A Spiritual game of chess

There are many people in the world today who love God and demonstrate their love for him on a daily basis. By contrast, there are also many others who have dark hearts and have no relationship with the Lord at all.

In between, there are a multitude who have the heart and love of God but unbeknown to them are being deceived and robbed of their true identity. These inbetweeners usually see the world from a secular point of view, but in order to see the deceptions in life, we must understand that there's a great battle going in the celestial domain and we are like pawns in a universal game of chess.

God, who in a way limits his great power, participates in this chess game for our spiritual growth and his greater purpose and works mysteriously in ways we can only begin to fathom. He works hard for our edification in that his divine providence over our lives should be fulfilled and accomplished and his purpose and great plan should eventually come to pass.

In return, he encourages us to put our faith and trust in him. Our faith, that we should believe in him without seeing, and our trust, that we know in our hearts he's in control of the end game. Faith and trust in God give us a great hope in salvation and help us to understand and accept the trials and tribulations we have in life.

Satan, the accuser is the great adversary of God and participates at the opposite side of the chess board.

He tries to imitate God in every way but in the eyes of a Christian, he's a counterfeit and a poor poor copy. He also operates beyond human intellect with the emphasis on machinations and evil scheming and his goal is to walk us through life keeping us comfortably numb, using deception in an effort to destroy us and separate us from the gospel and the love of God.

The enemy wants you to do whatever you like in life without guilt or regret, so long as you rely completely on yourself and you believe you don't need God for anything. Even if we have a belief in God, but don't feel we necessarily need him because we are somewhat comfortable in life, then this is the point when we are being mostly deceived.

Let's look a bit closer at just a few examples of how the chess players want us to live out our lives, remembering that in this game there can be no stalemate.

The Church.

Gods church is the last line of defence against a fallen and corrupt world. The church is the spiritual authority on earth and acts as a firewall against evil. The Holy Spirit is the restrainer of this evil and ensures that Gods purpose and plan is carried out completely. When God removes his church from the earth in the end of days, the world will be overcome and the trials and tribulations will ensue as prophesied in the book of revelation.

The Devils purpose is to destroy the church. Although God allows this attempt to occur for a higher purpose, he won't allow this to continue indefinitely. The devil or satan, involves himself deeply in church affairs by promoting false religions and heresy which deceive us and keep us from the true word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and without this gospel there is no hope of salvation.

The Law and Authority

God has appointed a law unto us that we can live our lives within these boundaries and feel safe. The statutes of God transcend and are naturally mimicked in the laws of the land. Whatever government or social authority is in power, we as Christians are called to obey. Romans 13:1-2 tells us that God has put all authority in place, and if we disobey that authority then we disobey God and punishment will follow.

The enemy on the other hand has no respect for the law and appeals to our inner rebellious nature. He encourages us to break the law in every possible way by being contentious, disruptive and causing chaos. Satan looks to bring down the government and destroy all authority with marches, rioting, looting and any other possible means- leading some into a life of anger, strife and frustration.

Marriage/the family

God loves and ordained the marriage institution. Marriage encourages people into a proper loving relationship and builds a good foundation for children in our lives, that can lead them to holiness and righteousness.'family is the divinely created institution for the formation of restrained sinners, who by generations of morality, discipline, love, virtue and obedience become a benefit to society enjoying Gods gifts'. John McArthur of grace church

Satan despises this unity and uses all his power to destroy good families causing disruption, strife, and frustration leading them away from the love of God and leaving them spiritually bankrupt !

The enemy appeals to your desires and says: live how you like, and please yourself, the result can be a life of confusion and sexual immorality. There are of course many good Christians in the world who remain single and love God, and again, many people in marriages who live normal secular life styles.

Conscience.

God appeals to our conscience and our inner being and has given us everything we need to seek him out and find him. The human mind is an incredible mystery and God can be in the centre of our being if we allow him to be.

He has left a deep sence of himself inside all of us, and offers a providence and Lordship over our lives through scripture, teachers, pastors, priests and the church body. He has given us hope and salvation and says: if I am with you, who can be against you. Romans 8:31.

There are over 300 bible passages when God says to us: 'Fear not'...... If we trust in him through the Lord Jesus Christ we can escape the wretchedness of this world and bask in his heavenly glory and claim our true identity.

Satan also has access to our minds by way of influence only. We are already a fallen people living in a fallen world and born with a sinful nature whether we like it or not. Although most of us are somewhat decent, caring and loving, much of what we do drives us away from God and holy scripture, and the Devil takes great delight in giving us a helping hand.

God allows this evil influence in our lives as a test of our resolve, but many will stumble and fall, not because they are necessarily evil, but because they have allowed themselves to be deceived by living in 'subjective morality' with pre occupied lifestyles.

It's of the utmost importance we live our lives the way God intends us lest we stumble and fall. If life is indeed like a game of chess and we are pawns, we must recognise that we need to help each other and that we must rely heavily on the superior pieces around us who support us.

If we venture out too far on our own like an isolated pawn, we will most definitely be taken out by the enemy. Although each piece on the board has its place and different strengths, each piece has tremendous value to God.

The game of chess being played out on the celestial domain is much and beyond our limited understanding, so God charges us to put out complete trust and faith in him which allows him to move the pieces correctly at the right time in order to bring to fruition his ultimate plan for our lives in eternity and his heavenly glory.

God has given us guidelines and boundaries for our own protection and edification and if we follow his statutes and laws, we will see eternal life and the enemy will be checkmated and defeated.

In Jesus name, Amen.

In Jesus name amen.