What Are You Believing?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Have you ever believed something for a really long time and then found out it wasn't true? Maybe it was something that your parents told you when you were little, or one of those things that everybody seems to know, so you never thought to question it. And then one day you find out, wait, that's not true? What's funny is sometimes you can't even remember where you heard it. You just accepted it somewhere along the way and eventually stopped questioning it. Now, some of those things are harmless, but what happens when the thing you believe isn't harmless? What if it's about you? Or maybe it's about God? Hey, I'm Melissa, and this is my question for you. We are in part two of Behind Enemy Lines, and last week we started by asking who is your enemy, really? Today, we're looking at the first strategy I want to explore. Today we're going to take a look at deception. Because sometimes deception isn't about getting you to believe something outrageous. Sometimes it's just getting you to question something you were once sure was true. So here's my question for you. What are you believing? And maybe the harder question is: how do you know it's true? Today we're going to focus on the story of Adam and Eve. And that's a story that I'm sure most of us know or have read or heard about if you've spent any time in your Bible. But I really want to take some time and go slow and really set the backstory for this and make sure we're all on the same page. So, Adam and Eve are in the garden, and God has given them tremendous freedom. They can eat from the trees around them with one exception. They are not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that's where the serpent enters the story. Genesis chapter 3, verse 1 describes him as crafty. And the first thing Scripture records him saying is this Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? Except that's not what God said. God had told Adam they were free to eat from any tree except one. It's a subtle difference, but listen to what happens when the serpent reframes it. God's instructions was essentially look at everything I've given you. There's one tree you need to leave alone. The serpent shifts Eve's attention toward the one thing she can't have. And that's what I find so interesting about this encounter. The deception doesn't begin with some wild, obvious lie. The serpent takes something God actually said and changes changes it just enough to make God sound different. Suddenly, the question isn't only what did God say? It's also why would God say that? Eve explains that they can eat the fruit in the garden, but not from that particular tree. And that's when the serpent becomes more direct. That's when he says, You will not certainly die. But then he tells her that if she eats it, her eyes will be opened and she'll be like God, knowing good and evil. And now we're getting to the heart of it. Because the serpent isn't just challenging God's instruction anymore. He's inviting Eve to question God's character. But what if God isn't protecting you? What if he's actually keeping something good from you? And once Eve begins seeing God differently, once he plants that seed and that little bit of doubt in her mind, his instruction starts looking different too. And that's the part I don't want us to miss. Before Eve reaches for the fruit, something changes in what she believes about God and about his character. Genesis tells us Eve looks at the fruit, decides it's desirable, takes it and eats. That's usually the part we focus on because that's where everything visibly changes. But the action came after the conversation. And I wonder how often that's true for us. We noticed the decision we made or the thing we did, but we don't always go back far enough to ask what we had started believing before we got there. Maybe you've waited on God long enough that you've started thinking, I need to make something happen myself. This is just going way too slow. I need to take control. Or something God says is good begins to feel like it's restricting you because it conflicts with something you really want to do or something that you really want to have. Sometimes disappointment can even change the way we interpret God. We know what scripture says about his faithfulness, but what we're experiencing doesn't feel very faithful. And without even realizing it, we start drawing conclusions about God from the circumstance that we're in. That's why deception can be difficult to recognize. A belief can settle in gradually, and by the time you start making decisions from it, it doesn't feel like something you're questioning anymore. It starts to feel true. Now, this is where I want us to be careful because we're talking about spiritual warfare, and I don't want this to get weird. All right. I'm not suggesting that every wrong thought you've ever had was whispered into your ear by Satan. We are perfectly capable of getting things wrong all by ourselves. Fear can affect the way we see something. Old hurts, they can shape what we expect from people. Sometimes our own desires influence what we want God to say. And sometimes we're just wrong. We're just simply mistaken. So I'm actually less interested in trying to identify the source of every truth than I am and asking whether that thought deserves my agreement. Because if I'm believing something false about God, the immediate problem isn't whether Satan whispered it. Somebody taught it to me years ago, or I came to that conclusion all on my own. Because if I'm believing something false about God, the immediate problem isn't whether Satan whispered it, somebody taught it to me years ago, or if I came to that conclusion all by myself. The problem is that I'm believing something about God that isn't true. So maybe discernment doesn't always begin with, where did this thought come from? Sometimes the better place to begin is simply to ask, is this actually true? And this is why deception matters in a series about the enemy. In John chapter 8, verse 44, Jesus calls Satan a liar and the father of lies. He even says that when Satan lies, he's speaking his native language. I've always thought that was such an interesting way to put it. His native language. Jesus isn't describing deception as an occasional trick that Satan happens to use. He's connecting lying to his very character, his very nature, which makes something that happens in Jesus' own life especially interesting. Because Satan tries deception with Jesus. And this time we get to see what happens when deception meets someone who knows exactly what God has said. Before we get to Jesus in the wilderness, there's one detail that I want to mention. At Jesus' baptism, God says, This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased. Then Matthew 4 begins. Did you hear that? God had just said, This is my son, and now Satan says, If you are the son of God, he's pressing directly against something God has already spoken. If that's really who you are, prove it. It's kind of taunting Jesus that way. Satan tells Jesus to turn stones into bread, and Jesus answers him with scripture. He says, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then Satan changes tactics. He takes Jesus to the temple and quotes scripture back to him. And this is where the story gets really interesting. Satan quotes Psalm 91, telling Jesus that if he throws himself down, God has promised that his angels will protect him. But here's the thing those words really are in the Bible. Satan didn't make up a fake verse, but he's using scripture to lead Jesus somewhere God never told him to go. I think that's one of the most important things we can take from this episode. Something can contain scripture and still misrepresent what the scripture is saying, what it means. Knowing a Bible verse isn't necessarily the same thing as understanding it. Jesus recognizes what Satan is doing and he responds by saying, it is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test. And when you put Matthew 4 beside Genesis 3, there's a really interesting connection there. In the garden, the serpent uses God's words in a way that distorts God's character. In the wilderness, Satan uses God's word in a way that distorts God's intention. Jesus knew the difference. That's the kind of discernment that we're after. That's what we need to learn and apply to our lives. And I think we need that kind of discernment now because we hear a lot of things that sound spiritual. You can scroll past a beautiful post on social media that begins with, God told me to tell you. And before you know it, you're listening differently because somebody put God's name in front of what you're about to read. Or maybe somebody attaches a Bible verse to an idea, and we assume the verse supports what they're saying without ever reading the passage itself. That doesn't mean we need to become cynical about every sermon or social media post or piece of Christian advice we hear. But it does mean that sounds biblical isn't the same as that's what the Bible says. The serpent knew what God said. Satan quoted scripture to Jesus. So recognizing biblical vocabulary isn't enough. We need to know scripture well enough and know the character of God well enough to notice when his words are being used to say something he never said. And this gets especially important when life doesn't go the way we expect it. What do you believe about God when you've prayed about something and the answer doesn't come? Maybe a relationship ends anyway, or a door you were sure would open closes. Or you do what you genuinely thought God was leading you to do, and the outcome looks nothing like you expected. Those are the moments when beliefs we didn't know we had can surface. You may never consciously say, God isn't faithful, but you might start living as though you can't depend on him. You might never say, God doesn't care about me. But disappointment can slowly convince you that you're on your own, and you'd be better if you just took control of the situation on your own. And that's where Genesis 3 starts feeling a lot less ancient, starts to feel more relevant to us today. Because underneath, did God really say is another question. Can you really trust him? That question can show up in ways that don't feel like rebellion at all. Sometimes it sounds completely reasonable because it's mixed in with real disappointment, real fear, or the instinct to protect yourself. And if we are not paying attention, we can begin living from an assumption about God that we never actually stopped to examine. So what do we do with that? I don't think the answer is to become afraid of our own thoughts. And I definitely don't want you walking around interrogating yourself all day and thinking about your thoughts. But when you notice that something you're believing is beginning to shape the way you're responding to God, maybe that's worth slowing down for. Start with the question we've been asking throughout this entire episode. What am I believing right now? And then get curious about it. Where did I get that idea? Does it actually line up with what Scripture says and with what I know to be true about God's character? And if you don't know, that's okay. That's when you go look. That's when you open your Bible. Read the passage instead of just the verse because somebody quoted it. Talk to someone you trust who knows scripture. Pray and ask God for wisdom because He will give it to you. This isn't about becoming suspicious of everything, right? It's about not giving every thought automatic authority simply because it showed up in your head, or every spiritual sounding idea authority simply because somebody attached God's name to it. So this week, I want you to notice the conclusions you're living from, especially the ones you've stopped questioning. Maybe there's something you've come to believe about God's timing because you've been waiting longer than you wanted to. Could be that there's an old failure that has shaped what you think God can still do with your own life. Maybe there's something you heard about God years ago that you've carried ever since, without ever going back to see whether scripture actually said it, without taking the time to get into your Bible and read it and learn and decide if it's true. So when you notice one of those beliefs, don't panic and don't and don't overanalyze it. Just ask, is this true? And don't answer based only on how it feels, right? Take it back to what God has actually said. Because that's what Jesus did in the wilderness. He knew the word well enough to recognize when the word was being twisted. And that is where we need to be in our walk with God, in our relationship with his word as well. So, what are you believing? Maybe that's a question worth carrying with you this week. Because before Eve ever ate the fruit, something had shifted in what she believed about God. Then, thousands of years later, Satan tried deception with Jesus too. But Jesus knew the difference between something that sounded convincing and something that was true. That's the kind of discernment I want for us. If deception is one of the enemy's strategies, we don't need to become afraid of being deceived. We need to become familiar with the truth. And next week, we're going to look at another strategy that can sound a lot like truth when you first hear it. Accusation. Because there's a difference between God showing you something in your life that needs to change and a voice convincing you that you'll never change. And we're going to talk about that. So until next time, please keep asking, keep listening. And when something starts shaping what you believe about God, don't be afraid to stop and ask, is that actually true? Before you go, if today's question stayed with you, I'd love to keep the conversation going. Each week, I send a short email called This Week's Question, a Quiet Invitation, and it's a simple reflection to help you stay grounded, to pay attention, to dive deeper into God's Word, and to walk with God throughout your week. You can sign up at myquestion for you dot com, bringing you encouragement for your spirit and wisdom for your walk.