destruction

Tending the Garden of Your Mind

“Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.” – Matthew 13:7 I will always remember my Grandpa Persley, who lived with us years ago and turned our backyard into a lovely and fruitful garden. In essence, he took boards and created a big sandbox and fertilized it regularly with composted topsoil to help the garden grow, and boy, did it ever! He had tomatoes and all kinds of other veggies until he and my grandma moved to Springfield. Guess what happened then? Unfortunately, as well-tended as it had been, no one else in our household had the time or the interest to keep that garden healthy, so within three or four weeks, it was completely overrun by weeds. In fact, so swift was the destruction that it made a lasting impression on me.  Your mind is just like that garden. Not only must you tend to

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The Lust of the Eyes

“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” – Ephesians 1:22-23 Yesterday, we looked at the lust of the flesh and talked about how obsessing over physical desires can make our lives vulnerable to the enemy’s destruction. Today, I want to share with you another way the devil seeks to wreak havoc in our lives — the lust of the eyes.  We live in a world that is obsessed with appearance. In fact, many of us learn to obsess about our image, or what we look like to those around us, even before we are old enough to understand why. Our materialistic society teaches that in order to be somebody, we must have certain things. In other words, I am what I have and I

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Your Authority in Christ

“I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” – Luke 10:19 We discussed yesterday how Satan exists, and that we, as Christians, have power and authority over the evil he seeks to bring into our lives. In this discussion, we affirmed that Jesus had triumphed in the battle! Today I want to discuss a little more about our adversary and the source of his fleeting sense of power. The existence of lack and evil in this world, I believe, is perpetrated by people; yet, their fundamental cause is found in the angelic realm, specifically through Satan and the fallen angels who chose to serve him rather than the Lord of all. When we talk about the devil and Satanic influences in modern culture, it’s natural for educated people to become defensive — because the

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Turning Back Isn’t God’s Best

“By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities — and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” – Genesis 19:23-26 Has God ever guided you someplace, but then you looked back and second-guessed your course? If so, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Lot’s wife in the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and her choice cost her her life. Having listened patiently to the painful cries of injustice rising to Him from these cities that embraced perversion and shamelessly killed women and children, God finally had enough. He went so far as to

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Jealousy Perverts Justice

“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” – Matthew 2:16 It’s strange that the account of a neurotic king like Herod offers so many object lessons to Christians, but in a world that’s obsessed with image and achievement, it behooves us to pay attention to his story. We saw yesterday that he built multiple monuments to himself that now live only in ruins, and today, I want to talk about something else significant we can learn from his life — that jealousy perverts justice. After working hard to earn his title as “King of the Jews,” he was determined to hold onto it. The problem was that it had already been

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