Posted: May 28, 08 2:20am
1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Rom 7:14-15 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
Long after my husband's employer determined they no longer needed his services, they contacted him by mail notifying him that his employee issued laptop was stolen. They further noted that his 8 years of employee statistics including his Social Security number was now a matter of potential identity theft pirating. They gave a helpful government link and it led him to a free site for a governmental identity protection program which he signed onto. So far so good, but it was an introduction into the new scams and wickedness of society.
I am not sure if you actually know personally of an identity theft victim, (I do) but if you did you would understand why they use the words, raped, plumaged and pilloried to describe what happened to them. Their good name is destroyed and their finances, as well as long standing good reputation, becomes null and void. And it appears never to end and never to be comfortable, at ease again.
We have Peter warning us that the devil indeed prowls around seeking to devour us. We have Paul saying, he does things that he hates. We even have a stern warning from God in the beginning of the Bible that sin couches at our door. (Gen 4:7)
Yet, when we read these things in the good Book, we are not alarmed enough to pass on these messages to everyone we know. We are not cautious enough each day to put on the full armor of God. We do not know what the full depth of sin, failure and consequences are until we have sacrificed our belief or moral system for perhaps a moment of carelessness or pleasure where Satan is watching for his opportunity to pounce. Our life is never the same after we have dropped our guard.
Jesus foretold this: Joh 10:10 The thief comes only in order to steal, kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, life in its fullest measure. It amazes me that with all the instruction the Bible gives we fail to grasp the severity of this warning as quickly as we do in reading about mail fraud, Internet scams and telemarketing deceit. We know the elderly are frequently victims of schemes that defraud, yet we pay little heed at our age in life to what God has clearly told us about identity theft. And when something amiss happens we are quick on the draw to blame God for allowing this to place our lives into upheaval. It may even further throw us into an identity crisis about our lives and who God is.
We cannot avoid all unpleasantries in life, but we can take the Lord at face value when He said to watch and pray. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. The spirit is strengthened by the Word of God and communion with Him. Stay in touch with Him, be familiar with the Bible, and don't become a willing victim. Things will never be the same again. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
