The Adversary

One of the biblical pictures of the Christian life is that of a battle(not the only picture by any means)

We have an enemy .

The Bible calls him the devil,the accuser,the serpent the dragon.

He is a liar , a thief ,a murderer...and for God's blood -bought children,he's a defeated foe.

One of the things scripture tells us is that he is cunning;not smart(it's not smart to war against the Almighty God) but he is cunning ,slippery and tricky.

One of the ways he operates is to twist God's word and principles to render God's people ineffective.

Some examples

He twists the concept of biblical unity into carnal uniformity

Christlike love to tolerance and "niceness"

Peacemakers become peacekeepers

godly devotion ---superstition

faith is now positive thinking

proselytism masquerades as evangelism

going to church usurps being the church

You get the idea?There are others too.Consider:

Conviction vs condemnation

Discernment and judging

Heartfelt and Spirit-led generosity or attempting to buy God's blessing

He attempts to and often succeeds in convincing us

that refusing to give up our opinion is standing for the truth

that biblical patience is not faithful perseverance but cowardly passivity

legalism is holiness

license is grace

and arrogance is boldness.

there is a world of difference between waiting silently in the Presence of the LORD and mindless meditation and yet some have confused these with a little help from our enemy.

Many of these things can look superficially the same but to confuse them leads to a lack of effectiveness in our faith-walk...and some of them are almost right but often the battle rages not between right and wrong but between right and not quite right.

I don't know about you but some of these things I have to be alert for as I wish to say with Paul "I'm not ignorant of the devil's schemes"