Have you ever been spied upon? Has someone infiltrated your workplace or your group of friends to gather information for someone else? How did you feel? How do you think you might feel if it happened to you?
I’m sure most of us have watched a movie that involved someone spying on someone else. Usually, it’s the good guys spying on the bad guys so they can rescue somebody or stop a catastrophe or get back stolen information. The typical “save the world” scenario.
The real-world reasons for spies are more nefarious and disruptive. The reasons include identity theft, stealing money, stealing secrets, identifying ways to disrupt someone’s plans, and gathering information to prepare for battle.
Our enemy, Satan and his demons, are no different. Much like God uses people to carry out His plan, Satan uses people to carry out his. He has people infiltrate our fellowship to disrupt our worship of God. Not simply our Sunday worship, but our individual worship on a daily basis. Their goal is to pull us away from God. They see our safety, joy, peace, contentment, freedom in Christ, and they want to take it away.
This tactic is nothing new. We see in today’s passage Paul telling of this happening in the first century. Satan has long been an enemy of God’s and he continues to be to this day. We need to be aware of his schemes and his desire to lure us away.
We have the ultimate protection available to us. Jesus will both protect us from Satan’s schemes and reveal them to us. You might wonder how we can tap into this wonderful protection. We do so through prayer, faith, and listening for the Holy Spirit to speak to us.
Our struggle is not simply against other people. It is also against the forces of evil that pervade this world. These evil forces are often unseen, but the driving force behind the events that trip us up. We are told they even exist in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).
It is a wonderful thought to know that we have God on our side, and He will provide us all we need to overcome evil. Jesus has won the war. He has secured our victory. As we trust Him and hold on to Him, we win the daily battles we face. We will identify those who attempt to infiltrate our tribe of followers and be equipped to remove them.
I pray we all reach out to God in prayer. I pray we ask Him to identify the false believers and spies attempting to infiltrate our ranks. I pray each one of us trusts God as our protector. Spend time in prayer. Listen for the Holy Spirit. Trust God. Trust Jesus.
Galatians 2:4-5 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
Marty Pressey 