Photo by Lum3n from Pexels

Fish aren’t the only creatures susceptible to bait. Nor are they the only ones who are studied to find just the right bait for the right conditions and the right fish. Every creature falls prey to that since bait’s definition is “an allurement, enticement.” 

Humankind is no exception to being taken in by bait. That’s why so many ad agencies are out there producing ads that have only one goal – to get you to buy into whatever they are selling. That’s why any food or restaurant ad will be the most appetizing, colorful ad you see even though you cannot literally taste it. A great ad can make you want one so badly that you will interrupt your drive time to get it.

But it isn’t just food that gets us caught. Clothes, shiny new cars in our favorite color, toys for humans of all ages, and trips to exotic places are on that list as well. And it’s not just what we consume. We buy into other things as well even if we have phone call blocking on our phones, ads arrive in the mail, and any time we listen to someone we can be susceptible.

How did we get here? Why do we get up and buy that ice cream, order that great looking pair of shoes on sale, or buy another shirt that we have no need of? Why do we even listen to or look at the pitch when most of us know our weak spots on certain things?

“Anyone who has trapped animals knows a trap needs one of two things to be successful. It must be hidden, in the hope the animal will stumble upon it, and it must be baited to lure the animal into the ugly trap’s jaws.

Satan, the enemy of our souls, incorporates both of these strategies as he lays out his most deceptive and deadly traps. They are both hidden and baited.”

John Bevere

This enemy is skilled at getting us focused on us – what we want or desire, what we think we need, what would make life better for us, and so on. It gets us to buy things and try things we might avoid otherwise. It’s so successful it traps many of us in one addiction or another. That list goes far beyond alcohol, tobacco, and drugs of all kinds. You need to include food, pornography, sex, and more.

If these traps don’t kill us, they wound us and the ones that are most precise at hitting the target are those within our relationships.

“Only those you care about can hurt you. You expect more from them – after all, you’ve given more of yourself to them. The higher the expectations, the greater the fall.” 

John Bevere

Photo by Timur Weber from Pexels

What happens next will determine how deep the bait goes into the core of us. For too many of us, much of the time offense follows hard after hurt and Satan is most skillful at using this tactic because of course we believe we are right. He whispered that to us at the outset and we agreed as a way to blunt the wound and avoid any error on our part. Pride helped along the way as well and looks for someone to blame.

Most of us would agree there appears to be an epidemic of offense beyond even those close to us these days. A subject is broached and soon we have each gone to our corner believing we are right without much of a capacity to listen to the other person, consider his or her position, and whether we might not have everything aligned as it actually is either. In social media these days, it means you get canceled, muted, blocked, and shut out and division spreads like a cancer among us all.

“Our response to an offense determines our future.”

John Bevere

Only each one of us can (with God’s help) determine how much we have been affected by this epidemic and perpetuate it in our own life. That takes some time with a journal and a listening ear and the Bible in our lap to learn the truth since much of our offense cannot be categorized by being righteous like Christ whose words and deeds offended many. If we don’t take that time, we will be a part of what is causing family, businesses, organizations, churches, schools, countries, and more to be destroyed because we believe we are right or the victim of someone or something.

Photo by John-Mark Smith from Pexels

The polarized world we live in will not make our path easy or without some bumps in the road. After all, looking first at ourselves in the mirror is never as easy as taking the speck out of another’s eye. But it can start with the wisdom John Bevere suggests in his book The Bait of Satan that I read in 2001.

“God never created us to live separately and independently of each other. He likes it when His children care for and nurture each other. He is frustrated when we sulk and feel sorry for ourselves, making everyone else responsible for our happiness. He wants us to be active members of the family. He wants us to get our life from Him. An isolated person seeks only his own desire, not God’s. He receives no counsel and sets himself up for deception.”

John Bevere

The choice is ours, yours, and mine. God gave us the gift of choice and how we use it will have a great impact on how much we grow into maturity. The choice will show up in how we live and especially how we love.

Photo by Valeriia Miller from Pexels

Photo by Alina Matveycheva from Pexels

Ears have been a focus of attention in my life from last fall until late spring. They have often been a source of pain and difficulty with hearing since childhood due to infection or allergy. But this time the source was inflammation from a severe case of influenza A in mid-October that caused my hearing to be reduced significantly in both ears. One ear slowly improved but not the other. My faithful allergist tried all the things that had worked during the 16 years he has worked with me, and nothing resolved the issue so a referral to an otolaryngologist was the next step to consider putting a tube in the pesky ear (something our son had to have done when he was seven). 

Sure enough, that was the step needed and within a short time in the office, a tube was inserted, and I almost immediately began to hear more clearly. What a difference!

Ears can be such a challenge for so many and without good hearing, we experience a variety of different issues that impact the quality of daily living. From childhood through our senior years one issue or another can present a problem.

But not all of the issues are about allergies or a physical problem. Our ears get us into trouble when we simply don’t listen well through distraction or when we tune out things that hold no interest to us. This sets up relational and learning issues. Those same ears also want to hear certain things whether that is affirmation or words that support what we believe or want to believe. We can go down rabbit trails that often lead to misinformation disguised as the truth and that seems to be happening at epidemic proportions these days.

Hearing what we would like to hear has been around however since the beginning of humankind. We have been tempted and seduced for words we like, words that are easy or delicious to our ears. Choosing to listen to them can get us in a lot of trouble without evaluating their validity. Just ask Adam and Eve who picked the voice of a serpent to lead them down a path of destruction. And all these years later we too often fall for the same trick as if that is now a part of our DNA.

Without a strong foundation of truth any of us can succumb and often do, and it starts when we are still toddlers accepting something as true that may not be. It grows along with us so by the time we are in school and are bombarded by peers we are too often trying to be accepted without knowing if that is the path that is best. Add to that a popular phrase today of something being “my” truth since absolute truth has been set aside and before we can blink an eye, we are offended, and more division is created. By adulthood too many of us with no firm foundation of what absolute truth is, are confused and untrusting in multiple areas. Deceit appears to be everywhere and even in places we did not expect.

“Truth is under assault. Satan has already garnered a tremendous victory in the world through his lies.”

Amir Tsarfati

It’s all a part of a bigger plan than we may know or see on the part of Satan. From the beginning he has wanted us for himself, and he’s been patient with his craft of deceitfulness wooing us little by little to accept small lies at first until our heads were going every which way and our hearts with them. He is preparing us for the time he expects to appear and take over the world claiming falsely to be Jesus Christ. And it starts with whispers that tickle our ears and tempt us to want to hear more.

“He will come to the fore with signs and lying wonders. His words will tickle the world’s receptive ears.”

Amir Tsarfati

None of us who have read much of the Bible should be surprised. Paul warned us about this and lays out the path we are to take. Some of you may know this passage.

“You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.”

2 Timothy 4:3 (MSG)

Paul’s warning is not meant to create fear but to nudge us to not believe everything we see and hear, not think we can craft our own truth, as the world’s turmoil seems to grow by the hour. He points the way to the absolute truth that should also remind us that Christ said we were to be the light of the world and guess what? Light shines most clearly and brightly in the darkest of places. The words left to us in the Bible are a foundation to stand on when the whole world is shaking and to be assured that if we are his, He’s got us.

The first step is to be watchful of what and who we listen to and consider whether what we hear lines up with what Christ has said in the Bible. You may not be sure about that but a reading of the whole book of the Bible shows that what He said about the past has been true and even historians find evidence of that.

What we listen to and who we spend time with will influence who we become.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

It can be so easy. We don’t plan for it to happen. Often our heart’s desire is for the exact opposite, but still it happens. Sometimes unintentional neglect slips into our life unnoticed. It hides just out of the corner of our eye.

Unintentional neglect happens in most of our lives in a myriad of places.

It can happen in caring for our home when we lose track of how long it has been since we really looked at what is growing in our refrigerator. We mean to clean it out periodically, but invariably a soft squishy cucumber (my recent find) or an apple at the back of a drawer doesn’t grab our attention. We are doing so many things that only when we discover the evidence of our neglect do we discover it.

The same issue can crop up with handling our finances. We know the checkbook needs to be balanced and reviewed, but we really don’t want to take time to do it and it gets put off until we have a check bounce or the bank transfers something from a savings account to cover it without asking us first. We may have a budget, but we can so easily forget to keep tabs on how it is doing and where we need to adjust it each month.

We get excited about getting a new or better car and we hear from the salesman all the schedule of maintenance we need to follow to keep it running at its best for as long as possible. Unfortunately, we neglect the odometer as a clue to a need for an oil change and we fail to look at the tread on our tires to notice they needed to be replaced months ago.

And it doesn’t stop there, does it?

Unintentional neglect sneaks into our relational connections as well. Sometimes it sounds as if “out of sight, out of mind” is a truism. We move to a new neighborhood or a new state and those people we felt so close to and saw routinely slip to peripheral vision. We promised to stay in touch. We spent so many special times together, but days slip into weeks and weeks into months and if it continues the relationship fades.

Any move from a job or changing a church does the same thing. If I see you regularly, I am reminded of who you are to me and you stay in focus. It happens when a health issue prevents us from doing what we used to do with someone. Getting together becomes more complicated and we can unintentionally avoid it − dealing with the wheelchair or a walker doesn’t fit our skill set or comfort zone.

Unintentional neglect shows up in whether or not we remember birthdays or significant anniversaries in someone’s life. It’s not about a gift or an extravagant display of some sort, but whether we are remembered that seems to nourish the relationship. It can be a card, a text, a phone call, or a shared cup of coffee.

If you are someone who does pretty well with the things mentioned above, do you also notice and observe the small things, small changes in a person we care about? If so, do you comment or ask or follow-up with the person?  Yes, we intend to, but in our own busyness we don’t really see “into” the person or if we do we aren’t sure what to say or ask. How long can we/will we listen and simply be with the person?

Unintentional neglect also can nibble at our relationship with the Lord. We may start a new year with a plan to be disciplined and purposeful about growing and spending time with the Lord beyond going to church, but January may go decently and we fail to notice something interrupted our plan and soon days pass and we have spent no time with Him in any meaningful ways. Our lamps are not filled and the light within us dims.

Unintentional neglect reveals whether our words mean what we convey.  It also results in unintentional consequences.

This is why it is so crucial that we be all the more engaged and attentive to the truths that we have heard so that we do not drift off course.

Hebrews 2:1 (TPT)