Could You Be Deceived?

Friday's Devotion (2-4-05)

"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come." John 7:34 (KJV)

"If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will [my] Father honour." John 12:26 (KJV)

I know what you're asking, "Why is he using two scriptures up there today?". I have never done this before and I'm going to tell you why, I am doing it today. It's because I want to show you something. The first scripture up there is out of context, because it doesn't show the scriptures that came before it... it is Jesus, talking to people who didn't believe in Him, people who refused Him. The second scripture is in great context. What's my point? My point is that Satan and his people can and will take scriptures out of context and they'll tell you things like, "Seek Him and you will not find Him and where He is you cannot go!". Satan and His people want to deceive you and there is only one way around this deception and that's to know God's Word, in it's full context! When Satan, tells you, "Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come." quoting the Bible then you should be able to quote the Bible right back and say, "Hey, that's out of context! The Bible says, "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will [my] Father honour.".

If you can't fight back with the truth of scripture and not Satan's half truths and lies then you're in big trouble! You're going to go to a website or hear a preacher say a certain scripture and Satan, is going to use that scripture out of context against you and you're going to believe his lies! It's easy to take the scriptures and twist them if you know God's Word, well enough, but it's also easy to know a lie if you know God's Word, well enough! People will tell you about certain sins and say, "Oh the Bible doesn't even mention that, it's not a sin!" and the Bible does mention it, but the people fall for it. Why do they fall for it? Because they don't know the Bible for themselves! This is spiritual laziness and the final outcome of being spiritually lazy is deception. It took a big eye opener for me to realize this: I had just become saved and was on a chat program with my wife (Was girl-friend then) and we always put off reading the Bible, "Oh we're going to start doing that tomorrow!" and we'd never get around to it, until after that one day... A man came into a chat room and started preaching outrageously false doctrines and I was buying into them because they sounded like something that really interested me. The weird thing is that me and my wife were the only ones in the chat besides this man and he knew my interests and how to word things to me. My wife says, "Let's go!" I said, "I don't want to, hold on!" then she says, "I have to tell you something." and she had remembered from her time in God's Word some things that go against what this man was teaching. She told me and then that night we decided that it's time to take things seriously and to really start reading the Bible and we did. Had I been alone then God only knows where I'd be today... not everyone gets as blessed as I did that day. You could be deceived! This is one of my favorite stories to tell because it was such a powerful eye opening experience for me and I hope you think it is too. Be prepared and ready to take the test on God's Word! Is what you're hearing what God's Word, really says? Find out for yourself and open the Bible! If you put it off until tomorrow then you could be deceived. Don't ever think that you're above being deceived, because if you do... then you're already deceived.

I recommend that you start your reading in the gospel of John. You don't have to read a whole lot each day... just read as much as you can take in. I read a chapter a day, but for you it might be a chapter, a few verses, two chapters, three or etc. It really depends on you, but the important thing is to get into reading the Bible daily.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins and we forgive all those who've wronged us. Please help us to know you and your Word, help us to never be deceived. Also may we never be used as one of Satan's tools to deceive others, because we know that you do not honor deceivers and that you will not allow deceivers into your Kingdom. In Jesus, name. A-men!

God bless!

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