The importance of agreement

With every word that comes out of our mouths, we are either "agreeing" with God or with Satan. The more one examines conversation, the more the idea of "neutral" speech shrinks to nothing.

Someone says, "How are you?" Watch it. It is not inconsequential to grumble, even lightheartedly about the weather. By expressing gratitude and acknowledging God's love and wisdom, or by words that tend to suggest otherwise, we open ourselves either to a release of God's power or Satan's. (Remember that Jesus couldn't do much in Nazareth because of the people's unbelief---Mark 6:5-6. It is a fearful thing that a man is able to inhibit God's ability to work!)

When Satan was first angling to wrest the dominion of the freshly made earth from Adam and Eve, he had no outright power or authority with which to simply come in and take it. That authority had just been given to Adam and Eve. All he could do---and he knew it---was to hang around the garden talking to them until he wore them down and they agreed.

It was by Eve's (then Adam's) agreement with Satan that Satan was finally able to take dominion. (When Satan much later told Jesus he would give him back that dominion if only Jesus would worship him, Jesus did not dispute that Satan had dominion; he merely refused to get it back by worshipping the devil.) It went like this: Satan pretty much said to Eve, "God is not as good as you think he is." And Eve pretty much said, "Yeah, I guess you're right." That sealed the deal. ("Where two or more agree. . . .") And thus there was a situation created in which authority was passed from Adam and Eve to Satan. The remainder of human history has been Jesus' heavenly intervention to wrest dominion back from Satan to Man, in the man Christ.

Likewise, whenever we---in even supposedly casual and innocuous banter over the backyard fence---"agree" with Satan that God is not so good ("Look at the lousy weather he sent today!"), we once again recreate the spiritual situation in which Satan can roll up his sleeves and work: "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven."

Some of us as Christians have come to the point where we want to be used by God to advance his kingdom. And we have wondered why it doesn't happen more, why there isn't more power. God is showing me that power and effectiveness begins at the most elemental level of mundane conversation. In our hundreds of little pedestrian "agreements" or "disagreements" with either God or the devil in the course of a day, we clear a path either for God's or Satan's advance. We do "binding and loosing" all day long. When you ask me how I am, and in response I infect you with my pessimism, I am putting a faith-less spin on life rather than a faith-full one. It is the difference between the talk of the 10 spies and the talk of Caleb, of whom God was pleased and said "Caleb has a different spirit" (Numbers 13-14).

This morning someone will ask us how we are or will comment on the weather or will inquire about our son, and he or she will listen to how we respond. In our response we will yield ourselves to either the Creator or the Destroyer.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.