Understanding Spiritual Identity In A Divided World
Deep Study
Everyone we meet has two fathers. Everyone. They have a biological father and a spiritual father. Biblically, their spiritual father is either God or Satan. The Pharisees, incorrectly thought they were children of God and said to Jesus, “The only Father we have is God Himself” (John 8:41). Their perceptions were not equal to reality. Jesus refuses them, saying. “You are from below, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). And “you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (John 8:44). William Hendrickson who was a New Testament scholar wrote:
“Identity of inner passions and desires establishes spiritual descent: they are constantly desiring to carry out the wishes of the devil; so he must be their father. The devil desires to kill and to lie, and so do they.”
We live in a divided world where “the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom and the tares are the sons of the evil one” (Matthew 13:38; 1 John 3:10).
Those who are children of Satan are called “sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2), are under “the dominion of Satan“ (Acts 26:18), and reside in his “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13; Romans 2:19). These walk “in the futility of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17), and are “darkened in the understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, be of hardness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18).
Paul said that Satan, “had blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the Image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But these are not unwilling victims; for though they are born into Satan’s kingdom and held captive by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26), they also enjoy what he offers and are said to love darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19).
The Greek word for love is agape (agapao), which is in the active voice and means they willingly love the darkness of Satan’s world system and all their affections are tied to it. They continue as residents of his kingdom by choice and not by chance. Freedom awaits them if they want it. Freedom in Christ. But they don’t want freedom, and when given the opportunity to be liberated from their captor, they prefer to clutch their chains of familiar pleasures and practices than to step into the unknown freedom and responsibilities of liberty in Christ. Jesus said to them, “You are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:40).
Paul described them as “men who suppress the truths of unrighteousness“ (Romans 1:18), are “without excuse” before God (Romans 1:20), and professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and foot footed animals and crawling creatures” (Romans 1:22-23). Of those who are negative and set their wills against God, three times it is written that He “gave them over” to “the lusts of their hearts” (Romans 1:24), and “to degrading passions” (Romans 1:26) to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Romans 1:28). Once God permits a person to operate by his sinful passions, that person is given a measure of freedom to live as he wants, but not without consequences, both in time and eternity. God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, so that they may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).
To say that Satan is someone’s father also means they are his children by imitation. Jesus said of Satan, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks it’s a lie, he speaks from his own nature, he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). By his actions, Satan became the murderer of souls, directing the first humans into sinful acts that ultimately led to their spiritual death and the enslavement of all mankind (Genesis 2:17, 3 1-6, Romans 5:12, 14, 19, 6:23). This is according to the William Hendrickson.
From the very beginning of the history of the human race the devil had murder in his heart and he plunged the human race into an ocean of death, physical, spiritual, and eternal (Romans 5:13, Hebrews 2:14, 1 John 3:8). The devil is a wellspring of lie, the creator of falsehoods (Genesis 3:1, 4, Job 1:9-11, Matthew 4:6, 9, Acts 5:3, Thessalonians 2:9-11). When he lies, he is original. When he does not lie (Acts 16:16-17), he quotes or even plagiarizes , even then he gives the borrowed words a false setting, in order to create an illusion. He strives to lie and deceive, and he does it in order to murder.
Those who are children of Satan are spiritually deceived, and belong to Satan’s world-system, share Satan’s desires and have murder in their hearts. They practice lies and deception to promote their agenda. These people are incline to harm others spiritually, physically, emotionally, and psychologically, which endangers the wellbeing of those near them. (we are seeing this happen in the world today). We as believers are called to show them love and grace when possible (Matthew 5:44-45)m but also guard ourselves against their attacks (Acts 20:28, 2 Timothy 4:14-15).
Satan is a master strategist who seeks to plant his ‘minions’ into all organizations where they can have a destructive influence on others, such as government, education, media, entertainment, military, sports, and society in general. Especially if the can promote the departure from the Bible and its morals. Satan’s ‘minions’ promote lies, deception, violence, and murder to obtain and retain their places of pride and power. The value and morals we once had is diminishing, and the trend toward evil will only get worse.
As a follower of Christ, I make it a point to study God’s Word every day, walk-in faith by the Spirit, demonstrate grace and pray for others. I believe there will come a time where persecution will come and we must be ready. The more time we spend learning God’s Word and walking in faith the more equipped to stand against those who make seek to silence us in any way they can.
We need to realize that we live in a fallen world. Walking with God is total devotion to Him, and world will reject us, Jesus said.
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this world hates you” -John 15:18-19.
The gospel of grace and a solid foundation of the Bible’s teachings will, on occasion threaten other people’s pride and power, and we should not be surprised when they act negatively with hostility. If it is possible we are to get along with others and pursue peace (Romans 12:18), but never at the price of neglecting our assignment to tell people about Jesus (Mark 16:15).
Because we live in a fallen world there will be times when we must choose whether to serve God or man. “We must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).
As believers, we are supposed to both be realistic and optimistic about the world and the future. Realistic that we will not win the world to Christ and optimistic because we know Jesus is coming back and making everything right.
We must keep our focus on God and His Word because it provides mental and emotional stability when trouble comes (and it will). Adversity is inevitable and we must be able to handle it in wisdom and faith if we are going to finish the race.
From Pity to Praise 