How Satan Crawls (rough draft)

(Have silent on screen) “And the devil said to Him, ‘I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.”‘” (Luke 4:6-8)

Counterfeit. Very close, but not quite the real thing. It happens with money. It happens with spiritual things, too.

And the devil is an expert at offering us something that’s very close, but not quite the real thing.

He does it with “worship.” It’s how Satan crawls.

And we are wired for worship. Worship is honoring something or someone very highly. It’s committing, dedicating, surrendering one’s life to that something or someone and no other.

Some people worship sports (as Richard used the analogy). Some people worship Lady Gaga or Charlie Sheen or Barack Obama (a person). Some people worship sex (pornography).

And for the believers who may be watching this, here are a couple for you to chew on: Some people worship the pastor of their church. And some people actually worship “worship.” (“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”)

It could be just about anything that we worship. (Have a bunch of other objects of worship fill the screen: boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, child, father, mother, job/career, school, car, house, ourselves, entertainment, pleasure, twitter, facebook, social media, technology, etc.) It could be just about anything that we offer our complete affection to.

(This is where you, Richard, take up the teaching again?)

“‘For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.'” (Mattthew 5:20)

Many believe they are okay with God, but they’re not. These may be doing all the right things, even going to church, too, but they are still headed for hell. They’ve fallen for the devil’s counterfeit.

Many do good works to become right with God (they get the credit~pride); Christians do good works because they are right with God (Jesus gets the credit~humility). This is religion, not relationship, too.