Happy Halloween – Satan’s Favorite Tricks and Treats - Purity 876

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of the sun peeking through a section of a post-peak autumn forest comes to us from yours truly, as I felt moved to capture a few scenes of the autumn season as it seems to be quickly slip-sliding away, as I walked along the west side of Waite Road on Saturday. Well, happy Halloween! Although I suspect some people would have been a lot happier if All Hallows' Eve had fallen on a Friday or a Saturday. But I know that those who may have wished that undoubtedly didn't let the actual day of Halloween get in the way of celebrating enthusiastically over the weekend. I myself volunteered at a harvest festival that was a harvest festival in name only, as the event hosted a hosted by Operation Adopt a Soldier at Gavin Park in Wilton, New York, featured a haunted hayride and gave out prizes each night for the best Halloween costumes. So even though today is the day, for many Halloween is all but over as most of us have celebrated it already and won't be doing much tonight as Tuesday morning and its work responsibilities will be coming quickly. However, today is the day for some, and for some Halloween is the favorite their favorite holiday, and they will be celebrating with all the gusto they can muster and may even arrange to take All Saints' Day off in anticipation of the need to rest and recover from their less-than-holy festivities. And in light of the great enthusiasm some have for Halloween, I have to ask the rhetorical question: if you like Halloween more than Christmas, Does that mean you're going to hell? I'm just saying, if you take delight in a holiday that celebrates the macabre and dark supernatural things of this world more than the celebration of the coming of Jesus Christ, is there any way that you have a place in God's kingdom? Or is Satan just driving around today looking at all the homes that are decked out with decorations that display witches, zombies, and ghosts and smiling and maybe singing the 1980s Queen hit, Another One Bites the Dust. I don't mean to take lightly the fact that some will be separated from God and be confined to a realm where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But when I see people literally proclaiming what is evil as good in such an outlandish fashion, uh, as some will be dressing up as Satan today, as a devil, a deep or a demon, uh, it makes me see just how sinister the Prince of Darkness is and how well he has tricked most of mankind to dismiss his actual existence and subsequently reject the Lord and his word, which warns us to have nothing to do with darkness. While today could serve as the most stark example of people either intentionally or unwittingly aligning themselves with the forces of darkness, Satan delights in deceiving us in subtle ways as well. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light as well, and so it doesn't matter to him which of the many highways of hell he diverts you to. He just doesn't want you to put your faith in Jesus and decide to follow his narrow path that leads to the fruit of the Spirit and in, in this life, and ultimately to eternal life with God. I was reminded this weekend of how Satan uses the traumas of our human existence to convince us that we can be so broken that even God can't heal us, and that we need something other than God to find peace in this life. In my ministry work for Freedom in Christ Ministries, I have encountered Christians that have believed all kinds of lies about themselves that have kept them in bondage to sin. And feeling defeated. One man who is on prescription medication for depression and anxiety confessed that he believed that he would always be depressed and that he sort of indicated that his hope lied in the abilities of his physicians to get the medication just right. While I would never dissuade people from seeking medical treatments for physical ailments, I have trouble advocating medication as the way to peace. Better life through chemistry is the methodology of addiction, and I don't care if they are street drugs found in a back alley, some herbal treatment found in a Zen garden, or distributed by a pharmacist through doctor's orders. When we look for a physical substance to provide peace, we should really question if this was God's plan for your life, um, that the only way to find peace was through taking or ingesting something. As someone who has worked in the mental health field as a counselor, I have seen the dangers of dependence on medications and becoming, quote unquote, put in a system of mental health. I have seen people with relatively minor problems who once were somewhat self-sufficient become worse after they were diagnosed and told of their chronic problems. Did their conditions worsen on their own, or did Or did they become indoctrinated in a system of belief that told them they were a hopeless case, that they should never, never go off their medications, and, and that they were basically incapable of taking care of themselves? In mental health circles, there is much care but little hope for healing, as the narratives surrounding mental maladies are that they are incurable, and the best we can do is manage the symptoms. But Christ said something else in John 14:27. He said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give, give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The world offers peace through medication, drugs, money, material possessions, and creating the right circumstances, or through human relationships. Tonight, Halloween offers sweet treats and wicked thrills from the safety of hiding behind a mask in the shadows of darkness. But Christ offers a different type of peace. He offers us peace with God, and He invites us into the light of His truth and righteousness where we need not be ashamed and we need not hide. And through faith in Him, Christ offers healing for our souls. Long before any antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds were developed, Christ offered us peace. Through walking in the Spirit, we can know it, along with love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, self-control, and joy. He offers these things freely through faith and through his invitation to know him and to follow him in the way we live our lives. So don't celebrate the dark things of this world or take delight in your dark habits that will ultimately fail to satisfy. Instead, seek the Lord and the peace that's found in Christ alone. That's right, that's right, keep walking and talking with God and you will see the truth and the peace that comes from him. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse, or medication verse, I guess, is 1 Chronicles 28:9. And it says, "And Solomon my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind, for the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him, but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever." Today's Bible verse reminds us of the need to seek the Lord. Because if we do, we will find him. So although I'm short for time this morning, I made a point to share this verse because within it there is hope, peace, and eternal life with the Lord. So read that verse and, and, and do what it says. Worship him and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. We have to be willing to follow the Lord. Willingness is basically how we, you know, demonstrate our faith. We're willing to trust, we're willing to believe, we're willing to show our faith by living it. You know, God sees your hearts and he knows, you know, every plan and thought that you come up with, and he knows whether you're not— you're with him or not. And so genuinely seek the Lord and, uh, you know, transform your life by, by faith through him. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship, and we continue with, uh, the section from Matthew 5 on the enemy and the extraordinary. Um, so if you want to see that section that I'm sharing today from that work, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see it at the end of today's blog post. As always, uh, I encourage a life of discipleship because I lived in the darkness for most of my life, and it simply didn't have anything that can give you peace, happiness, you know, certainly not joy on a long-term basis. And, you know, without God, you have no, you have no, no peace. You don't know what's going to happen. You either believe you're going to blink out of existence, or you believe that, you know, you run a very fine chance of being rejected by the Lord and going to hell. Those are really the basic two options of spiritual belief: either no, nothing will happen, or something will. And to suppose something good would happen without a relationship with the Lord is just foolishness. The Lord brought Jesus Christ to earth to show us the truth, and we're now subject and responsible to do something about it. And so I've discovered to stop running and to put your faith in Jesus and then start walking with him, because it's not just in believing. Yeah, I believe that's true, and then nothing about it. It's about believing, putting your faith in, and, you know, following his example where peace can be found, and knowing him relationally. The fact that God is with you and that this call to discipleship, this call to follow him, has come to you through the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, to encourage you in the way you should go. So don't ignore that still silent voice that tells you to follow the Lord, ignore the temptations of this world and to do the things of the flesh, and instead follow the things of the Spirit. Well, it is Monday, it is Halloween, and I do have to work, so Uh, let's pray so we can get on with that. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for the, the fact that on this day in 15-something, uh, I think 17, 1517, Martin Luther decided to challenge, uh, the common faith of the day, um, that told us that, you know, our salvation was all about works and instead drew this, the truth from that he learned from studying the Bible, that our faith was through faith alone, in Christ alone. And so he challenged the church in, in hopes of reforming it by nailing the 95 Theses to that door to the church in Wittenberg, and thus started the, the generation of light to come back into the world. Light of our salvation through faith alone. So we thank you even on this dark day. You gave us something to celebrate you, and that's called the Reformation. So we thank you, God, for this truth that has set me free and the life of the Spirit that lives in that truth that, that makes, makes all things new. Um, so Lord, we pray for the people listening today that they would know that truth and walk in it every day of their lives. Lord, we pray for you to come alongside their prayer requests and to guide them as they, they go through the world today and to give hope, you know, not to condemn, but to, to let people know that the forces of light have overcome the forces of darkness. Even if today is sort of a dark day, there was great hope in the Reformation, and there's great hope today for people to see the truth. But they have to know the truth, and that's how we can be used by you, Lord. So let us represent your kingdom today, Lord, by, uh proclaiming your goodness and your grace and your mercy and love, and, um, by loving those that we come in contact with, and by representing your kingdom in the way we live our lives. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.