During one of the breaks in the mediation conference this afternoon, my client pastor asked me what the title of my book is. Without a pause, I told him “Satan’s Prime Directive”.
Down through the ages starting in the Garden, Satan has devoted his resources to obfuscating the reality that God offers to mankind an intimate, communicative, experiential, personal relationship with the God of the universe. Replacing the truth with the false gospel of self-effort to merit favor from God.
If we look closely at the pictures of Adam and Eve walking away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil immediately after their confrontation with Satan, we will see on their wrists “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets.
Instead, God invites us to cease striving and know Him as God. In fact, no amount of self-effort, dot-connecting, and informed guesswork will provide us with any faith at all. Faith comes from clearly recognizing God’s voice when He speaks to you. Without faith from God, it is impossible to please Him. For apart from Him we can do nothing.
Let’s disciple new believers with God’s solution to Satan’s Prime Directive by exhorting them to fix their eyes on Jesus and spend time in His presence listening for His voice, while sitting still and shutting up. Have your Bible and journal with you to record what you hear.
Start pushing away those heaping bowls of fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil being served up at most churches near you, and return to a steady diet of fruit from the other tree in the Garden: The Tree of Life.