Ruthless
See how slippery and ruthless he is in this, he even offers us 'carnal gratification' in exchange for our belief in our oneness, but of course we would never accept this if it hadn't been cloaked in a false spirituality.
For example, Satan says "Ok perhaps our church could bless other churches around us more than we do, but we are building a very 'successful' church/ministry for God's glory, besides, we believe God has called us to build a big church in this town, others just don't have our vision".
Big is appealing to our carnality leaders, because we can measure it, but it's not so easy to measure our oneness. However let's pray that our carnal 'measuring' will yield to spiritual faith in what God has already given us, then we will surely see an increased measure far beyond our carnal interpretation of 'big'.
However we find ourselves here building a big church/ministry while unknowingly 'conversing' with him regarding the 'hard currency' that our enemy is really interested in from us. Surprise surprise, he wants our belief in our oneness, but he can't steal it, so he needs us to willingly, but unwittingly give it up very cheaply, our very identity.
But for that to happen, we'd have to believe it is of little value, far less than a 'big' church or ministry appears to us. But as the Body of Christ, he's only giving us his pawns, yet we're mistakenly believing we've done well, focusing 100% of our efforts building for the glory of God, we've had a 'bargain'.
The way he achieves this is to always keep us facing towards his 'back drop'.
He knows us, and Satan will soothe us with his comprehensive knowledge of what he knows we individually need to hear, to accept, and 'feel' absolved of responsibility for
allowing, and being part of, his deviation from what we know in our inner spiritual core,
to be our oneness truth.
For example: Not serving a local church because they are interpreting scripture incorrectly in our view, we don't have a problem with them, its just their doctrine, we'll have to leave them to it. Justification.
We then find ourselves accepting this situation, satisfied to believe that we're better
soldiers for Christ if we forget the 'impossible unity', and focus instead on doing God's work. Satan tells us not to worry though, that there are far more important things then unity, especially now God has blessed us with this big church, His favour is obviously on us.
soldiers for Christ if we forget the 'impossible unity', and focus instead on doing God's work. Satan tells us not to worry though, that there are far more important things then unity, especially now God has blessed us with this big church, His favour is obviously on us.
It's at this exact moment he reminds us of our great commission, offering us a detailed view of the endless fields in need of our harvesting. Multitudes of hurting people in one hand, and what looks like an unattainable, resource sapping ideology in the other,
AND THE DEAL IS DONE
"Never underestimate your enemy".
AND THE DEAL IS DONE
"Never underestimate your enemy".