In Reply to: Re: Can you tell me? posted by Bryon on January 06, 2003 at 00:58:38:
I find that worrying that the devil is lurking about in every corner and thought pattern can be just as damaging as going to the other extreme of not worrying at all. It's akin to being ruled by fear and we know that there is no fear in love because God is love - that's a verse I remember, in fact, that I memorized because I was so fearful all the time that I had to have something to cling to in order to keep my sanity. This went on even before joining the COG/FOG, it's a bad problem in the Christian mind, I think. There was this tract someone gave me about how to cast out demons from yourself so that you won't have all these evil things within you. I actually did the chanting thinking I had demons in me. I mean, come on, who amongst us is perfect? Don't we have a forgiving God? The whole idea gets warped and everything ends up an oxymoron. I don't think we have to fear the devil, I think we have to fear ourselves because of our own problems. Actually, we don't have to fear anything as long as we know within ourselves and are confident that we are doing our best under sometimes some pretty difficult circumstances. I think the poster is reacting to you because of your often postings about conspiracies and watching out for the devil and so on. Think about it.