The Bible tells us that we are living at the end of time and that it is at this time in human history that the evil one would become more ferocious in his attacks upon humanity. But what kind of war does Satan wage?

Satan is the father of lies, and his war is a war of ideas designed to infect minds with thoughts that undermine trust and love and incite fear and selfishness.

One of the devil’s classic strategies is to commit some evil and then turn around and blame God for it, so that our benevolent God of love becomes viewed as a cruel tyrant, instead. Satan’s master deception has been to infect Christianity with the idea that God’s law functions like human law: a system of rules requiring judicial oversight and infliction of punishment, rather than the truth that God is Creator and His laws are the laws upon which reality is built to operate—the law of gravity, physics, health, and the moral laws.

Most Christians have embraced this deception, exchanging the truth of God’s design laws for imperial rules, teaching that God, in order to be just, must inflict pain, suffering, and death upon transgressors. Thus, God becomes the source of death, rather than the bringer of life. Satan’s character is now projected onto God.

As we look around the world today, we can see that Satan’s end-time strategy is being played out with great success. He works to incite fear (as soon as Adam sinned, he ran from God because he was afraid—fear and selfishness are part of the infection of sin). Fear of not being loved, fear of being discriminated against, fear of being cheated, fear of being left out, fear of being misrepresented, fear of getting one’s feelings hurt, fear of not being understood, fear of being called a racially derogatory name, or fear of being accused of calling someone a racially derogatory name, fear of society being ruined by liberal policies—on and on the fear goes.

And fear leads people to see threats—even when none exist, and then seek to protect themselves. Thus, people who claim to stand for liberty, free speech, tolerance, and an end to discrimination riot, throw stones, damage property, and threaten others who hold different viewpoints—and then turn around and accuse those who they attacked of being the ones who are violent.

People who are afraid seek to take control, to enforce their views, even with violent methods, yet fail to see that their use of threats, violence, and coercion will never result in peace, never result in unity, and never result in an end to the hostility, prejudice, hatred, or all the isms in the world.

Fear can never be vanquished by force, might, coercion, or punishment!

Fear can never be vanquished by teaching that God is coming back to punish the nations!

Fear can only be vanquished by love; “perfect love casts out all fear” (1John 4:18).

The great civil rights visionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” — Strength to Love, 1963

We will never fulfill our mission as Christians, to take the gospel of love to the world, until we reject the world’s methods of imperial law, imposed punishments, and coercive tactics, and stop living in fear. We must return to worship our Creator God whose laws of love are the protocols upon which reality operates.

We must teach the world the truth about God, that He is love and He simply wants to heal and save us from all our pain, heartache, and suffering.

Can’t we stop the fear-based, self-protecting actions and simply love one another? We can, but only if we have Jesus in our hearts. I encourage you to reject the lies about God, reject the methods of the world, reject the fear-based lifestyle, and follow Jesus back into the unity of love that emanates from God.