John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” This episode talks about how we need to not listen to the enemy and how we need to walk the narrow path if we want to make it through the small gate to heaven. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Thief Comes Only to Steal and Kill and Destroy
John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
This is one of those verses that can be a great reminder of why we shouldn’t listen to the enemy when he tells us his lies. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Sometimes when the enemy whispers things into our ears it almost seems like he is being helpful. Almost as if he is just drawing your attention to something so that you can fix it. For instance he may point out that you haven’t been to the gym in a while. This may not seem that bad as it has been awhile and you did feel better when you were going. And if that was his plan, then that would be kind of him. However, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
Think about what usually happens when you start to think about how you haven’t gone to the gym in a while? Do you start to get down on yourself? Do you start to think about all the other things that you said you would do that you haven’t done? Do you start to feel like you can’t do anything right? This was his plan. His plan was not to help you it was to get you to take your eyes off Jesus and turn them toward yourself. This is always his plan. The thief knows that when we are focused on God, everything is better. This is why he tried to divert our focus to anywhere but there.
Have you ever read the Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis? If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. The premise of the book is a series of letters between an Uncle named Screwtape, who is a high level demon, and his nephew Wormwood, who is a brand new, just starting out demon. In each letter the nephew tells his uncle what he is doing to torment the human that he has been assigned to. The uncle writes back and gives him advice as to what works best and what doesn’t. It is a fascination book that points out all the ways that we can get off track and how easily our mind can be turned away from God and onto something else.
It is a good book, however, it is also a very startling book. When you read through it you realize all the different directions that our attention is being pulled. You can also see how the enemy doesn’t really have to do too much sometimes to turn a good and holy experience into an occasion to sin. One that comes to mind very vividly is when they are talking about how humans behave in church. The uncle was saying that his nephew should get the human to focus on anything else other than the message being preached at the pulpit. They talked about how he could point out the funny hat the lady in front of them is wearing, or the child two rows up that is crying. Do whatever you have to do to divert their attention away from the reason they are at church and the message that is being preached.
How many times have you been sitting in mass, or service and although you are there in body, your mind is wandering all over the place? How many times have you made it halfway through Mass or service and have no idea what was said or what the message the priest or minister talked about? When I was younger my dad would sometimes assign us each a part of the mass to pay extra special attention to and then after mass he would ask us how much we remember about that part of Mass. I feel like I didn’t ever remember anything. I remember thinking, it was just less than an hour ago, how can I not remember. I have seen many people at a Catholic Mass read the bulletin during the readings and the sermon. Why is this?
This is because the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. He is not interested in your mortal soul being saved. He is not interested in helping you pay attention so that you can learn how to get into heaven. He does not want you to hear any of the good news that is found in the Gospel. He is trying to do all he can to kill your soul so that you never get to see heaven. I know that may sound harsh, but it is the truth. There is a heaven and there is a hell. As badly as God wants your soul to come to heaven, that is as badly as the devil wants your soul to go to hell. I wish this were not the case. I wish we could all go to heaven. However, it is stated over and over again in the Bible that this is not the case. It talks very clearly about what we need to do to go to heaven and what we need to do to go to hell.
Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. The thief is at the end of the broad road. The verse above says that the Lord has come that they may have life and have it abundantly and then this verse says small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. The Lord is life and the thief is death. You would think that if we knew this we would all choose the Lord. However, the enemy is really good at confusing us and getting us to take our focus off the Lord. It’s as if he has people posted at the entrance to the narrow road and every time we start towards it, they usher us to the wide road. It is wide, it is easy, it is “normal.”
We are naturally drawn to the road to destruction because we live in a broken world. We tend to be a people that follow others. We are often referred to in the Bible as sheep, the Lord’s sheep. However, we don’t always follow the Lord. More often than not we follow other people. We follow are habits or our desires. We know what we like and what we want and that usually doesn’t align with what God wants for us. God wants us to love others and yet, sometimes we just don’t want to. God wants us to forgive others, but we don’t want to. God wants us to love others as He would love them and that is hard and we are not sure we want to invest them time. Or maybe it’s not about investing the time, maybe it is about being afraid to be that vulnerable. Whatever it is, we struggle a lot with the things that God asks us to do.
Often times the reason we struggle is because we have the enemy, the thief whispering lies into our ears. He tells us we will never be good enough, so why bother trying. He tells us that God won’t mind if we just do this, that, or the other thing because we really want to and God wants us to be happy. He convinces us that our sins aren’t that bad, they aren’t hurting anyone. Guess what? They are hurting you. If you are sinning, no matter how small, and we all are, then we are hurting our relationship with Jesus. We can repair this relationship, but only if we are honest with ourselves and repent from our ways. We won’t do this if we believe that we aren’t really doing anything wrong. Do not believe the lies of the enemy. Do not let the thief come into your life and steal your joy. You are stronger than you think you are. When you start to get down on yourself, realize that is the thief trying to steal your joy and don’t listen to his lies. Jesus came so that we may have life and have it abundantly. Doesn’t that sound so much better than what the enemy is offering? I don’t know about you but I want to live eternally in the presence of the Lord. I want to walk through the small gate and that means I need to walk down the narrow path. I know it is not easy, but I will keep trying. Will you join me?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. We ask that you help us to now let the thief into our lives. We ask that you shine a light on where he is already in our lives so that we can kick him out. Lord, please give us the wisdom to know when he is speaking to us so that we can just ignore it. Lord help us to walk the narrow path and enter the narrow gate. We know it is difficult and that we will get it wrong over and over again. Please don’t give up on us, please forgive us and keep directing us back to the narrow path. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you are enjoying this podcast please subscribe to it and also share it with a friend. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!