Do you ever hear voices in your head that are trying to discourage and bring you down? Satan is a full time liar and accuser. It’s what He does all day long. He can’t read our minds. He is not God. But he does try to speak to us and get in our head. He does it to tear people down. He does it to bring strife and confusion, He does it to discourage people from believing God loves them so that they will walk away from Him. But, his day is coming as we see in Revelation 12:10. (NIV) “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”
There will be a day when all justice will finally be executed in God’s timing. Satan and his demonic host will be hurled into the lake of fire and God’s justice will be complete. After that, he will never bother anyone again. But for now God’s judgment is reserved because the Lord is still trying to reach as much of mankind to receive Jesus as Savior as possible because of His mercy and grace.
In Rev. 12 Satan is called “the accuser of the brethren.” His accusations are designed to belittle you and to lift you in pride at the same time. He’ll work to point out every little failure. He’ll accuse you of fault even when what you do right. He is a liar and discouragement is one of his greatest tools. He accuses you to make you feel disgusted with yourself. He does so to make you feel unacceptable to God.
When you feel disgusted with yourself and unacceptable to God, then he’ll labor to get you to quit God. “You can’t please God so why bother?” He’ll work to undermine your relationship with God, luring you to backslide from spending time with God. He’ll lure you away from church, from fellowship with other Christians, from reading your Bible, and from praying. His goal is to get you to live daily without the thought of God guiding you. That is phase one of his plan.
Then phase two kicks in. He’ll lift you up in pride in order to help you feel better about yourself. He’ll get you to focus on your personal justifications for why you are a good person. He tries to turn all your focus on yourself. Then he’ll work to get you to find fault in everyone else to make you feel better about yourself. This is how the world becomes critical, fault-finding, and learns to hate people.
I have noticed over the years, that no matter how much I do, (and I am one that believes in diligent effort) – the devil will still try to whisper that I am not succeeding enough, I don’t do enough, I am not living holy enough for God. And the devil’s efforts go on and on. I have to speak back to him. “No devil, my righteousness is not of myself. Jesus is my righteousness.” “No devil, I work hard, but the grace of God is what helps me bear fruit and succeed. Not my own merit.” “No devil, it’s you who failed in your pride rejecting God’s love. I’ve received Jesus as my Savior and He is the source of my eternal life and salvation. You will spend your eternity in the lake of fire.” “I rebuke you in Jesus name. Flee!”
The Bible says Eph 1:4 says, “Long ago, even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes.” Think about it; God created this plan out of His love to make us not only blameless and without fault His eyes! That is a miraculous plan of love that keeps on going. He then reveals that this was His plan from the beginning – to love us and make us a part of His family. God’s love toward us was in force before any of us were born. His wonderful plan was and is to bring us into His love.
We read more… Eph. 1:5 “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave Him great pleasure.”
He makes us His children! He then makes great blessing available to us! Eph 1:3 says, “How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ.”
We don’t have to feel like a failure. God’s love and grace is so great and desirous to bless and help us, we only have to know of it, believe, and thank Him for it. On that note, love others and lift them up into the same love that God has toward you – despite the obvious faults we all see! We are not to be like Satan – the accuser of others. We are to be like Jesus – the bearer of His Good News, His forgiveness, and His cleansing love!
But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.
(Romans 4:5 NLT)
Timothy Burt is a pastor, author, and writer. He is best known as the author of Fresh Manna, a daily devotional and online Bible study.
Pastor Tim became a part of the leadership team at Living Word Christian Center in 1984 and was an Associate Pastor from 1989 until May 31st, 2017. He and His wife Renee, also a Pastor at Living Word, resigned after being a part of Living Word for 33 years on May 31, 2017. They felt impressed by God to pursue the tremendous growth of their ministry "Fresh Manna," as well as teaching conferences and seminars and increasing their involvement in the mission field through Tim and Renee Burt Ministries. Tim has a Bachelor of Theology degree and is a Christian blogger who has been writing a daily inspirational and teaching devotion three days a week called "Fresh Manna" for the past 22 years. It has been read in over 227 countries (official countries and territories). Tim was named one of the top 55 blogging Pastors. He is one of the top Social Media influencers in Minnesota with a strong presence on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TimBurt with over 187,000 followers. Between Tim's Fresh Manna Devotional and Twitter influence, he virally averages reaching over 4 million people daily with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the love of God.
Prior to working at LWCC, he worked at Northwest Airlines for 13 years. In 1985 he founded and was President of American Infant Care Products which marketed his patented invention, the first fold-down commercial infant changing table now used worldwide in public restrooms.
In their tenure at Living Word, Timothy Burt and his wife Renee created a Small Group Ministry when the church was about 800 people in size. Under the leadership of Sr. Pastors Mac and Lynne Hammond, the church grew to over 10,000 people. Pastor Tim and Renee led a diverse Small Group Ministry of over 200 groups. Tim also led weekly men's groups and a monthly Men's Breakfast of 250 plus men called Manhood for 27 years. Tim's responsibilities also included oversight over the Visitor and Member Relations Department, Leadership and Volunteer Development, and the Pastoral Care Department. Pastor Tim was also the Minnesota State Director of Christians United for Israel from 2006 thru 2017.
Tim and Renee are the parents of four children and have seven grandchildren. Tim loves to write, golf, run, and walk, and is a master gardener. He is a five-time marathon finisher. He is also a three-time award-winning gardener winning the Grand Prize in his city for his beautiful home garden and is a Master Gardener for the University of Minnesota's Master Gardener Extension Program.
