Monday, January 12, 2009
The Great Imitator
“I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.”
—1 John 2:21–22
The first sign that something has been popular is when you start to see knock-offs or imitations everywhere. It has been said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; but honestly, no one likes to be copied or ripped off. That’s just a nice way of saying, “Don’t feel too bad when someone copies you.”
The devil is a genuine copycat. He has never specialized in originality. He has always seen the value of copying something and confusing the issues.
Whenever you see a genuine work of the Spirit of God, the devil will always have his imitation. Satan’s business specializes in flooding the market with cheap imitations, thus clouding the issues. As a result, people have difficulty discerning between the truth and lies.
The explosion of religions in our world today stands as one example of Satan’s work. The gurus, false prophets, and teachers, and psychics who claim to possess the hotline to heaven are simply puppets in the hands of Satan. They’re his tools in muddying the waters of truth.
The end result is somebody who looks at all of the world religions and thinks, I just can’t make sense of it all. They just want to throw it all out and forget about it. When that happens, the devil has accomplished his purpose.
Keep this in mind: if you see a lot of imitations out there, an original exists somewhere in the midst of all the copies. The devil only floods the market with imitations in order to keep people from the one and only true God.
Seek the original, open up God’s Word. Only then will you discover truth.
Copyright © 2009 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000.
For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to www.harvest.org.
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