Satan's Tactic: Intimidation

There is a movement afoot to blame "Christianity" for the falling away of Christians from the church.  There have been many articles in the past few years about the hordes of people leaving the church and becoming atheists.  They blame "religion" on the hypocrisy they experience within the walls of the "religious" institutions.  

They are right, those atheists, when they say there is hypocrisy in the church, not only is it there, but it is in all the institutions that are not Christian too.  Perhaps we need to look at the definition of hypocrisy before assigning that term to an organization or person.  

Hypocrisy: "pretending to be what one is not, one who pretends to be virtuous and pious when one is really not."

Obviously, a person who is judging another as virtuous when they are not, is the self righteous non-believer.  They think that there should be a higher standard for believers than they assign to themselves.  Anyone who will not live up to a particular standard, becomes a hypocrite when accusing others of also not living up to the standard.  This flawed thinking is nothing more than verbal manipulation to confuse and embarrass the believer.

This definition describes every human being on the face of the earth.  Those who say they hate hypocrisy and blame Christians for being so, do not hold the same standards that they expect out of believers, therefore they are what they blame others of being.  This is Satan's tactic for silencing the believers.  If he can make us ashamed of our failures and leave us with a sense that we have no right to speak boldly on the subject of the lost sinner, then we will have little or no effect on our culture, families or friends.  We will be muted for the sake of shame and tolerance.

It is important to live up to God's standard, but not for the sake of the non-believer, but because of our love for God.  When we love Him and live according to His will, He will bless us with a proper witness in the community.  He will use us for His purposes.  We do not have to walk about worried that we do everything to impress others, we can rest in Him. Obey Him and when we fail, confess it and move on to obedience once again. 

There is one thing that the accusers can not know and don't think of and that is the nature of the human race.  All people are "desperately wicked" and all people do not have the ability to be anything other than sinful, hypocritical and self willed. Everyone "falls short of the glory of God."

The only remedy to combat this wretched condition is to be changed into something we could not be on our own. Someone else would have to change what we do not have the ability to change in us.  We can work ourselves silly to be something we would like to be, but we can not do it in our depraved condition.  So how can non-believers open their mouths in protest at the imperfections of the believer when they are still in their lost status?

One of Satan's tactics is to keep the believer focused on their past sin and human failures.  He is the accuser of the brethren in the heavenlies.  God says that if we have trusted Christ, He has changed us and will keep us.  

Don't fall for the attacks of the devil.  Look to Christ rather than the words and manipulations of unsaved people.  When they accuse us of being hypocrites, agree with them.  We are all hypocrites when we do not obey the Lord.  Some who are in the church are not saved just as the accusing unbeliever.  They walk not with our Savior, but they claim His name.  Any non-believer who loves his sin, has no standing to accuse others of theirs.  

The non-believer needs the gospel message that he is lost in his sin and his only recourse is to trust Christ to avoid the punishment that is coming for those who will not love Him.  The key to our emotional sanity is to ignore the accusations of the non-believer or the believer who is disobedient, and keep our eyes focused on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Pray for all those who are saved and walking disobediently, those who are unsaved and those in the church who would claim Christianity but appear to be unsaved.  God knows who is who and what each one needs.  Also we should be praying that we are not sucked into the whiles of the devil through argumentative spirits who wish to disarm us through shame and embarrassment.  

The most effective weapons against the onslaught of accusation are to continually stay in the Word, prayer and the companionship of other like minded believers who can keep us focused on Him.  May the Lord make us all effective, focused and bold in our witness and walk.  

Can We Hear The Holy Spirit?

When we become saved we are given the Holy Spirit by God. He will speak to us in our hearts, we will know it is Him. If we read our Bibles and know God's Word, we will be more able to hear the Holy Spirit. He will speak to us through the Word (the Bible). We have the choice to obey or ignore His promptings. If we obey, we are blessed and grow. If we ignore Him, we will suffer the consequences that come with disobedience and we will remain baby Christians. We should feel guilty over sin, although if we ignore Him long enough we lose the ability to hear Him. God will allow us to experience the consequences of our disobedience. Sometimes it means He will take us home early, we will then miss His blessing. We don't ever want to grieve the Holy Spirit. We want to please God and obey the Holy Spirit. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 "All Scripture is inspired of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Criticism and Failure are our Friends and Teachers

Toil and sweat, then stand back and enjoy the consequence of our labors.

Recieve correction and criticism with gladness and we will grow into accomplished individuals with a greater purpose.

As a culture, we have praised children to the point of being dishonest with them. We have told them they did a good job on something when they didn't even try, just to "encourage" them. What we have created are self inflated monsters who feel a sense of entitlement to praise and personal attention.

We no longer have children who can be  team players and cooperate with others, because their focus is completely on themselves as the center of attention. They are selfish and materialistic. There are those exceptions, but for the most part children are entertained continually and not expected to work hard enough to draw a sweat, so they are also lazy and angry when they have to work. Productivity will fall off, and has, in our country, if we do not raise the next generation to invite criticism to be able to improve themselves.

Criticism is our friend, but our culture considers it rude and unkind. A child feeling good about himself has taken priority over actually doing well at something and standing back to enjoy the accomplishment.

Failure teaches, discipline teaches and criticism teaches, when we remove these elements we set a child up for life long failure and continual disappointment.  

Phony praise is not a blessings but a curse.  Honest evaluation brings true accomplishment that the children can build on for future success.  To doom a child to mediocrity is not only unkind but a sin.  Teaching excellence builds a person of character and resolve to do what is best and gratifying.  There can be no better feeling than knowing that we worked hard, learned new things and can stand back and look at our creation with confidence and pleasure.  

Learning is a wonderful thing, but it is not without hardship and sweat.  Let's go for the greater good and feelings of accomplishment rather than the temporary feelings of flattery.