Letters

From Toronto: Dear Brooks: I know the Bible tells us to “resist the devil and he will flee” but it sure is a constant struggle…..

Editor’s Comment:  You bet it is Toronto. I like the way Laura Deane summed it up in her little booklet, “For My Mind’s Health.”  She wrote, “Our continual war is against the wiles of the devil.; the thoughts he implants in the careless mind, the pictures he plants in the imagination, the words of unkindness or untruths he gets us to use, the acts he tempts us to do that are wrong.” Well, Toronto, you are not the only one who struggles, Satan seems to come after us through our weakest points, then works from there trying to get us fully under his influence, knowing, as Ms. Dern states, “we cannot serve God and the Mammon of unrighteousness at the same time.”

Yet, as incredulous as it may sound, is the devil used at times as  a “teacher” perhaps? In mentioning two individuals who likely opposed the faith, the Apostle Paul says of them in 1 Timothy 1:20, “….. Whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” He had just said to Timothy, “Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction …. so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience.”  I suppose if you think about it, when we are under the dominion of Satan, our feelings of guilt and longing for the Lord helps us to overcome the Devil’s wiles and even if we become repeat offenders, each time we become stronger with the help of Jesus.