Taking responsibility

​“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)

No, the devil didn’t make us do it. There was a friend who blamed every bad deed and every misspoken word on the devil, “That ain’t nothing but the devil!” He is certainly not innocent, having been the first to introduce sin into the world. Yet, there is no good thing in this flesh (Romans 7:18). Therefore, each day requires us to be present so that we can submit ourselves to God, resist the devil, so that he will leave us be (James 4:7). Our flesh can still have its way if we don’t submit it under the power of the Holy Spirit. Why the struggle? Because we haven’t submitted.

“Sin is ‘of the devil,’ it came from him; he is its parent and patron. Sin is not so of the devil that we can lay the blame of our sins on him, for that is our own. You must not blame the tempter for tempting you to do that which without your will he could not make you do. He may tempt you, but that would be no sin of yours if your will did not yield to it. The responsibility lies with your will. The devil has plenty of sin of his own to answer for, and yet he is often made a pack-horse to carry loads of evil which are none of his. Mother Eve taught us that art when she said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat”; and since then men have become wonderfully proficient in the science of excuse-making, frequently imputing their own guilt to the devil’s guile. Yet sin in a sadly true sense does come of the devil, first introduced into the world in the form of a lie. How or when he himself first sinned and fell from being an angel of light to become the apostle of darkness we will not conjecture. Many have thought that the pride of his lofty station, or envy of the foreseen glories of the Son of man, may have overthrown him; but, at any rate, he kept not his first estate, but became a rebel against his Lord, and the active promoter of all evil.” Charles Spurgeon

The opposite of resist is to defy or knuckle under. Dear Lord, help us to submit our ways to you today so that we can resist temptation and do your will.

GiGi❤️

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