Hi there,
So I just had this really simple thought and for my own sake if no-one else's, I thought would just meditate on it for a moment. The thought is this: Jesus said "don't try to take the speck out of your brother's eye, when look! A plank is in your own eye" (Gospels, from memory); now imagine if you had heard this for the first time and you didn't have the Holy Spirit, what would be the temptation? Replace the plank with another plank! But that is not listening! The plank must be removed, before you can do anything else.
So why would you not listen? Why would you simply replace the plank with another? This is the dilemma that people who take the mark of the anti-Christ face: they have no relationship with God and then are presented with the choice to ignore Him, for the rest of their lives! That is taking an absence of relationship and replacing it with an absence of meaning. So you may have laughed, right? That replacing a plank with a plank is nonsense... but that is the Devil's game.
In reality, it is the same trick that the Devil pulls with any addiction: he takes what is good in moderation and says "replace it with something even stronger and even less in moderation". In other words, we take addiction to one plank and make it an addiction to an even greater one - the high of seeing with the one plank, growing ever harder to enjoy, with greater subsequent ones. I wouldn't call it a plan, as such, just an exploit: that can get you under the pump in resisting the Devil the way you should. All the planks must go!
What is it like when the planks are gone? With time you will be able to tell!
I hope this has been of some encouragement.
God bless.
So I just had this really simple thought and for my own sake if no-one else's, I thought would just meditate on it for a moment. The thought is this: Jesus said "don't try to take the speck out of your brother's eye, when look! A plank is in your own eye" (Gospels, from memory); now imagine if you had heard this for the first time and you didn't have the Holy Spirit, what would be the temptation? Replace the plank with another plank! But that is not listening! The plank must be removed, before you can do anything else.
So why would you not listen? Why would you simply replace the plank with another? This is the dilemma that people who take the mark of the anti-Christ face: they have no relationship with God and then are presented with the choice to ignore Him, for the rest of their lives! That is taking an absence of relationship and replacing it with an absence of meaning. So you may have laughed, right? That replacing a plank with a plank is nonsense... but that is the Devil's game.
In reality, it is the same trick that the Devil pulls with any addiction: he takes what is good in moderation and says "replace it with something even stronger and even less in moderation". In other words, we take addiction to one plank and make it an addiction to an even greater one - the high of seeing with the one plank, growing ever harder to enjoy, with greater subsequent ones. I wouldn't call it a plan, as such, just an exploit: that can get you under the pump in resisting the Devil the way you should. All the planks must go!
What is it like when the planks are gone? With time you will be able to tell!
I hope this has been of some encouragement.
God bless.
