The Things Your Philosophy Teacher Doesn't Teach You part 2

So today in class we talked about why evil is allowed on earth. The claim was made that Satan is really a figure of our imagination, and people use Satan as an escape goat for our sins. When I spoke up in class, my teacher claimed that I was arguing that Satan had the power to make us sin, when in reality that's not what I was arguing. I agree with him that "Christians" do tend to use Satan as an excuse when we sin, for instance, "Satan made me do it" is an easy escape goat. As a Christian I believe that the Bible is the Holy word of God. For this reason I say what I am about to say, based off of Biblical accounts I can find. If you do not believe in the Bible you will have a hard time understanding my philosophy on this subject.

Satan is not a figure of our imagination. Satan does not have the power to "make us" sin like the professor accused me of saying. However he does have the power to tempt us and lead us away from God. If you want to read stories as to where I'm getting this information from Biblical accounts read,

Genesis 3
Job
1 Chronicles 21
Luke 4
Matthew 4

Now as you can see if you took time to read these passages Satan tempts a person with the goal to lead that person away from God. Ultimately it is the person who commits the sin's fault, not Satan's.

"When people are tempted they should not say, "God is tempting me." Evil cannot tempt God and God himself does not tempt anyone. But people are tempted when their own evil desire leads them away and traps them. This desire leads to sin, and then the sin grows and brings death."- James 1:13-15

"Control yourselves and be careful! The devil, your enemy, goes around like a roaring lion looking for someone to eat. Refuse to give in to him by standing strong in your faith."
-1 Peter 5:8-9

By reading these two passages from the Bible (I could find more if you still doubt) I believe Satan does exist. His goal is to lead one away from God's love. It is evident that he does not have the power to make you sin, the person responsible for sin is oneself. However, Satan tries to make sin look appealing to the person, and make it look better than what God's will for that person is. It is important to stand strong in your faith and ask for forgiveness and help from God with the temptations you inevitably are going to come in contact with.

To the young man that asked why God would let someone grow away from Him, and let Satan tempt him I believe the passage in this passage from James lies your answer. Like I said in class today Satan is known as the Prince of the World (see 1Peter passage above). He goes around trying to make the things of the world appear greater than God's Glory. When Satan is able to make something appear good or right that is really evil, it will lead to that person growing farther and farther away from God, until ultimately they do not believe in God anymore. I will use my own life as an example.

First I started to doubt that the Bible could be the word of God because the books of the Bible were written down a considerable time after the events actually took place.

Second, I started to assume that the wording of the Bible meant other things, and I believed that it was ok to go out and get drunk.

Third, from drunkenness I started to have lustful actions toward women, my language started becoming vulgar, I started having very violent thoughts with actions at times.

Then finally when I had someone close to me die, I had fallen so far into sin that I found it impossible to actually believe that a God who loves would ever let such a thing happen, and I became what I would call Agnostic, with a hint of Deism in there.

One little thing that led me away from God, started to change my interpretation of God's commands, which in return led me to a multitude of sin in my life, and neglect to the God who loves me. This is the only power that Satan has in this world anymore. Since Jesus died for the world's sins, sin alone cannot lead someone to Hell (Thank God for that or else I would be doomed to an eternity in Hell). It wasn't until I had someone close to me challenge me to read my Bible two or three times a week and pray that God shows Himself to me in a way that will make me believe. The more and more I read, I was amazed at how I would take one verse and interpret it one way, without reading the context around it. Everything started to make sense to me. I found Biblical stories to have relevance to my life today. I tried to live my life in accordance to the stories and accounts that are in the Bible, and it was amazing at the reformation in my life.

I believe that God let the sin in my life, to ultimately give His name glory. I feel like I can relate to people who struggle trusting and believing in God. I could go way more in depth with the things that led me away from God, but I don't think we could call this a blog, it would become more like an auto-biography. In John 9 Jesus tells people that God will let bad things happen to them to ultimately bring glory to God's name by healing the blind. I believe that sin can blind us from the love of Christ, which ultimately draws us away from God. I believe God has given us a free-will in this world, and He has given us the option to either love Him or leave Him, (not to quote Ricky Stanzi) God hates seeing people sin and fall in Satan's trap. There is a huge celebration every time someone goes back to Jesus, or falls in love with Jesus for the first time. I know this from the parable of the Lost sheep. Read (Luke 15:1-7)

Now I know this post is all over the place, but hear me out. I believe that if people were willing to give God who does love you time, you would be able to see His love in your life. By not giving Him a chance, how can you make a claim that He loves you? I love John Piper's quote in the book Don't Waste Your Life.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Try giving God time. Don't feel disheartened when trouble comes your way. Jesus flat out tells us, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Give God time, try to trust Him, pray to Him for help, admit to Him you are having troubles trusting Him. I guarantee you that if you do this, with an open heart and mind, not saying that the Bible is a hoax and same with God, you will sense that amazing, endless and intimate love that God is, which if you love and trust Him back, you will inherit eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." -John 3:16

In Christ,
Chris