We moved into our current house about four years ago. It is a ranch style house with a full-length basement. When we moved in, the basement was not finished. For us it was like a blank canvas. We knew we were going to finish at least a portion of it and began dreaming about what it could be. One item on our list for the basement was a bedroom for our 18-year-old daughter. We made it happen. She got her basement bedroom. She was thrilled. Did I mention that we live in a heavily wooded area? We are nature lovers so we love the occasional deer that passes by, the squirrels, birds and all the other creatures that we can watch from our screened in porch. What we do not like about it is the insect critters. We especially the 8-legged ones. We hired the bug guy to keep them out. Why? Because we do not cohabitate with spiders. If they enter my domain, they are subject to my wrath. My daughter in the basement sees more than we do upstairs. Rachel is fearless and has become quite handy with a shoe to pass judgement on any creepy critter that enters her domain. As I said before we do not cohabitate with spiders.
Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith.
1 Peter 5:8-9
According to the scriptures we do not live in this world unopposed. We have an enemy that is bent on our demise. People get the brunt of his attacks. We can simply look around and see the destruction that he causes. We need to remember this truth. Good God, bad devil. If we are not careful, we can get this mixed up and accuse God of things that are clearly the work of our enemy. According to Jesus “the devil comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I (Jesus) have come to bring life to the full.”(John 10:10) We have a clear enemy and he has a clear purpose.
We also need to understand that our enemy has ways he operates. Most all his attacks come by one way. That way is deception. Deception is the devil’s calling card. It is what he does best. Listen to how Jesus describes the devil. “For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44) He lies to you and me. The devil’s number one tool in his arsenal is trying to get you to believe something that is not true. He does this in many ways.
First the devil will lie to you about who God is. Have you ever had these thoughts? “God has abandoned you” “You are so bad that God doesn’t love you anymore.” “Because of what you have done, God has turned his back on you.” “You will have to do a lot to make God like you again.” Do any of these thoughts sound familiar? These are very normal lies that the enemy tries to put on us. These are all thoughts that most of us have had. The devil wants to lie to us about who God is. The truth is that God will always love us. We can always come back to him, no matter what. God is for you and the devil does not want you to believe that. Secondly the devil wants to lie to you about who you are. Have these thoughts ever crossed your mind? “You are worthless.” “You will never….” “No one really likes you” “You will never be happy” What about this one? “You don’t have what it takes” Thoughts like these can literally take your breath away. These thoughts come in like a gut punch. If we are not careful, they can take us out.
So, what does all this have to do with spiders? Like spiders we should not cohabitate with these lies. How do you cohabitate with a lie? You agree with it. How you deal with these lies will determine if the enemy will accomplish his destruction in your life. How many bouts of depression began by the devil serving up a lie and we believed it? How many relationships were ruined because the devil told a lie like… “they don’t really care about you. We need to crush those lies that try to bring destruction to us. How do we crush those spiders? We take out the big shoe of the truth and crush that lie! We remind ourselves what God says about us. We remind ourselves that we are indeed loved by God. We remind ourselves that if God is for us, who can be against us. A practice of mine is to find out what the Bible says about what I am thinking and begin to think on the truth rather than the lie. Google can be your best friend on this. Just do a search on “What does the Bible say about….” When you do, write it down and put it where you can see it. When we started our church, the devil was always in my head that we would not have enough money. That was the lie the devil was using to attack me. So I went to the Bible and started finding scriptures that spoke about God’s provision. This was the scripture I clung to, And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need, and plenty left over to share with others. (2 Corinth 9:8) I crushed that lie with what God said. I began to say “Hope Church will have plenty and we will have extra to bless others! That has been our story so far. The devil tried to get me to believe a lie. But God’s word crushed that spider. We need to have that kind of tenacity. We don’t just agree with every thought that crawls in in our mind. We need to judge every thought by what God says about it.
One final thought. Sometimes we hit that spider and it does not die. It is still moving. We have all done this. We get a tissue and put our thumb on it and we crush it again until it crunches. I know gross, right? But it drives the point home. Sometimes that lie just keeps coming. We need to continue to put pressure on that lie until it crunches. We do not cohabitate with spiders and we do not cohabitate with lies from the devil. So next time you find that critter in your home or car and you crush that critter remember that God’s truth will crush every lie of the enemy. It is time to crush all the lies of our enemy! We can do it through the truth of God’s word. Crush the lie until it does not move anymore. Crush the lie until it crunches!