God vs. Satan; Who is Winning?

There is absolutely no doubt for me that God is in control and has already triumphed in the battle between good and evil. God is pure goodness, light and truth. He reigns over everything in this universe, which he made for and in his Goodness.

What I am not absolutely certain about is what team many of us are choosing to play on. I surmise that most of us believe that we are playing on the winning team, even though we are missing so many of the team practices, dinners and obligations.

It seems that many of us have decided to call our own plays. We ignore our coach and head home when he has clearly and obviously given us the “stop” sign. The problem is, when we do what we want and disregard our leadership, and don’t follow the rules of the team, we may very likely find ourselves being called ‘OUT” or “riding the bench”.

Most coaches don’t tolerate disobedience and players not following direction. Coaches call the plays and expect player compliance and participation for the good of everyone on that team. The coach wants the glory of the win for all the players. The prima donna filled with self-pride and importance forgets where his talents and gifts have come from, and the purposes they were designated to serve.

I hear so many of us proclaiming that we just need to be a “good person” and follow our own consciences to win the reward of Heaven. They determine their own playbook for navigating through this game of life. They have determined that they do not need a coach and they act accordingly. Most probably this enables them to justify acting and living to obtain what they want, their own pleasures and glory. They pursue what they believe to be important in this world. The problem with this mode of living is that they are playing a team sport. Our lives are not individual competitions but a team endeavor to be played in cooperation with one another. We are all in this battle together. When our teammates ignore the playbook, they don’t just hurt themselves and put themselves in jeopardy of losing, they injure the entire team. It may seem like they are heading toward a win, but the game ‘’isn’t over, ‘til it’s over”. We don’t know what “stars” the Devil may still be saving on the bench. Satan is the master of trick plays.

Our coach knows all the Devil’s dirty plays and does his best to coach us around them, if we follow His direction. Some of us are ignoring this though, we think we know the game better and we want the glory of making that amazing play for ourselves.

“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.” Vince Lombardi

God has given us a very specific playbook. He also calls the plays for us continuously; His head is always “in the game”. He has strategically placed His assistant coaches to guide us as well, to instruct us and remind us to play within the boundaries.

If we follow our Head Coach in this game of life, death and eternity, we will find ourselves on the Heavenly winning team. If not, we may lose something much more glorious than what comes from earthly stardom, gluttony, pride, and victory.