Day 215 "Evil has no rules; therefore, against evil neither do I."

Day 215 Matthew 26:1-5 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill Him. But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.” The word plotted here, as defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, means “a plan secretly devised to accomplish an evil or treacherous end.” From the same source, the word trickery means: “The practice of crafty underhanded ingenuity to deceive or cheat.” Why do I bring this up you ask? The tendency of believers is to always think the best, to never assume that there are those who would desire to perform evil or mischievous acts against them. Why would people practicing witchcraft pray against us or why would satanists desire to see Christians, churches, ministries, and leaders fall? Surely they wouldn't waste their time on such things or would they? Let me ask you this: do you pray for the unsaved, do you pray for the lost to find Christ, do you pray for healings, for God's will, for miracles, signs and wonders? If you would pray such things against darkness, then why would they not pray against you to their deities? The answer is, I believe, that they do and, yes, they have power and, yes, sometimes they succeed, but only because we stand idly by assuming the best, ignoring the possibilities, and suffering the consequences of our actions. While Jesus did not desire to stop the crucifixion, if He had, He would have prevented it; therefore, it happened according to his will. Yet even then it was an evil scheme and a plan formed and executed very well and purposefully by the powers of darkness who conspired to kill the Messiah. Could it be that those powers of darkness have conspired in some manner to influence you in order to keep you from walking in faith, from stepping out? Have they prevented you in some way from being all that God would have you be? Could it be that by believing evil has rules, you have, to a certain degree, allowed evil to rule over you? I'm not a devil hunter; however, I do understand that I have an enemy, one who desires to destroy me and all who know me. He has nothing to lose, no rules to play by, and he needs no rest; he is patient and scheming, and by knowing this I can defeat him by the power of God with my prayers. Daily Prayer: Father, I do ask that You, Lord, by Your Spirit would reveal the scheming of the enemy to me in order that I might avoid the pitfalls and walk victorious in You. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen. "Evil has no rules; therefore, against evil neither do I." Gene Burroughs, Pastor