The Devil Did Not Make You Do It

Daily Reading: 1 John 4

Scripture Focus: Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4.4)

Devotional Thought: I have just finished reading a novel called Innocence by Dean Koontz.  Though not a theological work, it had an interesting section that I want to share with you:  “… I will call that long-ago period the Age of Clarity.  No writer or reader would have imagined that an analysis of a villain’s childhood traumas was needed to explain his wickedness, for it was well understood that a life of wickedness was a choice that anyone could make if he loved wickedness more than truth.  For twenty-six years, I lived in the Modern Age, when it was said that human psychology was so complex, the chain of motivations so recondite and abstruse, that only experts could tell us why anyone did anything, and in the end even the experts were loath to render a definitive judgment of any particular person’s specific actions.”

Though this was written from the perspective of making negative choices, the converse is true.  To rephrase Koontz: “A life of Truth is a choice that anyone can make if he loves Truth more than wickedness.”  But again, only by the grace of God - only because “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.”  We overcome the negative when we choose to follow the One who is greater than the negatives of the world.

Don’t fall into the trap of saying, “The Devil made me do it.”  As a follower of Jesus Christ, you have all the grace you need to say no to ungodliness: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2.11-12).

Prayer: Lord, you are greater than any power that can come against me.  Any power!  Thank you that you live in me and by your grace I shall overcome.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 129.5-8

5 May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward!

6 Let them be like the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up,

7 with which the reaper does not fill his hand nor the binder of sheaves his arms,

8 nor do those who pass by say, “The blessing of the Lord be upon you! We bless you in the name of the Lord! ”