“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”
John 5:39
A device of Satan to keep us from service to God is to trick us to make false inferences (assumptions) from those blessed and glorious things that Christ hath done. The devil blinds us to see only the work that Christ has done for us, and to ignore the work He has given us to do. Satan draws away a shallow believer from serving God by wild and strange assumptions of the sweet and excellent things that the Lord Jesus hath done for ‘the elect.’
The first remedy against this device of Satan is to dwell as much on those Scriptures that show you the duties and services that Christ requires of you, as upon those Scriptures that declare to you the precious and glorious things that Christ hath done for you. It is a sad and dangerous thing to have two eyes to behold our dignity and privileges, and not one to see our duties and services.
I should look with one eye upon the choice and excellent things that Christ hath done for me,
- to raise up my heart to love Christ with the purest love,
- and to joy in Christ with the strongest joy,
- and to lift up Christ above all, who hath made Himself to be my all;
and I should look with the other eye upon:
- those services
- and duties
- that the Scriptures require of those for whom Christ hath done such blessed things.
Consider what the apostle Paul said:
“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 15:58
“And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Galatians 6:9
“Rejoice evermore.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
Pray without ceasing.“
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
Philippians 2:12b
“Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.”
1 Timothy 4:13
“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:“
Hebrews 10:24
Now, a soul that would not be drawn away by this device of Satan, he must not look with a squinted eye upon these blessed Scriptures –and abundance more of like import– but he must dwell upon them. He must make these Scriptures to be his chiefest and his choicest companions. This will be a happy means to keep him close to Christ and His service in these times, wherein many turn their backs upon Christ, under pretence (pretending) of being interested in the great glorious things that have been acted by Christ.
The great and glorious things that Christ hath done, and IS doing for us, should not take us from service. Rather, they should be the greatest motives and encouragements to the performance of them. That is what the Scriptures do abundantly evidence:
“That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.” (Luke 1:74-75)
Tertullian hath this expression of the Scriptures: “Adoro plenitudinem Scripturarum, I adore the fulness of the Scripture.”
Gregory calls the Scripture, “The heart and soul of God;” and who will not then dwell in it?
Excerpt from “Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices” by Thomas Brooks, abridged and arranged for Spiritual Reload
- Live Coal: The View From MidlifeLongfellow’s view from midlife mirrors my own.
- Live Coal: The Motherhood of GodGod is very much masculine, yet He is the Creator of the maternal instinct. How often do we need to lean on the gentleness of Almighty God!
- Live Coals: Duties in the ScriptureA balanced view of the Bible will help you 1. resist the lure to relax in all that God has done, and 2. consider what He has saved you to do.
Spiritual Reload 