By Pastor David Jeremiah

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines intervention as the “interference of one state in the affairs of another.” Satan has his own “intervention” program. He loves to intervene in the lives of Christians so he can cause them to do his will instead of the will of God.

Blaise Pascal is reported to have said, “All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.” I am convinced that part of Satan’s intervention plan is to keep God’s people so frenetically busy, so occupied with the things of the world, that they will have no time or energy left to devote to their spiritual lives.

A friend of mine sent me a devotional that reminded me of the subtlety of this strategy. The devotional imagines Satan addressing a worldwide convention of demons and promising them victory in believers’ lives if they will faithfully do the following twelve things:

1. Keep them busy with nonessentials.
2. Tempt them to overspend and go into debt.
3. Make them work long hours to maintain empty lifestyles.
4. Discourage them from spending family time, for when homes disintegrate there’s no refuge from work.
5. Over-stimulate their minds with television and computers so that they can’t hear God speaking to them.
6. Fill their coffee tables and nightstands with newspapers and magazines so they’ve no time for bible reading.
7. Flood their mailboxes with sweepstakes, promotions and get-rich-quick schemes; keep them chasing material things.
8. Put glamorous models on TV and on magazine covers to keep them focused on outward appearances; that way they’ll be dissatisfied with themselves and their mates.
9. Make sure couples are too exhausted for physical intimacy; that way they’ll be tempted to look elsewhere.
10. Emphasize Santa and the Easter bunny; that way you’ll divert them from the real meaning of the holidays.
11. Involve them in “good” causes so they won’t have time for “eternal” ones.
12. Make them self-sufficient. Keep them so busy working in their own strength that they’ll never know the joy of God’s power working through them.

The devotional concludes, “Have you figured out the difference between being busy and being successful in what God’s called you to do? Sometimes being B-U-S-Y just means Being Under Satan’s Yoke.

Copied from pages 56-57 of “I Never Thought I’d See the Day!”