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Satan's Simple Plan

Jun 19, 2014 | Kevin DeYoung  Original blog found here.
What does the devil want to do with you?
Does he want to haunt your house? Not likely. You’d write a bestselling book or become a reality television star. Make your head spin around? You could make a lot of money showing off that trick. Get you to carve a pentagram into your leg? Nah, not the sort of behavior that draws a big following.
So what does the devil really want from you?
He really only wants one thing: he wants to keep you from Christ.
He wants to make you selfish. He wants you to live for your ambition. He wants you to live for your addiction. He wants you live for your ego. He wants you to live for anyone or anything that’s not Jesus. As long as he keeps you from Christ–from the true and living God–he doesn’t care how it happens. Make you sick like Job or rich like Uzzah, just so long as you forget your Creator in the days of your youth. He will be the accuser of the brethren in one breath and the lying spirit who says “peace, peace” in the next.
What does the devil want?
He wants you to believe the lie that you are okay without a savior. He wants you to think that the form of godliness counts for something even if it does not have the power. He wants you to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and exchange the truth about God for a lie. He wants you to love the world and ignore the Word. He wants you to be happy or sad or scared or complacent or hungry or full, anything that gets you focused on something other than union and communion with Christ.
When you become a Christian you turn from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). And when you live as a Christian, the devil will do all that he can to get you to turn back to the way things were.

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