Lies and Lockdown

In Revelation 12, Satan is described as the "accuser":
10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 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.

Taking to heart the words of 1st John 4, that "greater is He who is in you than He that is in the world", we realize that Satan is our accuser, weaving a tapestry of lies within our consciousness and seeking to lock us down in our spiritual lives - he does not want us to be productive for the glory of God.    But, we recognize that we have powerful tools - the blood of Jesus, which covers our sins, and the word of our testimony.   Our "testimony" is what God has done in our lives - as we think and speak according to our identity in Jesus Christ and take to heart what His word says about us, we can experience true victory!

In John 8, Jesus took those who challenged him to task and pointed out for us the one who is the author of lies:
42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.   The computer can be a mixed blessing - we can use it as a wonderful tool to get information, to do research, to keep in touch with people, and be more efficient in our jobs.   But, there is plenty of stuff that we can access on the computer that is detrimental to us.  Computers get bogged down and run slowly, our e-mail boxes become full of spam, and periodically, there is a virus or worm that can lock us down.
Such was the case at my house over the weekend.   A screen appeared saying that illegal material had been downloaded on one of the computers and that we needed to go to a local drug store, purchase a money pack for $20, and enter the code from the pack in the box on the screen.  If this was not done, there would possibly be an arrest and jail time.   This virus was masquerading as an FBI Anti-Piracy Warning, and the computer was locked down.  To solve it, we ran an anti-malware program twice and did a system restore.
Yes, it was a hoax, but it was inconvenient, and in the back of my mind, I did wonder, what if that were true?
And, it gives us some insight into the operation of the enemy in our lives.   This was a lie, an outright lie.   And, when the devil tries to feed lies about ourselves, we have to counter that false information with the truth of God's word, the spiritual "anti-malware", if you will.   If we believe the lie or if we don't take the corrective action, then our walk with Christ can remain on lockdown.    The enemy desires to thwart us in our spiritual progress - one way he holds us captive is by distorting our view of ourselves and our view of God - if we are not convinced of His love, or if we are not constantly seeking to walk in our new identity in Him, then we don't move ahead - we can essentially be locked out of the blessings of God.   We have to rely on the redeeming power of God's promise and the the Holy Spirit in order to experience the triumph that He can bring.