Slight of Hand

I know A card trick.

I know only one card trick. Its a good one. My Dad mesmerized me with it when I was an impressionable young boy. Here's the gist of the card trick; my dad could predict each card atop four stacks of cards before they were laid face up. When Jake the Card Shark called out the Jack of Diamonds before flipping that card over, I was stunned! Not only that, he did it three additional times, calling out cards back to back to back and never missing a one!

I was confused too. I thought he worked at the railroad when he left the house every morning. He might have snuck off a few times to the Cleveland 'Slight of Hand' University instead. He was way too smooth with that card trick! He did teach it to me later, and as a fellow graduate from 'SHU', (Slight of Hand University), I have wowed his grandchildren and a few others along the way. I am thinking that the Kirby Van Burch Magic Show in Branson might give me a look if I really perfect the ONE card trick I know!

"Do you not know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God? Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?" James 4:4

Everything is not as it seems. The Evil One plays this 'card' to the max. He wants you to embrace a life apart from God, so he uses a little 'slight of hand'. He attracts us by offering ungodly satisfactions to godly needs. This is his strategy to move your heart away from your Creator and potential Redeemer. At first, in our gullibility, we align ourselves swiftly to the appeal of desire fulfilled. After all, what can be so bad about what we think we see if it has a promise to deliver. This is where the trickery of deception draws us away from the God of Love and straight into the grasp of short-lived pleasure and unavoidable loss.

There is something even more painful...the realization that we have become God's 'enemy' in route to supposed fulfillment. Not only have we been robbed from the joy of experiencing His life, we have set ourselves against His affections in the Camp of the Enemy. An enemy of God? We have been duped into becoming His adversary through the ploy of the Evil One set to deliver temporal pleasure and fleeting gain.

So what is real in this spiritual realm?

His jealousy over you! He desires you exclusively, untarnished by the appeals of the world to satisfy what only He can fulfill in you and for you. He longs for you to move once again in His direction, trusting Him enough to yield completely to Him. Honestly...have you become too 'friendly' with the world? You know the answer to that before you read through to the end of this sentence! It will take tears of repentance to restore what the supposed 'friendship' actually stole from you. You may even find yourself in such grief for your lack of discerning the real agenda of the Great Pretender that you will downright wail! (See James 4:7-10 for more insight).

Michael Corleone of Godfather fame is often quoted; "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." He did not realize that the real enemy already owned him!

No...get close to the heart of God. Move away from the one who stacks the deck against you. Thank the Father for His jealous love for you that will not tolerate any other suitors.

His hand is open. See the scars? No 'slight of hand' there. Those scars are the constant reminders that you are deeply loved by God and that He deserves no less than your total affection. He puts all the 'cards on the table'...nothing hidden.

"Come near to God and he will come near to you." James 4:8

What a guarantee!