Give the Devil his Due

I don't think most of us give Satan enough credit. As a matter of fact, it seems there is a pretty healthy number of us "christians" out there that don't even accept or believe the devil is real. They have adopted a heresy that he is synonymous and symbolic of all the evil in this world, and not a legitimate creature, with free will and nefarious intentions. Hell is in fact a doctrine and teaching of the Catholic Faith and always has been. Of course that doesn't and hasn't stopped many from trying to change and distort this doctrine.

I sang for many years in my parish choir and our director often jeered those who believed in Satan as a real creature. It seems many have taken on this heretical opinion and have very gravely convinced others of it as well, to their peril and danger. It seems one of the biggest victories of Satan is the success of this lie, which lulls many into a false sense of safety in their sin, accompanied by no remorse or regret for it as well.

Jesus spoke more about Hell in the Gospels than He does about Heaven. I wonder why he would spend so much time warning us of non - existent dangers. It sure doesn't seem truthful to lie about the existence of something this important, after all. This very teaching or lack of teaching boils down to the way we view salvation, and that is at the very heart of the Faith and how it demonstrates itself in our words, actions, deeds and lives.

Works, after all, are just demonstrations of Faith. If we possess Faith, good works can't be helped, they will pour from us as easily as vile and vicious actions pour out from those submerged in heresy and evil. For those truly invested and enraptured in Faith and the desire to know Truth, the recognition of such evil ways is pretty obvious and apparent, just as the direct correlation to the acts of depravity are shrouded and invisible to those deliberately and willfully defiant toward them. Truth is not as gray as so many would like to believe. It is gray to those looking for excuses to exercise and enable vileness and disobedience. It's a gray that will eventually lead to sorrow and grief and not just in this life, but in the life to come as well.

Life in the light is a choice, a difficult choice. It is a choice cloaked in sacrifice and self denial, the opposite of what Satan brings and represents and beguiles us into. Those of us denying the Truth of Satan's existence will be most vulnerable to the effects of that existence. A peril Jesus was insistent to warn us about.

So, we best give the Devil his due. Awareness and acknowledgement of the evils he reeks is both necessary and vital to living in Truth. So give him some credit, your eternal life may depend on it.