Life Or Death

The souls of men and women are very valuable; rightly, they belong to God. Yet Satan wants to tear us away from our Maker; the Evil One is the thief of heaven's riches. His desire is to take away from God what belongs to Him (His power, His honour, His glory, His people and His kingdom). And Satan wants to destroy the life which God gives to human beings, who are made in His image; the physical human life in which we learn to trust the Lord, and the eternal life of divinely loved security which continues for ever.
 
Satan's purpose is to keep us away from God, so that we may be his slaves as spiritual death overtakes us. By contrast, Jesus' objective is to give us a transforming new life marked with joy and satisfaction because we are thankful for all that He has done for us. The difference is huge. Indeed, without Jesus we would be left as part of the living dead until we pass from this life to face God's judgement. Satan's agents are found everywhere and they camouflage themselves well with a cloak of religion.
 
There are two kinds of people: those who wish to steal what belongs to God and use it for themselves, and those who rely on Jesus and point others to Him. The first group are probably unaware that they are being used as agents of the Evil One: they simply think they are getting what they want, but Satan manipulates them to suck the vitality out of believers and destroy whole churches. The second group know that they must not spoil what God is doing and they want Jesus to be Lord of all. It is life or death. Jesus has come to give this new life in all its fullness, full of joy and hope and love. I trust this latter group describes your spiritual home. If so, be on your guard against those who would take away what God has planned for you (2 Peter 3:17).