Garage Sale

Who doesn't love a good garage sale? You've heard the idiom, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." That is so true!
What if Satan had a garage sale. What do you suppose he would have laid out on tables? I imagine he would offer ALL THE TOOLS of his trade to anyone who would pay the price. (His wages demand death.) I can see it now. Spread out on the tables, each "tool" labeled hatred, malice, envy, gossip, perversion, lust - all the weapons that everyone knows so well. But off to one side on a table lay a harmless-looking tool marked "discouragement." It is old and worn looking but is priced far above anything else Satan offers. The reason it is priced so high is that Satan can use this one tool so much more easily than the others. No one ever seems to know this one even belongs to Satan, so with it he is able to open doors that are bolted tightly! Once he gets inside a man's heart with this particular tool, he can easily use any of the other tools that best suits his purpose!

Ask yourself, "What heroic and inspiring accounts were never written because Satan effectively used his tool of discouragement?" I have personally experienced this when attempting to write my blogs. Satan whispers his discouraging cadence like these on nearly a weekly basis: "No one will read your stuff" or "That subject is boring, don't write it" or "Just stop! No one is reading your blogs. See, no one even comments." In God's Word, we can find many sad stories of people who lost heart and gave up because of discouragement. For example, when Moses sent the spies into the land of Canaan, all but Caleb and Joshua came back with discouraging news. The fearful saw the size and strength of their opponents rather than remembering the signs and strength of their God (Numbers 13-14).

Remember Peter? Peter vowed he would never deny Jesus, yet he denied Him and fled with the rest when Jesus was arrested! He became so fearful of the retribution he would receive should he have agreed he was one of his disciples that he denied he ever even knew Jesus (Matthew 26: 31-75). Also, Timothy was discouraged to the point that he had become withdrawn and afraid of saying what needed to be said regarding the gospel message (2 Timothy 1:6-8) and thus Paul reminded him, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).

We become discouraged when we start paying more attention to obstacles than to opportunities. We become discouraged when we start believing those whispers in our ears from the "father of lies" (John 8:44) instead of the Father "who cannot lie" (Titus 1:2).
We must keep reminding ourselves and other believing Christians that God can do great things with a heart that is His (Joshua 14: 13-14; Numbers 14:24; Deuteronomy 1:36).
My question for you is, does He have your heart and mind or is Satan having his way with you? Have you been fooled by what the father of lies has offered? James has the solution for getting out of the devil's clutches: "Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7; Ephesians 6:11; 1 Peter 5: 8-9).
What lies has the enemy of your soul tried to convince you of? His assault on your mind is very subtle. He wants to influence your thinking. He wants to wear you down for his purpose. Stand firm, resist, withstand, and know he is a liar. I'll leave you with these words from scripture, "Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the battle is not yours, but God's."
Until next time,
-Pat-