lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not
ignorant of his devices. (2
Corinthians 2: 11)
This is not a post about
sports, but the New England Patriots beat the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL
playoffs
They shouldn’t have.
In the 2nd half of
the game the Ravens were beating the brakes off the Patriots, leading by 14
points, but the Patriots came back to win the game 35-31. The Patriots’ coach used a series of
unconventional plays and never before used formations to break their opponents’
rhythm and score touchdown after touchdown after touchdown. But that’s not important either.
What made me give a crap
about the game was the Twitter exchange
between the losing coach (Harbagh) and the winning quarterback (Brady).
The defeated coach accused
his opponents of cheating because they used maneuvers he had never seen and
would never have thought of using himself.
But the Ravens didn’t cheat. They
pulled trick plays, but even their tricks had to conform to the rule book.
The defeated coach had underestimated
the possibilities available to his enemy because HE DIDN’T KNOW THE RULE BOOK.
Our opponent, Satan, is a
liar. He will use every deception and dirty
trick he can to corrupt you and break your fellowship with God. But even the devil is limited by the rules of
THE BOOK.
Yes. I am saying that the devil has to play by the
rules.
Remember Job. Satan had a plan, a series of plays already
drawn out to get Job to turn on God, but before he could execute any of those
plays he had to go to the Referee, Commissioner, and Owner of the universe and
get a ruling.
You and the devil play by the
same rules.
The book that prescribes the
operations of Divine grace and eternal redemption also describes the possible
means that the enemy can use against you.
The devil can only surprise
us if we haven’t learned the rule book.
The Bible is the rule
book. Read it. Don’t just pick out a couple of sweet
prosperity promises and set it down. Study
and see how evil operates, how good people end up doing bad things, how the
devil breaks the rhythm of people on God’s team and comes from behind to kill,
steal, and destroy.
Stop complaining about how
tricky your opponents is and study the rule book, as the Apostle Paul wrote, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for
we are not ignorant of his devices. (2 Corinthians 2: 11)
We are not ignorant of his
trick plays.
At least, we don’t have to
be.
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer,
community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is
pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director
of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership development
for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support Rev.
Graves’ work by visiting his personal
blog and clicking the DONATE
button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money
order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
No comments:
Post a Comment