Sunday, October 31, 2010

the winning team

Everyone worships something. Even the nihilist that swims in a suspension of meaninglessness worships the emptiness by giving it honor in his life. We have so many choices - God loves us enough to let us go. I don't claim to be a world views or spiritual expert, but I know God, and I know deceit, and I know that I'm loved by the One above all others. And so, for that matter, is every other person on planet Earth. 

This is so important to me. 
When a six year old child witnesses the death of another child, the concepts of good and evil, life and death, and survival instinct all come crashing into the concrete. I just wanted to be on the winning side, whatever side that was. I wanted to be on the side of the one that would let me live. Because of the chaos of my surroundings, I was in a very literal black and white world of innocence versus depravity. Let's call it what it is - the depravity of man is Satan's domain. And I learned at a very impressionable age what the cost of serving Satan can be. 

Hopefully most don't experience the battle on the front lines that way, but I know that many, many have. Fortunately and unfortunately both, most people have no idea what they are up against. The things of the kingdom of darkness are at best a novelty act. Our culture is flooded with zombies, vampires, black magic, astrology, mythology, and counterfeits of every kind. 

Pause and hear me: I'm NOT standing in my "Holy Hideout" condemning "the world" for their interest in the latest vampire series. What I see is a people with a sense of the supernatural who are doing everything they can to get near to it... but they don't necessarily know what they're looking for. (And, as a note, my kids do dress up for Halloween. They also understand our family's values.) 

My point is, I didn't know for a very long time who would come out the stronger. Of course I had heard about Creator God casting Lucifer from heaven. (Luke 10:18) But I didn't KNOW who was going to win, because darkness seemed so powerful to me. 

Lifelong story short, God showed up mightily in my life in ways that I can only begin to recount. And when light shines in the darkness, the darkness MUST flee from it. (Ephesians 5:13-14) God IS bigger and stronger and more powerful than our Enemy. Any attempt to persuade us differently is a lie. Whatever shape the darkness takes - sickness, poverty, hopelessness, calamity, and even death - I testify to the conquering power of Yahweh. He is more real than anything that can come against us. There is Hope in the name of Jesus.




"What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.  The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out." (John 1: 4-5, The Message)






Chris Tomlin has a song we sang at Lifegate this morning, and the words are Truth. 
I found it so appropriate, on a day that the occult has marked as a celebration of the Deceiver, that the power of the Holy Spirit would show up and break loose the chains of fear and doubt in peoples' hearts. 
Our voices rang out and the shadows had to recede, because Satan knows that he has been defeated.

"Our God is greater, our God is stronger,
God, you are higher than any other..."

The keen survival instincts that I developed as a little girl are still awake in me. But now I know which is the winning side. And I choose to worship Jesus Christ, the name above all other names. 

"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:9-11, NIV)


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