Yep! That's What He Does.

Good Morning!  I hope your day is going well.  My day has started out well, the new coffee creamer that I tried is a lot better than I thought it would be.  Lol.

I want to share something with you that happened over the weekend.

My family and I were doing our Bible study together, something we do every Sunday. 

And afterwards, before we said our closing prayer, we were discussing baptism.  One of our sons had asked if he could be baptized, a choice that we left to them to make, but the other son was hesitant.

So, we asked him why he wasn't sure about it, and he explained that he thought he would have to be perfect, or at least a lot better at making the right choices before he could be baptized.  And, of course, my husband and I explained, again, that God doesn't expect him to be perfect.  God cares more about what's in his heart.  And if in his heart, he wanted to do what's right for God, and was willing to try, that's what mattered to God.

We reminded him that God knows he's not going to be perfect, because God already knows him.  And that all baptism really is, is his acceptance of God in his heart and life, his acceptance of Jesus and Jesus' death so that he could have a relationship with God.  That and his promise that he will do his best to live his life as Christ-like as possible.

As we were beginning to clear up his misunderstanding about what baptism really means, we were interrupted.  First by our dog, "Lola B." who was standing at the bottom of the stairs and barking repeatedly.  But, we just figured she was throwing a temper-tantrum because she was stuck downstairs because of the gate, instead of being able to be upstairs with us.

But then our little dog, who never barks, started doing just that, repeatedly.  Since that was out-of-character for her, my husband and sons all got up and went downstairs to investigate.  And they ended up being down there for a few minutes because even with the guys down there, the dogs kept barking.  When they had thoroughly checked things out and were convinced nothing was actually wrong, they came back upstairs.

As soon as they were in the room, I told our son, we'll call him "Lil Colonel" because of his love of history, that I was pretty sure that he had begun to change his thinking about what being baptized meant. He asked me how I knew that, and I in turn, asked him if it was right about the time the dogs started barking.  He answered yes.

That's when I pointed out to him and his brother something that I have told you, the devil will do anything he can to keep us from having a relationship with God.  Even doing something like causing a distraction of dogs barking in an attempt to keep us from helping our son to know the truth.

That's what he does, lies, steals, distracts and destroys, whatever it takes to make you not want to know God.

I know.  It sounds kind of silly.  But I say this; look back at your life, how many times has something happened that caused you to believe that you weren't worthy of something?  How many times has something happened that caused you to question whether there is even a God? That's what the devil does. That is his whole goal, to keep us apart from God.

It was really cool to see my sons get it, actually see it themselves.  You could see the minute that they made that connection, especially "Lil Colonel" because he was the one being held back to begin with.

I hope that just like the boys, you learn it too, and soon, because I didn't learn it till just these last few years.  I always loved God, believed in God, but because of the garbage that the devil threw at me, I didn't believe I was worthy. Once I did learn it though, my relationship with God grew by leaps and bounds.  The peace and security that I have now is so much deeper then what it was before.

And that is my hope for you.

With that shared, I hope you have a great day.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Stay safe.

Love ya.