2 Corithians 11:3 (10-18-11)

2 Corinthians 11:3 - "But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ."

In the Bible Satan is called the deceiver, and he is very good at what he does. The very first sin committed by a human being came about as a result of his crafty deception. The devil hates mankind and he desires to deceive everyone so that no one comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ. But what about us? We've already come to that saving faith, so what is the devils mind toward us? Notice what this verse says - "But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." The devil desires to keep our minds distracted.
Satan wants to lead our minds astray, first from the simplicity of devotion to Christ, and secondly from the purity of devotion to Christ. We're often fooled into thinking that devotion to Christ is a hard complicated life, and that in order to live a life of devotion to Him we have to sell everything we have and go live in a monastery somewhere, and do nothing but read the Bible and pray, wearing the simplest rags and eating nothing but colorless, tasteless mush. Maybe it's not that extreme, but when we think about devotion to Christ, the word simple is not usually the first word to come to mind. And that's how the devil deceives us. But what did Christ say? Throughout the gospels we find Jesus making this simple statement - "Follow Me." That's it. That's the simplicity of devotion to Christ. Simply following Him.
The second thing is the purity of devotion to Christ. Even after the Lord saves us, we still struggle with sin. And the devil takes the things we've done and tries to keep our minds fixed in them and tells us that we're no good, and God could never love a person like us. And we become so preoccupied with our sins that we become useless to God. We forget how we were washed from our sins in the first place, and what we became as a result of Christ washing us in His blood. We're told in 2 Corinthians 5 that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. God has made us new, He has taken away our sins and separated them from us as far as the east is from the west. If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Don't let the devil deceive you about the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.