Have you ever wondered why God and the devil fight over us? God created the world perfectly. Then Satan came as a snake and brought sin into that perfection. Instead of turning away from the imperfect world, God promised Jesus and gave us the Bible. Satan daily tempts us and God uses the Bible to guide us every day. Why? It’s been thousands of years, but both sides still put in such effort for human souls.
An eternal fight
1 Peter 5:8 says “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Ephesians 6:11-18 talks about wearing the Armor of God and praying all the time. The book of Job is about God and the devil fighting over the faith of Job. In fact, the whole Bible is about God protecting people, guarding them, or warning us to be aware and avoid the devil. God has put in a lot of effort to get us to follow him while the devil puts in a lot of effort to distract us from God’s peace.
Is our eternal future really that important?
I’ve always understood that God loves us so much that he doesn’t want us to suffer in eternity. However, the devil hates to lose and the term “misery loves company” applies to him. Since the devil decided to break away from God for some reason, he wants God to have an empty heaven and hell to be full with people for him to torment. I realize this is probably a very simple version of the heaven versus hell fight.
Is that really so important that they fight every second of every day for our souls?
Screwtape Letters
I’m currently reading through Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. Basically Lewis created letters between devils as a way to talk about how he saw Christians being distracted away from their faith. It’s a fascinating way to think about how psychology interacts with faith and how powerful our brains and self-delusions are. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it yet.
It struck me while reading that book that God and the devil fight for us every day. Look at the culture around us and think about how many different “Christian” religions there are. The Bible’s order to “love everyone” is interpreted so many ways. Modern culture tells us to “cancel” someone when they prove not to love everyone, that is a way to prove we “love” everyone. The Western world was built on the commands from the Bible, but so many of those rules have been twisted until they are not considered wrong or at least uncool.
Important enough for God and the devil to fight over us
I know I struggle with thoughts of worthlessness. I think human nature tends to make people think we are more important than we are or not as important as we are. Humans often have to check our thoughts against reality to keep our real place in the universe in mind. The terms “entitled brat” and “imposture syndrome” are just a few terms used to explain tricks our brains play on us about our worth.
Maybe we need to think about our worth a little different. If both God and the devil think our eternal souls are worth a constant struggle, maybe we need more about our eternal worth and future as well.
