John 8:44 “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Lazy!
Things in Egypt went from bad to worse. In asking Pharaoh’s permission for Israel to go to the desert and worship God, Moses had taken one step forward. Pharaoh pushed back with three. He refused their request to go, commanded them to keep making bricks at the same quota, and now required them to supply their own straw. Adding insult to injury, he denounced them as “lazy” (Exodus 5:3-8).
Lazy? It was a lie, of course. The nation was anything but lazy. The heartless slave drivers made sure of that. But isn’t that a primary scheme of the enemy of our souls? He launches a false accusation against us (often the exact opposite of the truth)… and hopes we’ll bite.
Rejecting his lies is vitally important, no matter how they’re packaged. A tragedy occurs and Satan whispers…you deserved it! Your child falls short of expectations…you’re a failure as a parent. Sometimes the accusations are so outrageous that we’re knocked off our feet before we know what’s happening. I have a friend whose co-worker reported him for “religious harassment” because he simply asked if she was going to a Christmas Eve service. She labeled him with our society’s sin of all sins (if society believed in sin); she said he was… intolerant.
Some of Satan’s most insidious lies come in those accusations that hold a seed of truth, ones that point to who we were before we received redemption in Christ. But now we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are not who we used to be.
We experience what Peter did when Jesus called him the Rock. There wasn’t a lot of external evidence in Peter’s life that revealed the kind of stability that nomenclature indicated. But after the Resurrection, the truth Jesus prophesied became obvious to all. And so, we become what we believe. That’s how we are transformed into the new creation. Our minds are renewed because we reject who Satan says we are and embrace-by faith-who God says we are.
So the next time that devil hurls false accusations your way, resist. Put on your ear buds and dial up truth.