Defying all satanic distortions. By Ellen White
From the beginning, it was Satan’s elaborate plan to make people forget God. He wanted to draw them over to his side. He endeavored to distort God’s character so that people would have a false idea of Him, as if the Creator were like the evil prince himself: tyrannical, harsh and unforgiving. Then people would fear, avoid and even hate him. Satan hoped to confuse the deceived in such a way that they would put God out of their minds. He could then erase God’s image in people and imprint his own image on them. He would imbue people with his own spirit and make them prisoners of his will.
Satan tempted Eve to sin by misrepresenting God’s character and arousing mistrust of him … Even the covenant people, whom God had chosen so that God would not be forgotten in this world, had strayed so far from him that they only imagined his nature in a completely false way.
Jesus is the answer
Jesus came to reveal God to the world as a God of love, a God who is full of mercy, kindness and compassion. The thick darkness with which Satan shrouded the throne of the Godhead had to give way when the Savior of the world revealed the Father to us humans again as the light of life … Jesus says of himself that he was sent into the world to represent the Father. In the dignity of his being, in his mercy, his heartfelt compassion, his love and kindness, he stands before us as the embodiment of divine perfection, as the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).
God gives us his Son
The apostle says: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Corinthians 5:19) Only by reflecting on the great plan of redemption can we properly appreciate God’s character. The work of creation was an expression of his love, but only God’s gift of salvation to guilty and ruined humanity reveals how infinitely deeply God loves us and feels for us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) In this way, God’s law is upheld, his righteousness is confirmed and the sinner can be forgiven. The most precious gift that heaven could give was poured out so that God “might be just and at the same time justify him who is by faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). This gift brings man out of the corruption and humiliation of sin and makes him a child of God.
God adopts us
Paul says: “You have received the Spirit of sonship, in whom we cry out: Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:15) “See what love the Father has shown us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1) What love, what incomparable love, that we, who are sinners and strangers, are brought back to God and adopted into his family! … And God’s Son, at the sight of the heirs of grace, “is not ashamed to call them brothers” (Hebrews 2:11) …
True parental love
All the parental love that has flowed through human hearts from one generation to another, all the wellsprings of kindness that have sprung up in human hearts, form but a tiny trickle compared to the boundless ocean of God’s infinite, inexhaustible love. Words cannot comprehend it… Even eternity will never be able to fully reveal God’s love, which was expressed in giving His Son to die for the world. But as we study the Bible and reflect on Jesus’ life and the plan of salvation, these great themes open up more and more to our understanding. We will recognize the blessing that Paul longed for the church in Ephesus when he prayed “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Ephesians 1:17) …
Satan’s antidote
Satan is always looking for ways to occupy the human mind with things that keep it from knowing God. He endeavors to captivate the mind with things … that darken the mind and discourage the heart … Many set their eyes on the terrible ungodliness around them, the apostasy and weaknesses they encounter everywhere. Then they talk about it until their hearts are full of sadness and doubt. They keep thinking about the masterful work of the arch-deceiver and reflect on discouraging experiences. At the same time, they lose sight of the power of the heavenly Father and his incomparable love. This is exactly what Satan wants! …
Unwavering trust
Our hope lies in constantly strengthening ourselves with the certainty that Jesus is our righteousness. Let us lean confidently on this foundation, for it will never waver. Instead of thinking about the darkness of Satan and fearing his power, let us open our hearts to receive light from Jesus and let it shine into the world! So we proclaim that he is stronger than Satan and that his arm will uphold all who trust in him … Disappointments will indeed come. Tribulation is to be expected. But we may place everything, great and small, in God’s hands …
Knowing God personally
The Christian’s task in this life is to represent Jesus in this world and reveal Him in life and character … But when our thoughts are so filled with gloom and sadness and we are preoccupied with the darkness and evil around us, how can we represent Jesus to the world? How can our testimony have the power to win souls? We need to know God and the power of His love as revealed in Jesus from our own experience. Let us therefore study the Scriptures enthusiastically and prayerfully! Then our understanding will be enlivened by the Holy Spirit, and our hearts will rise up to God full of trust, hope and unceasing praise …
Let us “look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.” (Hebrews 12:2). In this way our minds will become clearer, our faith stronger and our hope firmer. Then we will be so absorbed in his purity and loveliness and the sacrifice he made to bring us into harmony with God that we will not talk about doubts and discouragement.
Understanding God
The revelation of God’s love, mercy and goodness and the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart … connect us so intimately with Jesus by faith that we can clearly understand His character and thereby see through Satan’s masterful deceptions …
The images in our halls of remembrance
We are transformed by looking at them. By reflecting on the love of God and our Savior, by contemplating the perfection of the divine character, and by appropriating Jesus’ righteousness by faith, we are transformed into the same image. Let us not, then, gather up all the unsightly images – injustice, corruption and disappointments, the evidences of satanic power – and hang them up in our halls of memory, talking and lamenting over them until our hearts are quite discouraged …
Happy pictures
The Lord has given us much brighter and happier images. Let us bundle up the pleasant assurances of his love like precious treasures and contemplate them constantly: How God’s Son left his Father’s throne, clothed his divinity with humanity to save man from the power of Satan; how he triumphed for us, opened heaven to man, gave him insight into the audience chamber where the Godhead reveals its glory; how he pulled fallen humanity out of the pit of destruction into which sin had plunged it; how we are reconnected with the infinite God; and how we are clothed with Jesus’ righteousness and lifted up to his throne, having passed the divine test through our trust in our Savior. These are the images with which God wants to make the chambers of our hearts glad. And while “we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen”, we will confirm that “our affliction, which is quick to pass and light … brings us eternal glory beyond measure” (2 Corinthians 4:18, 17).
The last battle
Just ahead is the final battle of the great fight, where Satan will work “with all deceiving power, signs and wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9) to distort God’s character in order to “deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Mark 13:22). If ever there was a people in need of ever-increasing light from heaven, it is the people God has called in this perilous time to guard His holy law and vindicate His character before the world… Never has the church been more in need of the experience described in Paul’s letter to the Colossians than today, and never has God been more eager to grace them with that experience: “Therefore we … do not cease to pray and to ask for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthy of the LORD, pleasing him in all things: being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:10)
Abridged from: Ellen White, Testimonies 5, 737-746; cf. Testimonies 5, 769-778.
Source: hoffnung-weltweit.info
