearing
God’s Pledge that He’s coming back for every believer. Every day God wants us to be ready for His return. To have confidence that we are okay in Him, and every day Satan removes that confidence of God’s return and replaces it with complacency.
He has seduction down to fine art. It doesn’t have to be sexy, or vile; it just has to catch your eye long enough to get you off focus. God’s eternal design was not so much for us to walk the talk as it was to walk with Him. That will speak for itself.
