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I am not a gardener. I very much appreciate the creativity and provision that the glorious plant life the Lord has given us represents. But I prefer to engage with the animal kingdom component of God’s creation. But just as God intended, animal life cannot live and thrive without plant life. And so I have become a reluctant gardener in order to provide an inviting oasis for the wildlife in our neighborhood.
I am still not a gardener! My efforts are amateur at best. One of the challenges I have encountered is distinguishing weeds from plants. My expectation that it should be obvious and easy has not proven to always be the case. Some weeds are attractive!
So while I am still not a gardener, I have come to appreciate the lessons that gardening can offer. Weeds can compromise the growth of the plants I want to grow by stealing nutrients from the soil. So attractive or not, I need to learn to recognize them and remove them. The same is true of spiritual weeds, the lies that Satan would have me believe, that would erode the truths that are the foundation of my life of faith.
In II Corinthians 11:14, the Apostle Paul tells us that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light. He has been the master of deceit from the time he arrived in the Garden of Eden to initiate the fateful conversation with Eve. We would be wise to pay attention to his strategy. The serpent does not directly contradict God’s command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil until well into the conversation. Instead, he questions Eve in such as way as to encourage her to question her knowledge of and trust in the LORD. Then he contradicts God; he assures her that not only will she not die if she eats the fruit, she will become wise like God! And when he finally offers the fruit to Eve she sees that it is beautiful and tasty—irresistable!
The lies Satan would throw before us are no different. Satan’s lies are attractive: they tell us what we want to hear, and they appear harmless and even good. Worse yet, they make us feel good about ourselves, important and powerful. It is easy to mistake them for God’s truth, and even easier to want them to be true. This is why it is so important for us to be walking in faith, pursuing an ever-growing personal relationship with our Lord and Savior. We must be fully convinced in our heart of God’s sovereign righteousness and goodness and of His redemptive purposes if we are to withstand the lies that Satan would have put before us, lies that look good, offer a “quick fix,” and make us feel good. We must learn to distinguish Satan’s lies from God’s truth and mercilessly uproot them from our minds and hearts.
Fortunately, God Almighty is on our side. The Lord who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life has died for our sins. He has blessed us with His Word and with His indwelling Holy Spirit. He has given us one another to encourage and correct us should we be tempted to stray from His truth. And best of all, He has promised to complete the work He has begun in us. May we live gratefully and joyfully in the Truth….
