-William Shakespeare
Every day children of God experience destruction in some area of their lives simply because they have been deceived. In fact, deception isn't just one of the ways the devil can bring the effects of the curse into your life—it is the only way. If Satan can't deceive you, he can't defeat you.
It is a profoundly simple truth that tragically few Christians understand. To truly grasp the significance of how limited the devil is in his ability to touch the believer and how important a weapon deception is in his arsenal, you must first understand the nature of Jesus' victory over him. Only then does your need to guard against deception come into sharp focus.
Satan's Defeat
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ represents the decisive moment in history. One theologian called the Cross "the hinge upon which the whole door of human history swings." When Jesus conquered death and walked out of that garden tomb, something fundamental changed about Satan's authority in the earth. Although the devil was not yet completely bound, he had been stripped of all legitimate authority and power.
By exercising His authority over demons during His earthly ministry and by definitively defeating Satan through His resurrection, Jesus forever altered the devil's rights and abilities—particularly where born-again believers are concerned: "Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him" (1 Peter 3:21-22).
Since the day Jesus stripped him of all his legal authority, the only weapon Satan has left to use against the child of God is the one he had to begin with back in the Garden of Eden—deception. In other words, because Jesus restored dominion to redeemed man, Satan can't make you sick, rob your finances, destroy your marriage, steal your kids or ruin your life—at least not without first deceiving you in some way.
Now, please don't take offense at what I am about to tell you. But the simple truth is, if you are not getting victory over the curse in your life, the root of the problem is deception in some area of your life.
Don't let that insult you. We all, myself included, harbor hidden assumptions and beliefs that don't line up with the truth of God's Word. And that is precisely what deception is—believing something contrary to God's revealed truth. The very process of growing as a Christian is a matter of being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2).
Furthermore, by its very nature deception is something we are unaware of in our lives. Think about it. Once you discover you have been deceived about something, you are not deceived anymore!
The Father of Lies
Because we live in a sin-cursed world, we will experience contrary circumstances, symptoms of lack or sickness or negativity from time to time. But if you are not experiencing increasing freedom from the curse, then there must be an area of deception somewhere in your life.
We know this is so because Jesus said if we abide in Him, "we will know the truth and the truth will set us free" (John 8:31-32).
So let's begin uncovering deception in our lives by looking at the truth we find in Deuteronomy 30:19: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life."
Here, God is plainly telling us that the choices between life and death and blessing and cursing belong to us. God doesn't make those choices for us! Now, if the God who loves you will not override your right to choose or oppose blessings for your own good, then He certainly will not allow Satan to override that right and impose his will on you either.
Satan cannot afflict you with the destructive effects of the curse unless you allow it by choosing, with your own free will, something that opens you up to those effects.
Think about it for a moment. Satan is not called the father of destruction; he's called the father of lies. If Satan had the power to destroy you, he would have already done so.
How Deception Occurs
Basically, deception occurs when you choose to believe something that is untrue—which is anything contrary to God's Word, the Bible. Thank God, His Word is truth, and the truth sets you free! But if you don't know the truth, you have no way to identify deception. Deception is easy to spot when you know the truth! Yet I see committed believers drawn off and led astray by it all the time.
How does this happen to believers, some of whom even spend years in the Word of God? Invariably, it happens because they open a door in their lives for the devil to deceive them. When they believe and act on the lie, they inadvertently choose destruction and the curse. And Satan can damage or destroy their lives as a result.
Make no mistake about it: Satan is a liar and a very good one. But the Bible says we are not to be ignorant of his devices. The Word shows us how Satan comes to deceive, thus enabling us to foresee evil and avoid it. We can choose life and avoid Satan's deceptions!
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Mac Hammond is the senior pastor of Living Word, a large and growing church in Brooklyn Park (a suburb of Minneapolis), Minnesota. He is the host of the Winner’s Minute, which is seen locally in the Minneapolis area on KMSP Channel 9 at 6:44 a.m. and 11:11 a.m. He is also the host of the Winner's Way broadcast and author of several internationally distributed books. Mac is broadly acclaimed for his ability to apply the principles of the Bible to practical situations and the challenges of daily living.
