There has to be a Devil
Some people say there is not Heaven or Hell
Some say there is not God or Devil
But when life gets bad, some people say, “Where is God?”
But I say there must be a Devil
And
We need to take authority over him
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Both the thief and the Giver of Life exist
Make sure you understand where your distractions from abundant life come from
There has to be a Devil
Some people say there is not Heaven or Hell.
Some say there is not God or Devil.
But when life gets bad,
some people say, “Where is God?”.
It was one of those days where
things were not working out.
My list of seven projects wasn’t going very well.
Delays, unexpected issues,
but I kept pressing through.
One of the things on my list was mowing the grass,
it was about 4:30pm.
My mower is loud, so I wear headphones
and Bluetooth worship music on Pandora.
I sat on the mower for some time trying
to get Pandora to play.
The play arrow did not do anything.
So after a little frustration,
I left the headphones on and mowed the grass.
I was almost done with my 1½ hour chore when…
I decided to make a pass by the front sidewalk
to blow the grass away from the sidewalk
and then go out to the road to get the mail,
then finish the grass.
When I got to the mail box…
I reached in and pulled out about 10 pieces of mail.
On the front of my mower is a 5 gallon bucket
I attached with a bungee strap a year ago to hold some tools
and for items found in the yard while mowing.
After pulling the mail from the box
and putting it in my bucket…
I backed the mower up and as soon as I moved forward
the bucket with the mail in it fell off the mower and…
You guessed it… I ran over the mail!
Small pieces of paper were all over the yard.
Not knowing what bills were among the junk mail…
I said, “There must be a Devil”.
I thought this could not have happened naturally.
I stopped the mower and picked up
as much of the small pieces as I could,
put them in the bucked and tried to start the mower…
Guess what? The battery was dead.
So I pulled the battery.
I took the bucket of shredded mail
and battery to the house.
I put the battery on the charger
and took the mail to Sandy
because I always give her the mail.
Sandy laughed and took a picture of the shredded mail
and text it to our kids and said…
“Now look want your dad has done,
he knows I love doing puzzles.”
There are times when you realize some things are just not natural.
Things that seem unexplainable.
Time when we might question if there was a God…
Why did He allow this to happen?
As I sat on the mower looking at little pieces of mail
all over the yard, I thought, “There must be a Devil”.
I think at times,
we think the Devil and Demons are not real.
But Jesus calls the Devil a thief in John 10:10…
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
Yes, a thief who steals, kills, and destroys.
Jesus in contrast comes to give life…
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The apostle Paul shares that Satan hindered him…
For we wanted to come to you —
certainly I, Paul, did, again and again —
but Satan stopped us.
1 Thessalonians 2:18
Paul says to the Corinthians, he uses schemes
like unforgiveness to outwit us…
In order that Satan might not outwit us.
For we are not unaware of his schemes.
2 Corinthians 2:11
Satan not only tries to hinder us
from the big plans of God in our lives…
But he tries to wear us down with the little things.
If he can get us to look at life through negative lenses,
he achieves his goal of doubt and loss of hope.
I am not saying we should look for demons under every rock,
in fact I don’t think we should look for demons at all.
We are to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ.
So, in light of that…
If Satan can distract us from our view of Christ,
we lose sight of His abundant life that
Jesus came to give each one of us.
As I look back on my day of seven things to accomplish
and the hindrances at every point…
I think what if I stopped at any point in the day
and prayed rather then pushing through
like a man and getting it done.
Paul in Acts 16 had a slave girl
who followed him every day.
She was a hindrance to his ministry.
At a certain point, Paul had enough
and rebuked the spirit in her.
Jude tells us Satan got into an argument
over Moses’ dead body with Michael the archangel.
Michael doesn’t rant and rave and get upset…
He just says, “The Lord rebuke you”.
Michael puts the matter in the Lord’s hands.
Imagine God cares about your body
after you are dead, so,
how much more each day you are alive.
Don’t let people and circumstances
be a tool of Satan to hinder you
from the abundant life.
Don’t let one second be wasted
with Satan’s schemes to get you down.
Stop, pray and if need be…
Say, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan”.
If my dead body is important to God
than my responsibility of mowing the grass
must have some importance to Him, as well.
Scripture Reading
Acts 16:16-18 NIV
16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her.
Jude 9-10 NIV
9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
John 10:10 NIV
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
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