I’ll be there in 5 minutes. If not, read this again. —Text message
Media experts tell us our brains are bombarded with approximately 1,000,000,000 advertisements each day. Beyond that, our lives are filled with text messages, emails, and social media. With all this information headed our way, why would any Christian ever listen to the evil one?
Because the Father of Lies knows how to catch people like you and me. He even has a specific strategy. Consider this analogy from Andrew Farley’s The Naked Gospel:
Imagine you’re going to a tropical climate for a vacation. Along the way, a parasite crawls into your sandals and burrows inside your foot—so deep you don’t even realize it. Eventually, it begins to send pain messages to your brain. You begin thinking, ”There’s something seriously wrong with me.” Not knowing about what lies within your foot, you wrongly assume the problem is your foot itself.
Although not actually physical, the “power of sin” is much like a parasite that has found its way inside your body.
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:9-10)
When we become a believer in Jesus Christ, we become a new creation in our spirit, and the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us. Yet, this parasite of sin still lies within us, but it’s not us. When our mind receives a lie from the evil one, “the power of sin” will take that lie and twist it into our own language, and we will think it’s our thought—it even feels like it is coming from us. But it’s not.
Sin is an imposter. His strategy is to introduce thoughts into your mind and deceive you into thinking they’re yours. We are righteous in Christ, not in ourselves. The power of sin is still in us, but we don’t have to say “yes” to it. When we know who we are in Christ and who He is in us, we can say “no.”
Lord Jesus, by the power of Your Spirit and the truth of Your Word, enable me to identify the lies of the evil one that I have accepted as if they are coming from me. I do not want to be a slave to this power of sin. Free me to follow You through grace and truth. Amen.