Friday, May 20, 2011

Christ as our Intercessor

Creeping the dark of the night, rain clouds hiding the moonlight, the army slowly advanced through the field wet with rain. The large city walls before them. The Colonel orders the company to sneak in through a small break in the wall and take captive the building there. This is exactly what Satan does. You see, when fighting to take over a city (or a soul) the enemy doesn't go straight to the front gate. The enemy sneaks around the walls in constant search for the breaches in our lives. These breaches are the ways that Satan gets control over our lives. Most Christians blindly, and foolishly, guard the main gate of our lives. This being perhaps drugs, murder, pornography, cheating on our spouse. We have the mindset as "American Christians" (which is not Biblically correct and is idolatry) that if we can stay clean from such sins then we have succeeded in keeping Satan out of our lives. Praise God that nasty beast didn't get in...not through our front door that is. Consider every lie you told, every bad thought you have had, every time you sinned in your anger, even every time you have not loved Christ the way He deserves (which is impossible). All of these create breaches. They form openings in the walls our of lives that allow the Devil to get inside and take captive a certain part of our life.

Recently I was reading a book by Tom Clancy called EndWar. The opening of this book American soldiers disguised at Russian Spetznaz sneak in through a breach in the city and take captive a Russian Colonel. The Russian military was so caught up in the "front gate" that they ignored the small hole in the wall in which the enemy invaded. Notice the Americans were in disguise...so is the Devil. He puts thoughts in the Christian mind such as, "Man, it's only one small lie. It won't hurt anyone." "I can think bad about this person, so long as I don't hurt him by telling him." "I can trust this person not to repeat what I am about to say, so did I ever tell you the time that she (fill in a bad story about someone here)..." Does this sound familiar? If you say yes then I can say...I know. If you said no, you just lied and you know it. Everyone has been in this situation once in our lives (most of us far more). Satan disguises sins to make them look ok, or good, or even pretty and beautiful, and then he rushed in through the breach in our wall and takes captive a part of our life just like the Americans took capture an entire Russian building.

The Russians didn't wait long. They immediately took action. They faced the issue of the invading Americans and fought back. Sadly most of us do not address these issues. "I just lied, but it didn't hurt anyone. Moving on with life." When instead we should be going to a holy God on our knees begging Him saying, "God! I have just sinned against you! God you are holy and I am filthy." Now look here, what is the difference? A repentant Christian verses one that does not look up sin with disgust. You say, but it was a small lie so it's a small sin. WRONG! Ask God if there is such a thing as small sin. Sin is sin. Even our righteousness is like filthy rags to a holy God. Think of that. If you sin, the simple fact is that you have sinned.

So how do we face these breaches in our lives? Daily we must ask God like David did in the Psalms for Him to search our hearts and reveal to us our wrongs. Only then may we see many our the breaches we have created. And Christ...Christ is our intercessor. We can not fill the hole alone. No matter how hard we fight we can not take back the part of our lives that Satan is invading. Only Christ and Christ alone and fill the hole and make Satan flee.

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