Truth or Fiction

“and a charge of lying against someone whom you have always found truthful is a very serious thing; a very serious thing indeed.”
― C.S. Lewis


     Satan may be dumb, but he is not stupid.  I have talked to many, many survivors of sexual exploitation and every time I hear a new story, I can't believe how crafty the enemy is.  This morning I had a revelation when I woke up and I think no matter how or who it hurts, it's important to share.
     The enemy likes to imitate Christ.  He spends a lot of time twisting the truth.  As I have said before we find comfort in the familiar, which is the enemy's imitation of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  To be a true follower is to be a true risk taker.  God gave us a comforter for one reason - to comfort us.  To stay in our comfort zone, there would be no reason for a comforter.  Stepping out and taking risks causes the need.
     When you are forced to live in survival mode, you first learn to read people.  We have to.  Some may call it judging, but we have to be able to read who we can trust and to what to degree and who to totally stay away from.  So, we decide to get healthy.  We are going to deal with our pasts and face our futures and walk it out for God.
     Before we really get started, while we are in the first stages of trusting people, we clearly see there are some, even under the label of Christian that we cannot trust.  Our gut turns and we know to stay away, but eventually we see that people we trust obviously trust those people so we decide, this must be our broken system of survival.  We obviously need to think like everyone else.  "The normal people".
     With our sense of who people are, we see a lot of people struggling to follow God, know Him better and love on people when they don't feel like it.  We see people struggle with addictions, old habits and down right attacks straight from hell.  Wow, these people are like me.  Judging is wrong, but I don't believe we are to turn a blind eye to everything.  God speaks to us, not just to rub our heads and tell us what a good job we are doing, sometimes it's to warn us of danger. 
     I don't care what anyone says, there are child molesters, Satanists, false teachers and prophets amongst us in the church.  Does God really want us to accept them into our homes and share coffee?  We have a duty to point out these people.  I will sit next to a child molester if he is searching out God and trying to change his or her life.  I will sit next to a Satanist trying to find the right answer.  I will not allow somebody in my life who is a fraud or a fake, purposefully misleading others. 
     Here is the hard part.  When you recognize one of these people and you tell someone and they say - "Oh, that is not true.  You are making this up.  I have known her/him for years and I know they are a good person."  It's that same feeling as when you tried to talk about the abuse and you were accused of making that up too.  Let me say this, there are many wives who find out years later, their husband has been having an affair, molesting children, or is the neighborhood rapist.  There are husbands who find out the woman they have been married to for thirty years has a past he did not know about and is still living it on the side.  
     I have stepped out and exposed people, because they need help.  They are hurting people and I have been told to shut up.  I have been told to quit judging.  I have been told I will be exposed, well here I m exposing myself.  The enemy is so smart.
   Then there is Sister Christian who shows up at my door out of love to talk some sense into me.  Here is the thing, she reminds me of all those adults who told me as a kid that I needed to straighten out my behavior for my family's sake.  Nobody wanted to hear the truth.  Nobody wanted to hear what was really going on.  So while everyone is gathering together in the love of Christ nobody sees the looks I am getting, the glares and smirks.  The "nobody believes you" grins of the perpetrator.  Nobody wants to stop the molester from making their way through the family destroying people's faith.  If you have a gut/God feeling about someone, trust it.  The enemy is a deceiver and he deceives good people.  It doesn't matter what their title is, as you know from the news there are priests who molest.  Let me also say that those under the influence of the enemy, attack the new believer first.  it makes sense, because who would believe them?  So don't be paranoid, be your own judge, don't run on somebody else's trust, not even mine.  The enemy is a crafty one and he has a lot of Christians on his side. 

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” Gandhi