Ruined Beauty

[dddoo7]

Satan loves to take what is beautiful and ruin it.
GOD LOVES to take what is ruined and make it beautiful.

When we peel back the deceit and lies that Satan tells us, we quickly see the truth in the above statement. There is nothing that Satan touches that becomes more beautiful, more good, or better. Conversely there is nothing that God touches that doesn’t become more beautiful, good, and better. The difficult part of life is that they both promise the same thing.

They both promises to deliver happiness, hope, beauty, and good things. Both God and Satan offer great things the problem is that in the long run Satan doesn’t deliver what he promises. In Genesis 3:4-5 Satan promised Eve, “you shall not surly die...your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods knowing good and evil.” As Satan is the master of deceit and twisting words, Eve did not immediately die physically, however she did not receive what she expected from giving in to the temptations. She died spiritually, was cast out of the garden, and many other consequences followed due to her willingness to trust Satan. It is very convenient that Satan didn’t tell her about all of the consequences as he was placing the temptation before her.

Satan works in the same way today. Satan will place temptations before us that promise happiness, hope, and beauty yet Satan can only deliver physical, temporary pleasure at the great expense of our spiritual relationship with God. Satan is continually working, twisting, prodding, and influencing us to trade our spiritual blessings for temporary, physical things that won’t last.

On the other hand, God asks us to sometimes sacrifice our temporary, physical desires and in return He blesses us for eternity. When we trust God, He blesses us in this life with happiness (1 John 1:4), peace (John 14:27), hope (Romans 15:13), love (Ephesians 3:17-21), and many other blessings. The things that Satan promises are never as good as he promises and never last. In contrast the blessings that God promises are ALWAYS better than we could ever imagine and are everlasting.

Why then do we struggle with temptation? Why do we struggle with realizing just how horrific Satan’s proposals are? Why do we struggle to see the beauty and wonder in every single blessing that God offers?

We struggle because we often fail to recognize Satan for who he really is. We struggle because we often fail to recognize God for who He really is. We struggle because Satan is an expert at deceiving, manipulating, lying, and convincing us that what he offers is real. However we have been down that road. Satan never delivers. However, God always delivers in a way that is bigger than we could ever imagine.

Satan always takes what is beautiful and ruins it.
GOD LOVES to take what is ruined and make it beautiful.