This may be a surprise to you but you are not in full control. Whether you accept this or not, it really don’t matter, I suppose, because the real truth is that this world has always been, and always will be about “spiritual warfare.” Yep, I just put it out there like that.
[Jesus said,] “‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’” (John 14:6).
Do you think that your mind is your own? Sorry to break it to you, but we are not alone, here!
God, along with the devil and his demons are all battling inside your mind. Our hearts and everything else about us is based on what our brain is telling us. When God created us, He allowed us to make a “choice” of who to obey and follow or basically choose our destiny. When God created the tree of life He do so to test our obedience to Him and that devious devil (Satan), knew this, so right from the beginning he manipulated Eve and Adam to eat from this tree and disobey God.
The devil uses this very fact completely for his benefit to manipulate our minds so that we make decisions based on evil instead of good. Satan has been at this for a long time now and has corrupted the people of this world with evil, which is exactly why God had to destroy everything and everyone except Noah’s family in the flood.
Even after that, Satan just started again, lying to people and getting them to disobey God. So the “choices” we make in fact are not our decisions alone, they are consistently influenced by the evil thoughts Satan and his demons keep putting in our heads. God is also trying to get us to make the right choices to do: good, instead of listening to the devil and making the wrong choices─which is against God and His word.
God finally decided that there was one way to save his creation (mankind) and that was to have someone pay the penalty of sin for us. But there was only one Person worthy enough to do this and that was His Son, Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ was sent to earth to teach us the truth about our Heavenly Father, His word, the Holy Spirit, the purpose of Jesus coming to earth, why He has to die on the cross, and to teach love, grace, mercy, peace, joy, happiness, contentment, humbleness, comfort, etc.
The devil on the other hand has one goal and that is to keep us away from God just as he always has from the beginning starting with Eve and Adam. To do this, he uses every form of deception possible such as: Money, jealousy, pain, envy, sickness, diseases, lies, sex, adultery, abortion, (the wants and desires of mankind rather than according to God’s Word), homosexuality, deceit, drugs, alcohol, pride, revenge, killing, stealing, porn, fornication, etc., to keep us from following Christ.
Once again, all this is just to prove to you that the choices we make are not entirely our own.
So when I ask, “Who’s pulling your strings?” I mean that when you make a decision to do something, do you think that you made that specific decision all by yourself? No, you had help!
Yes, God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all trying to help us make decisions too─which of course are all good (love toward others, helping others, saving sex for marriage, not getting drunk, not using drugs, not hanging around others who like doing bad things, not cursing, praying often, reading the Bible as often as possible, praying for and/or with others, being kind to everyone, giving to others, crying when others are physically or emotionally hurt.
When you have love, you feel sad when others are hurting. And to go to church to praise God, you love and help your neighbors or coworkers and strangers. And most important you teach others about God the father and Jesus Christ to save their souls from the sin of this earth. These are all thoughts placed into your head by God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to keep you away from evil spirits and to help you ultimately make it to heaven when our time is done here on earth.
Don’t get me wrong here, you and I have a lot to do with how we act, think and say because we are the one who have make that “choice” as mentioned earlier but one thing we must keep in mind is that the more you listen to whichever side you listen to, the more natural it becomes to make the same type of decisions.
Let’s talk about life: Now I know there is a heaven and a hell because I take the Bible as the literal word of God, which explains both places in detail. I also believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for me and for you so that He is the one who paid the price for sin and not us. He took our place and we need to accept it as truth.
This is what is means when you hear, “There is only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ.” We human beings have to accept what He has done for us and accept Jesus into our lives. Another way to say this is, “We have life through Christ.”
Accept it!
Okay, so what about death? Well for all those who think that us Christians are crazy for believing in Jesus and being Bible thumpers as some call us, just think about this for a moment. Just bear with me here because I know this is not the case, but if Christians are wrong, what will we lose except the fact that we have more time than we thought and we have to grow old and die like everyone else and that’s it.
On the other hand, what if we are right and when we (Christians) leave this world we go to heaven to live forever with the Lord? Then those of you who thought Christians were crazy would end-up in hell for not believing the Christians and learning about Jesus and accepting Him into your life as you’re personal Savior.
In case you haven’t heard about hell, here is a brief description…Hell is a place where sinners will go and their bodies will burn in the fire and yet they don’t die they just keep feeling the burn over and over and this only touches on what it will be like. Christians on the other hand go in the opposite direction up to heaven. They enjoy love, peace, happiness, and fellowship with Christ. They will never have any pain, sickness, death, money problems or stress ever again─for eternity.
Now this choice should be easy but which one of these options sound like the best way to go?
Once again it all boils down to what choice we make while living our human lives here on earth…Just think about that for a while!
1 Timothy 6.7-10 (Amplified Bible):
“For we brought nothing into the world, and [obviously] we cannot take anything out of the world;
But if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content [satisfied].
But those who crave to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish [useless, godless] and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin {and} destruction and miserable perishing.
For the love of money is a root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have been led astray {and} have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs.”
1 Timothy 6 11-15 (Amplified Bible):
“But as for you, O man of God, flee from all these things; aim at {and} pursue righteousness (right standing with God and true goodness), godliness (which is the loving fear of God and being Christ-like), faith, love, steadfastness (patience), and gentleness of heart.
Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold of the eternal life to which you were summoned and [for which] you confessed the good confession [of faith] before many witnesses.
In the presence of God, Who preserves alive all living things, and of Christ Jesus, Who in His testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I [solemnly] charge you to keep all His precepts unsullied {and} flawless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Anointed One), which [appearing] will be shown forth in His own proper time by the blessed, only Sovereign (Ruler), the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.”
At the beginning of this document, I mentioned spiritual warfare and a lot of what I described in regard to the choices we make should have explained quite a bit about the type of spiritual warfare that is taking place inside us, and around us on earth every single day.
Now let’s take a look at exactly what the Word of God─the Bible─has to say because we have been informed way ahead of time about what’s going on but then I guess you have to believe and read and listen to find this out.
While there are of course, many other places in the Bible to help explain this, I’d like to point out just a few important Scriptures, here below.
Ephesians 6:11-18 (American Standard Version) for ease of understanding:
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual ‘hosts’ of wickedness in the heavenly ‘places.’
Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; withal taking up the shield of faith, where you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil ‘one.’ And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
In 1 Peter 5:8, we are told this: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour.”
You must understand that God created us and loves us all as His children, and trust me, when I say that He wants you and me to know that we can overcome the temptations of the devil and still have love, peace, joy and happiness here on earth until it is time for us to go to heaven. I want to say it again, we can overcome the devil but we all must put our trust in the Lord and pray and read the Bible which all will equip us with the tools we need to defeat the old serpent the devil.
1 Thessalonians 5:9 says, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And in Romans 5:9 we are told, “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”
Again in Revelation 3:10, we are given another promise: “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”
These are just a few of the Scriptures that shows us how much God loves us and that He is there for us and He will protect us if we will simply allow Him! So as the title goes “Who’s pulling your strings”? You and I have a choice of who we allow to guide us and teach us and that same decision will ultimately be the decision that saves us or kills us so please choose Christ Jesus now and accept Him into your life as your personal savior!
A World in Chaos
Just take a very close look at all the things happening in the world today. Do you really think that all this is (just by chance) or something like (it’s just the way the world works)?
No! Everything you see and hear every day has a purpose and is happening under the control of God along with Satan trying to create as much chaos and evil as possible so people won’t listen to God.
Every day now we hear about school shootings and innocent people getting killed.
Every day now we hear on the news about killings within families, churches, schools, everywhere.
Every day we hear about wars, rumors of war over seas and sometimes right here in America.
Every day we hear about natural disasters and more frequent than ever before in history.
Just this week I heard about multiple tornadoes in Texas destroying homes and killing people.
The act of homosexuality is completely against God and is accepted more and more every day in our schools, employment, communities, etc. Because nobody wants to hear how God feels about it.
I don’t know what it is going to take, but people have to wake-up out of their own selfish desires!
Our movies, music, schools, cell phones, television, neighborhoods are filled with killing, sex, language, violence, backstabbing, fornication, adultery, gay rights, abortion rights, fake religion, lies, and more. Our children and their children will simply continue to get worse until people learn to bring God back into our schools and families. Once again, we are the ones who must make that “choice.”
Time is short and probably much shorter than most even realize. The Rapture (an event where Christians will meet Jesus in the clouds and go home to heaven) is going to happen!
The Tribulation (a seven-year event that will take place after the Rapture, a literal hell on earth that is simply imaginable) is going to happen!
The Second Coming (an event where the Lord Jesus Christ comes back to earth to defeat Satan and to reign on earth for a thousand years) is going to happen!
I love to study biblical prophecy, but people please, don’t argue over when the Rapture will take place. Just make sure you are ready and have a relationship with Christ because it could be today!
No matter how you and I look at it, we have a choice to make, so:
Which do you choose?