“Satan knows God’s character and he knows it well. So he spends his time trying to convince us that God’s nature isn’t what the Word tells us it is.”
Matthew 4:3-4
When bad things happen to me, the enemy immediately tries to engage me and convince me that God isn’t good. It’s natural to surmise that bad cannot exist with good. So how can God be good when bad things happen….even to those who believe in Him? Most times, I don’t allow myself to become captive to these thoughts. I shake it off and understand that regardless of the event, I’ve been equipped with the tools to handle the event and walk through it with grace. Every now and then, however, I fail.
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked the disciples who did people say that He was. They responded with various names, but Jesus came back and was more pointed with His questioning in asking, “But whom say ye that I am?” (Matthew 16:15) Simon Peter answered and said that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God; Jesus told Peter that he was blessed, as such a revelation could not come to him through natural means, but instead through God Himself. The nature of God is often revealed to us through His Word, but we first have to be open to receive it. We have to prepare our hearts and be willing to cast aside our own ideas or the ideas that others have fed us. The enemy works in ways that are not always obvious. His nature is that of deceit, so he’s adept at disguising and lying. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden, Satan contradicted what God had told Eve: “You shall not surely die.” In that moment, Eve had a choice: she could believe what the One who had created her told her, or she could believe what the serpent said. She decided to question the nature of God: “Why would He want to keep this from me?” From that point, her mind was made up and her fate was sure.
Every moment of every day, we have to make up our minds to believe God and not be captive to things or ideas that contradict Him. It is truly a conscious decision. In Mark 9, the father of the boy overcome by evil spirits said to Jesus: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (verse 24). In essence, he believed that Jesus could heal his son, but also acknowledged that he could stand to have more faith. Isn’t that true for all of us? The God that performed miracles in the Word is the same God that we serve now. His nature has not changed. He loves us and desires to see us prosper physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. His nature has not changed! The thing that has changed is that we allow the enemy to contradict Him, and just an ounce of contradiction can wipe out any progress.
If God is truly good all of the time and all of the time, God is good, then that means He is good when our loved ones pass away, when they disappoint us, when finances become thin, when sickness creeps in, when instability finds its way in our homes, when our jobs fail to sustain us, or when anything else that is un-good happens. He is good in spite of. He is good regardless of. He is just good. His nature cannot be anything else. The next time the enemy tries to hold you captive to an idea that is found nowhere in the Word, resist. And he will flee from you.
Prayer for Release: God, in the middle of messes and trouble, I can always rest assured that You are good and that You want good for me. Even when unfortunate things happen to me or my family, I thank You that Your Word has already told me that You are for me and not against me.