Reject the devil's ways...

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’

“Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”’” (Matthew 4:8-10, NIV)

Don’t know where the quote comes from, but I’ve heard it a dozen or more times. “Come over to the dark side. We’ve got cookies.”

We laugh at that, but Satan often employs similar tactics. The tempter, when we haven’t received what we believed for, suggests another path to gaining what we want.

“Follow the world’s ways to gain power. Put yourself first to get money.”

People who fall for this may show up to church on Sunday, but only if they think it will get them ahead in another arena. They sing on Sunday and sin on Monday. They know all the right answers in Bible study, but cheat their customers on Wednesday. They can pray with just the right number of “praise Gods” to sound holy, but prey upon widows on Friday. Their hearts are far from God. They worship themselves rather than their Savior. They worship wealth or fame or power and do whatever it takes – sinful or not – to gain these things. Their “righteousness,” their “religion,” is a sham.

Is yours?

Let me say this to all of you in love. You cannot serve both God and money. You cannot serve both God and yourself. You cannot serve both God and the world. You cannot serve God AND anything or anyone else.

Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. He will provide for your needs. He will fulfill his promises to you in his way. He will reward you in eternity in a way that will make all you might have gained through Satan’s ways seem like so much raw sewage.

Do not fall for Satan’s lies. The cookies the dark side offers are laced with poison. If you swallow the enemy’s lies, you will die! Rejecting God and following the devil has eternal consequences.

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