Last week a tow truck driver in Ann Arbor, Michigan was called to tow away an apparently abandoned and illegally parked car. He was very much surprised to hear a voice shouting as a 19-year-old woman pounded on the trunk lid. The woman was okay but said that her 25-year-old boyfriend had tricked her into getting into the trunk of the car about four hours before the tow truck driver arrived. Her boyfriend had told her that he was picking up several friends and needed the room in the car. But when she wanted out, he would not let her out. Her boyfriend has been arrested for kidnapping.

Even though it sounded strange she wanted to believe the one that she loved. She was deceived. There are many more like her boyfriend and their spiritual father is the devil. Jesus says they are liars and murderers. They follow after the devil who comes "to steal, and to kill, and to destroy (John 10:10a)” and who "walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).”

We resist the followers of the devil in the same way that we resist the devil. In 1 Peter 5:9 we are told "resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” In James 4:7-8 we are told "therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” In Revelation 12:11 we are told "and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

If you have been deceived don’t give up! Cleanse your hands, purify your hearts (1 John 1:9), resist, be steadfast, submit to and draw near to God. God loves you and cares so very much about you. Jesus came that you might have life, and that you would have it more abundantly (John 10:10b).