Devotion for July 25, 2008

Spiritual Radar

“When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil. . .” (Proverbs 2:10-12 NKJV).

David said, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!” (Psalms 119:11 NKJV) Living with the Word of God fresh in your soul is the best safeguard against sin and deception.

It is impossible to know every trick the devil will throw at you. He has had centuries to study man’s failures and to recognize his weaknesses. He is a master deceiver because he knows us so well.

However, we are not without hope. Some might think the best defense is to understand all his tricks like studying all the false religions in the world. It may be good to have some understanding of where a person is coming from should you have an opportunity to witness to them. However, you must understand the true religion if you hope to lead them out of darkness.

That brings us to the point. It is when wisdom enters the heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul that you gain discretion. You gain spiritual radar so to speak.

People are trained to detect counterfeit money by learning what real money looks like. I thought if you went to a class to spot counterfeit money you would be shone all kinds of fake money. Not so, banks make employees so familiar with the real thing that a counterfeit is easy to spot. They might not recognize right off exactly what is wrong with a bill, but they will know something isn’t right because it will be unfamiliar.

My dear friends we need to know the Lord and His Word so well that every deception stands out like black ink on white paper. Have you ever heard a man preaching for the first time and thought there is something wrong here? That is your spiritual radar working. Like most things we can strengthen that tool by feeding it more and more accurate information.

We accomplish that through prayer and meditation of the Word. Surely you desire to walk in righteousness. Surely you would throw off the wiles of the devil in favor of your God. Well if you want to be successful in doing so, you need to recognize a lie or a pitfall to avoid it. You can’t just have a cursory understanding of Scripture.

“For everyone who partakes [only] of milk [is] unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, [that is], those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” (Hebrews 5:13-14 NKJV)