AVOIDING* THE HALL OF MIRRORS
*OR ESCAPING
CHAPTER 1
There’s A Serpent in the Garden (1|2)
Pages 15-20 (end reading at: Blink and you’ll miss it - but it can change everything + read 2 Application paragraphs on Page 23)
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 (NIV) I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
Revelation 12:7-12 (NIV) Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
Have you ever thought of your relationship with God as “interpersonal”?
Have you ever witnessed someone’s character 'assassinated' by having the facts misconstrued? Was there restoration, or did relationships disintegrate?
Were you ever part of a relationship or situation where there was a level 1 to 2 offense, and it was met with a level 8 to 10 response? Have you ever responded that way and realized it afterward? What did you do about it?
Are there people in your life who began to “deconstruct their faith” only to have their faith completely collapse once the first one or two dominoes fell?