April 01 , 2007

     I was talking to a friend who was raised by a wonderful Christian woman all the days of his life.  He tells me that as a young man he’d come home and say, “Hey Mom.  What’ve you been doing?” 

    And she’d say, “Oh I’ve been praying.”

    “What are you praying about?”

    “Well,” she’d say, “the devil’s been lying to me all day.”

    “The devil’s been lying to me all day.” That’s what the devil does.  He lies to us all the time, “Your husband doesn’t love you.  Your wife isn’t faithful.  Nobody really cares.  If somebody cared, wouldn’t they …”  It’s just always a constant barrage.  The devil never stops lying to us.  But remember this, everything that he says is a lie.  And you don’t have to validate it by reacting to it or believing it or getting into those funks that you get into because he says these things over and over to you.

    The negative talk that I have going on and on in my mind is bad enough.  I don’t need to listen to Satan too.  God says, “I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities.” Jeremiah 33:8  He’s going to do that for me and for you.  He has done that by making atonement for me on the cross with Christ.  I am completely cleansed – past, present, and future.  How do I know past, present, and future?  Because Christ died once and for all … but He died before I was born.  Well, then, His atonement must extend into the future.  Even past my life. 

    And so, Christ died and made atonement, and because I believe, just as with Abraham, God accounts it as righteous.  So you can believe in Jesus Christ and God will count you as righteous, because atonement has been made for any and all sins you’ll ever commit.

    The part that’s difficult for us is the actual living in victory every day.  God doesn’t stop loving you just because you mess up.  But the devil lies to you all day long and says, “Yeah, He loves you.  Oops, no He doesn’t.  Okay, you made up now, oops, nope, He wouldn’t love you now if He saw you doing that.”  And you go in and out of “He loves me, He loves me not.  He loves me.  He loves me not.” 

    That’s not how it is at all!  God’s love is constant.  He never stops loving you.  He will always love you.  Jeremiah 31:3 says, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”

    Now do you understand why it’s so difficult to read your Bible every day?  Now do you understand why there’s so much distraction?  Do you understand why it is such a battle just to sit down and find some quiet time just to read?  Do you understand why you don’t get the hour in each day?  It’s because the devil doesn’t want you to have faith.  If you have faith in God’s love for you, you’ll defeat the devil.  You’ll completely defeat him and destroy him.

   God loves you!  Keep Reading.

May The Lord Jesus Christ Be Magnified!

Pastor Leo A. Giovinetti

lley Christian Fellowship