Did the Devil Make Me Do It?
There is an old show called, The Flip Wilson Show, and one of the characters Flip played was a female named Geraldine. One of Geraldine’s catchphrases was, “The devil made me do it.” It was her way of never taking responsibility for the bad stuff she did. Did you know the devil can’t make a Christian do anything they really don’t want to do? It’s true.
Let’s look at what the Bible has to say…
James 1:14 & 15 states; But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
If we entertain the thoughts, we will eventually do that sin…
The enemy watches us and knows what temptations to put in front of us. Maybe you’re not into doing drugs so the devil will not tempt you with crystal meth or weed but maybe fornication is your vice. Whatever your vice, he’s watching to see how you’ve responded to it in the past and begins to give you evil thoughts or pictures of how pleasurable that sin would be to do. If we entertain the thoughts, we will eventually do that sin which will lead us to death, which is separation from God.
The devil doesn’t put a gun to our heads. He never makes us DO anything. He can only give us suggestions and we chose to follow through on them. Did you know you could stop him from feeding you thoughts to sin? Let’s look at what the word has to say;
We have the power…
The NIV Bible states … we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
If we never give him permission, the devil is powerless!
We have the power to cast those thoughts out of our minds and make our minds obedient to Christ! It is only when we entertain to do wrong that the devil can step in. We, in essence, give him permission to help us sin. If we never give him permission, the devil is powerless!
When the enemy comes to plant wicked thoughts in your head, the Bible says to resist him and he will flee. (James 4:7) It doesn’t mean he won’t come back to try and tempt you again but you have the right to stop him in his tracks when he knocks on your door.
