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How To Forgive Ourselves – Totally: Our Great Accuser, The Devil
God does not want you to feel guilty. But Satan does. Making you feel guilty could almost be called his “job description.”
Therefore, as we have seen a number of times already, one of the reasons you have difficulty forgiving yourself is that Satan is working behind the scenes day and night. His chief weapon: accusing you, making you feel guilty, telling you how bad you are, how unworthy and how stupid you are to believe God’s promises. That is his job. Never forget it.
The purpose of this chapter is to help you to see what Satan is up to – and not let him succeed with you.
I want to make some general observations about the devil – what I think you need to know if you are struggling to forgive yourself. There were 2 cautions before I proceed:
- Don’t think that you should become an “expert” on the devil. Those who have this aspiration are not in my opinion truly mature Christians. Indeed, people like this are often the ones who get in over their heads and are overcome, like the sons of Skeva. (See Acts 19:13-16.)
2. You do need, however, the ABCs knowledge of his ways. Paul could say, “We are not unaware of his schemes” ( 2 Corinthians 2:11), “not ignorant of his devices”.
For the purposes of this book, here is how I would describe his ways:
- He would prefer that you believe he does not exist. Unbelief in the devil is the devil’s work. If you don’t believe in the reality of Satan, you’ve just told me he has succeeded with you.
2. If you do believe the excess, he then wants to dominate your thinking; he will want you to think about them all the time – and make you afraid of them. Always bluffing, he will intimidate you and make you think he is all-powerful. He is not; when compared to Almighty God, he is a weakling but is still given limited authority on this planet for a limited time. Some people in their fear of the devil’s power give the impression that they ascribe more credit to Satan then to God.
3. He is always under God’s sovereign thumb; he can proceed no further than what God allows (Job 1-2). Therefore know that the buck stops with God. Whatever trial you are going through, never forget that God gave Satan permission before He let him have a go at you. God knows you are big enough for it or He would not have let it happen (1 Corinthians 10:13).
How To Forgive Ourselves – Totally: Our Great Accuser, The Devil
How To Forgive Ourselves – Totally: Our Great Accuser, The Devil