Borrowed Light

How To Give the Devil a Foothold

July 25, 2016Mike Leake 7 Comments

Our family loves to watch American Ninja Warrior. My son has noticed that some of the best ones on the show are rock-climbers. So naturally, as little boys are prone to do, my son has taken up trying to climb stuff. And naturally, as grown men are prone to do, I like to try to see if I can still do it myself.

The other day we were in Branson having a bit of family time and down at the Landing area we noticed this big wall with some rocks sticking out. We did what any fan of American Ninja Warrior would do—we tried to climb it. We couldn’t get up very far though because it wasn’t made for climbing. There were places where we’d have to stop because there was no way to progress—we couldn’t put our foot anywhere. We couldn’t get a foothold. We couldn’t establish ourselves on that wall. It didn’t have a place for us so we had to give up climbing.

God tells us in Ephesians 4:27 that we are to “give no opportunity to the devil” or as some translations have it “do not give the devil a foothold”. Literally that verse is saying “do not give the devil a place”. When I thought about trying to climb that wall this verse became more clear to me.

Nobody believer wants to give the devil a place to stand. We don’t want to give him a foothold in our churches. To give him a foothold or a place would be like giving him a seat at the table—a place where he could interject his ideas, cause us to give weight to his thoughts. Certainly no believer wants to allow him to grab hold of something and say, “Ah, now here…here is a place where I can grab hold of? Here is a place where I can really stabilize myself and make some inroads? Yes, here is a place where I can worm my way into this person’s heart or this church body”.

There are many places where the devil could get a foothold in a person’s heart or in the life of a church. Yet, there is one particular place where we are warned against not allowing the devil to gain a place, and that is in our unresolved anger.

Anger, though, seems to be one of those acceptable sins. We live in a culture of outrage and Christians are not immune from partaking. In fact many believers feel entitled to their outrage. This understandable. We are often outraged about holy things, so we feel as if our anger is justified. On occasion it might be, but for the most part our simmering rage is where the devil gains a foothold.

I agree with Brant Hansen when he says,

“Thinking we’re entitled to keep anger in our laps—whether toward the sin of a political figure, a news network, your dumb neighbor, your lying spouse, your deceased father, whomever is perfectly natural, and perfectly foolish”. (Unoffendable,12)

So unless you want to give the devil a foothold pursue forgiveness and reconciliation. Let go of your anger and find healing in Christ.

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Photo source: here

I had the opportunity to preach on this passage recently. You can listen here.

Today in Blogworld 07.25.16

July 25, 2016Mike Leake

A Simple Formula for Effective Preaching

This really is true.

The Terrifying Danger of Falling Off My Own Platform

The danger is real and I appreciate the suggestions at the end.

5 Things I Pray I Will Not Do as a Senior Adult in the Church

These are things to consider at any age. My guess is that the seeds planted in our youth is what impacts the way we serve as senior adults.

Are You a Complainer or a Fixer?

A great question to ask. “When you complain about the way a person is serving, you are doing the devil’s work for him and discouraging those who are doing ministry.”

The Legacy of One-Point Calvinism and Casual Churchianity

This isn’t about Calvinism at all, really. It is about a biblical doctrine of perseverance.

Russell Moore answers an important question for pastors during the political season:

What’d He Say?!

July 21, 2016Nick Horton

The ride home from church is often full of discussions of what or where to eat, what’s going on in fellow member’s lives, and thoughts on how to spend the rest of the day. Those are well and good but they don’t take long. I want to suggest there is something else we should be doing. There’s something we can do to help our walk with Christ in light of having heard his word preached.

The sermon review.

What better time to review the sermon with your spouse and kids than on the ride home? Our memory of what was sung, prayed, and preached than right after we hear it. Some of you might be thinking, “Why do we want to do that when we just heard it? We already listened, we got it, we’re good!”

The high point of worship is the word of God preached. We are there to hear a man preach the word and not his clever thoughts, smooth speech, or laugh at his jokes. He labors all week over the text in study, striving to faithfully deliver the meaning of it and offer application to our lives. Yet, this is not about the preacher, this is about the word of God. I am suggesting we dwell on sermons for a bit so that we don’t forget them and that we learn to obey God.

We hear a great many things throughout the day but what real impact do they have? That depends on how we think about them. New information comes so rapid fire that we don’t consider what we heard five minutes ago as something new is pushing for our attention. This is not really any different with Sunday worship and the sermon. Once we leave church will we consider what we heard again? We have a car ride or a walk home, if you’re blessed to live close to church, and in that time let’s think about what we heard. I have four reasons I think we ought to talk about the sermon we heard.

Talking about the sermon with our families will make us better listeners.
Asking each other what the main point of the sermon was is an encouragement to listen well. Our minds are prone to wander on tidbits of information or things that spark our imagination. Having a goal when we come to hear the word preached helps guard against that. The goal is not merely to grasp the point, though. The goal is in grasping the truth preached that we would worship God.
Talking about the sermon with our families will make us better thinkers.
When we know that we’re going to discuss what we heard we move from passive to active listening. Rather than passively absorbing the sermon, we’re actively listening, questioning, and mentally interacting with what we hear. We have to determine the main point and the supporting points so that we can discuss it. If we’re asked what the point was and the only thing we can come up with is something we thought was funny then we’re not listening well.
Talking about the sermon with our families will help us to obey.
Given that we’re now actively listening, the application of the sermon will make sense and be based on the biblical truths expounded. Rather than having a list of things to do divorced of the reason why, we heard the reasons why that inform the application. This grounds our obedience to those applications in the word of God.
Talking about the sermon with our families will help us lead our families.
Men, this is a practical and essential way to lead our families well. Talk with your wife about what you both heard and how to apply it to your life as a family. Help your kids learn to listen to sermons better by including them in the conversation. In so doing we’re declaring that a sermon is more than just a speech. We listen to the truth of God’s word to dwell on God and be transformed by Him.

Listen, dwell, discuss.