Satan, the devil, has one main goal in life: to separate you from God and keep you separated. Very early after creation, Satan attacked Adam and Eve. He used three basic approaches and they are the same ones he uses today.

  1. Sow confusion about what God said. “Did God really say…?” Satan does not want you to read God’s Word for yourself. He wants you to think you cannot understand it, or believe that it could not possibly mean what it says. So you do not have to worry about doing — or not doing — what it says.
  2. Lie about God. In this approach, Satan contradicts God. “You will not die if you eat of this tree.” The argument goes like this: God wants you to be happy, and so whatever you want to do to be happy is fine with God. Anytime you hear terms like “God would never…” or “God will do…”, it would be best to check your Bible and see what God actually says about things.
  3. You can be your own god. Satan told Eve the only reason God would not let them eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was that then they would be like God. Of course, the problem is not just to know good from evil, but to know what to do about it. Or how to handle it when you choose evil.

You can read this story yourself. It is in the very first pages of the Bible in the book of Genesis, chapter 3. Satan will use the same approach to separate you from God. He keeps using it because it works so well. The only flaw in his plan is that he cannot keep us away from God because God sent his Son Jesus to provide a way for us to come back to God. Not only can I show you where to read about that, but I can show you how to live with God instead of living away from him. Write to me at steve@hopeforlife.org or visit our HopeForLife.org website.

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