February 03, 2011
Blocked-Calls
I just went through trying to disconnect my mom’s unwanted long distance phone service from a scrupulous carrier. This is not the first time it’s happened. Even though she is on a blocked-calls list, these representatives get through by claiming they represent Quest, her service provider. A simple phone call to the offending company (USBI) won’t work; you have to write letters of disputes for the charges and then because of their billing cycle being a month in arrears, it will be three months before it is straightened out. Sort of reminds me of Satan. Somehow he finds a way around my do-not call list.
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----Maybe Satan has a hot-line. His cards keep turning up in our hands. I loved Eloquentcoffe’s analogy. When you sense you’ve been dealt a bad hand or a bad card, you fold, or you discard, or you wisely do something. But you don’t just check. Satan roams about looking for those he can devour, making those phone calls to people who will just check. God knows this. Since He also knows Satan either disregards no-call lists or has a hot-line, He gave us His Word for dealing with the bad calls. That is why I so love Proverbs 2:1-11, “My son, if you receive My words and treasure up My commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will watch over you; understanding will guard you.” In other words, since you have to play the game with Satan at the table too, you had better learn from the Lord “when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, and when to take your money and run,” because Satan isn’t going to just put down the phone and go quietly into the darkness.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Is there any kind of answering machine we can use to screen Satan's calls? My creativity is not flowing right now. Maybe you have an idea. Or maybe you are already working on it.
Keep stirring the pot. It is the only way we won't stick to the bottom.
Grace and peace
Pumice;
-----No. I don’t think Jesus even had a call blocker against Satan. While being tempted in the wilderness, He spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Satan. But of course He was sure to be setting Satan straight, too. At various times He expressed some dismay over the lack of faith He found in people. When He was tired, the crowds yet pressed Him. At Gethsemane He was sorrowful and even troubled, “...even to death,” as He said. Knowing how He was to die and why, He asked if the cup could pass from Him. While in the midst of the excruciating pain of crucifixion, the chief priests, scribes, and elders taunted Him to save Himself. He well knew He could. He had to deal with that idea, since Satan had brought it to His mind in the moment through His ears from these hecklers‘ nasty, little mouths. Yet Jesus called for their forgiveness and remained on the cross.
-----Maybe it is fortunate that we can not block Satan’s calls. We are then pressed to handle them by other means. In the wilderness, Jesus’ handled them with Scripture. That is a must. The Pharisees wore phylacteries on their foreheads and wrists, because God’s Word said to bind it there. Jesus didn’t wear them. He wore the Word without a phylactery. He wore it in His mind and in what He did with His hands. I’ve tried to deal with Satan’s calls by merely quoting Scripture. It has been as effective as stirring coffee with a toothpick. The Bible is not a book of incantations. It is a book of behavior-changing wisdom crested by a gem of salvation. When its ideas stir into the mind, they make concepts and thoughts. When those concepts and thoughts stir into the actions of the hands, they make perceptions and feelings. This way Scripture is experienced rather than memorized. I don’t think Jesus was quoting Scripture to Satan in the wilderness. I think He was speaking it from experience.
-----So I regard the best Bible study to be done on the street - in our actions. And I adamantly deny the concept of secular. There is no secular. Everything is about Jesus Christ, every event, every circumstance, every reaction, word, and thought, every stick, stone, and speck of dust. This denial of secular birth’s an expectation of God’s tying up the phone lines. We relate too much to our household phone systems being a land line and maybe a couple cells. But the phone system of the soul is more like that of the giant corporate headquarters having more phones everywhere than you can hold in one thought. So if we busy ourselves tying up a land line and a couple cells, Satan yet has every secretary on fifty different floors to call in to. We have to tie them all up, or at least as many as possible. We have to stir the Word into every aspect of our behavior and thinking and feeling. Otherwise we just stir the coffee with a toothpick.
-----I am glad God doesn’t give us a call block against Satan. The challenge is then to tie up the phone lines with His Word, His Spirit, Him, and the people around us. That way everything happening to us becomes mental material for His shaping by our determination to respond rightly the best we know how. Doing right as much as possible makes for peace which generates joy. And that joy becomes a static in the whole phone system to Satan for muffling whatever call he might squeeze in through any open phone lines.
Steve Corey
Pumice,
I’m an elected official and our vocal-locals seem to indulge in pot-stirring, not for political gain, but merely for sport...It’s maddening.
Your thought of ‘not sticking to the bottom’ may help me season the pot with a little grace!
Gail
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