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Hi Ladies,

Satan, the adversary of every Believer, specializes in sowing tares, instead of the beautiful bounty of colorful joy depicted in this photo. Our Father brings blessings and love, but the enemy seeks only to destroy. So what exactly is a “tare”?  Dictionary.com defines it as “a noxious weed”.  In Matthew 13, Jesus recounts the story of the tares that grew up so entangled with the wheat in the field that it was impossible to separate them out until they had fully grown and revealed themselves…just like the tares in our lives.  They start out looking like wheat until time and closer inspection reveals their true nature.

In the arena of marriage, substitutes, counterfeits, and bogus blessings are all part of the enemy’s arsenal, which will be deployed against you when you become serious about marrying your chosen spouse.   You must stay prayerful and vigilant to be certain that you haven’t strayed from the path that God has appointed for you, because often when we are most confident that we’re going the right way and that His plans are finally becoming clearer, the enemy’s distractions will begin to arrive.

For example, you’ve now become interested in a particular guy, and are beginning to envision a future together, but men suddenly start turning up everywhere. They’ll be smiling and interested, flirting or just making casual conversation, but with that certain gleam in their eye. It may have been ages since a male even glanced in your direction, but when one finally does come along, another will too.

Or maybe you’ve committed to remaining celibate while you wait on God for your husband. But suddenly opportunities for intimacy are plentiful, tempting you to change your mind, to make an exception ‘just this once’.

Or perhaps it’s a job opportunity. You’ve submitted resumes to firms all over the city or even the country without a single response.  Then at last when a company calls, two or three others will contact you that same week, eager to get you in for an interview.  Most of us will shrug, mutter something about “feast or famine”, and stolidly set about trying to talk to them all.

Or the Lord has given you a book to write, a ministry to start or to nurture, or a career goal that excites and invigorates you.   But now irresistibly intriguing TV shows, or web surfing, Facebook, Twitter, or I-phone games entice you to postpone what you should be doing in favor of idle entertainment.  Days disappear like smoke while you accomplish nothing.

What exactly is going on here? Why is this happening now?   The answer is simple – when God is preparing to release a major blessing to manifest into your life, Satan’s ploy to counteract it is to derail you with a decoy.  Sometimes he will send in his fake just before the Lord dispatches the real deal, enticing you to give up waiting too soon, or to compromise.  In other instances, he’ll scatter the counterfeits around so thickly that you will have trouble identifying which is which.  But, just as in Jesus’ parable, when the devil sows his weeds in among God’s blessings, you must use prayerful discernment to tell them apart, and patience to separate them out.

Deceptions are one of the enemy’s most common weapons against us, and he makes them beguiling and attractive. Just as he himself, far from being a horned red demon with a pointed tail and pitchfork, was one of our Creator’s most beautiful angels, so too will tares be presented to you.  The corruption inside is masked behind an enticing façade.  As 2 Timothy 3: 13 warns, “But evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

Understand that Satan will attempt to lure you in your areas of weakness, or where there is unconfessed sin in your heart. James 1: 13 notes, “Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.” The temptation you’ll encounter is only a trap from the devil.

More next week…Joy and Shalom!