Another area the devil is a master of pushing our buttons is in our feelings. The statistics tell the story. Generalized Anxiety Disorder now affects almost 7 million Americans. The symptoms Generalized Anxiety Disorder are persistent, uncontrollable worry. All anxiety disorders combined now affect over 40 million Americans, or 18% of the entire population. This costs the United States over 46 billion dollars annually. Realize too that these are just those who are willing to admit it. The numbers are probably much higher. I understand anxiety and depression. I suffered for seven years in my 20s with a panic disorder. I know the feelings are real. This is not an exercise in denial of feelings but a reminder that our God has to be bigger than them. If their feelings had ruled the day the three Hebrew boys would have bowed down to Nebuchadnezzar. If his feelings had ruled the day David never would have confronted Goliath.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." - Daniel 3: 16-18 (ESV)
And Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock,I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God." And David said, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "Go, and the Lord be with you!" - 1Samuel 17: 33-37 (ESV)
You cannot tell me that these four teenagers were not afraid! That they did not have great anxiety about the situations they faced! The three Hebrew boys deferred to the sovereignty of God and refused to compromise His Word that said they were to not bow down to foreign gods. David recalled all God had done for him in the past. His fear was irrelevant because He knew that Goliath had defied God! I know these may seem like Veggie Tales to us at a time of great anxiety but it is at those times that we must hold tighter to the Word of God, not believe it less! Just think for a second what solution the world has come up with to medicate these problems. The world, under the guidance of Satan, has created a theory that the chemicals in your brain are somehow out of whack. That they are imbalanced. They cannot prove this, measure it, or tell you what is out of balance but they can give you a psychotropic drug which will realign these chemicals. They do not necessarily even know how these drugs do that either! Don't believe me? Look up your favorite psychotropic drug online and you will see this phrase, "It is believed to work by Translation? They do not know how it works. Yet tens of millions of people are on these drugs right now. What is the underlying message sent by the chemical imbalance theory and the explosion of psychotropic drug use? That God has made a mistake. That everyone else He got right but your brain? No. the chemicals in your brain must be wrong somehow. It is a lie straight from the pit of hell.
Lastly for today, let us look at the growing increase of acceptable alternative lifestyles. While still a very tiny percentage of the overall population the LGBT community has done a masterful job of controlling the debate. To confuse acceptance with endorsement. It seems more and more relevant to us as we see Christians coming out of the closet now regularly. Recently, it was international Christian recording artist, Vicky Beeching. Not content with merely announcing her departure from Scripture, Ms. Beeching says she is going to educate the church now. While the Christian community has done a horrible job of reaching these folks, for the purposes of this devotional, let us stick to the subject matter. What greater lie has Satan perpetrated upon people than to convince them that they were born in a way opposed to Scripture? That God created them in a manner that violates His very Word! I am not going to get into the Scriptural debate because there is none. God's Word is clear. Then there are those folks who think that God made a mistake with their gender. That they were born a boy but really were supposed to be a girl. Yet the world and even parents rush to embrace these lies. They embolden children to explore out their feelings and fantasies. They take what God has said and push it aside because after all - He must have made a mistake.
God does not make mistakes beloved. You may have feelings about being the opposite sex or be attracted to the opposite sex. No one denies the feelings are not real. Yet we as humans have feelings every waking minute that we should probably not act upon. We may be fighting feelings of anxiety and depression but we were not made that way. God has not made a mistake beloved. He has not set up unrealistic standards for how we should look; the devil has done that. His schemes have not changed over the millennia. Just as in the garden, he now seeks a conversation we should never enter into. He seeks to cast doubt upon something God has said. He seeks to discredit God and get us to make decisions using our logic, our flesh, and our desire to be God. I do not know where this writing finds you today. Perhaps considering the lies. Perhaps having already acted on some of them. I pray that you realize that God did not make a mistake with you. Let God be true and every man a liar. The devil wants the conversation so he can cast a doubt on the slightest thing God may have said. He does this because he knows where that ends. It always ends with our destruction. Believe God today.
Reverend Anthony Wade - September 1, 2014
