We need to talk about this today. Like many verses we skim over in our daily Bible readings, it’s easy to nod in agreement when we see passages like this, maybe whisper a quick ‘amen’, and if we are really serious about our time in the word, we may even highlight or underline such verses before moving on. And yet, James reminds us that if we are just ‘hearers of the word and not doers’...what do we end up doing to ourselves? (James 1:22) As I heard a Bible teacher ask one time, ‘Did God put that in there for us to analyze or to do?”
Do you know why God had Paul write that word of admonition to the church at Ephesus? I bet it had something to do with the fact that we ‘believers’ can actually ‘give place’ or give ground or a ‘foothold’ to this spiritual entity that we know as the ‘devil’. Would you take a moment with that and consider the implications here? Another way we might express such a warning is: ‘Don’t open that door...!’ because if you do, you are making an opportunity for demonic forces to enter...’legally’.
I know, we don’t really like to believe these powers of darkness really exist and operate, let alone affect us personally. It’s much easier on our modern day intellect to think of devils and demons as a more general term to describe ‘evil’ today, than a literal spiritual agent of wickedness. And yet...there is Paul, a highly educated scholar whom God saved and used to pen 2/3’s of the NT, teaching and instructing us what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And he implies, strongly, that we believers can actually give the enemy ground to operate in our lives. How did Peter phrase it in 1 Pet. 5:8? Do you recall what Jesus told us that this enemy comes to do? He was pretty candid saying he comes to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’. (John 10:10)
If you are not a believer who just stumbled across this post today and find it amusing that we are discussing that such things truly exist, I get...why you might be snickering. Paul told us that this ‘message of the cross...is foolishness to those who are perishing’. (1 Cor. 1:18). He also explains why you are perishing, because the ‘god of this age has blinded your minds from seeing the light of the gospel’. (2 Cor. 4:3-4). But you don’t have to perish. (Luke 13:3,5; 2 Cor. 3:16) Oh, and if you consider yourself to be a ‘Christian’ and are amused that we would take such verses seriously, let alone - ‘literally’, you might want to pause and do some examining of your own heart. (2 Cor. 13:5)
So the first question we need to explore is how does a believer ‘give place/ground to the devil’? This would be good to know because...we can actually do that- we can open a door for the thief to come in and ‘steal, kill, and destroy’. Not understanding how we do this might explain why God spoke through Hosea, reminding us why... ‘His people are destroyed’. (Hosea 4:6). I’m going to give you a ‘heads-up’ here ...this is going to mess with a lot of people’s theology. All I ask of you is to take time and examine the word for yourself, what you do with it is between you and God. (Acts 17:11)
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