WILL SMITH, NEVER SLAPPED YOU!
Forgive me for jumping on the band wagon, by now you have heard hundreds or thousands of references to the Will Smith slap at the Oscars 2022. There is one point I hope to make here, now that I have your attention. Will Smith never slapped you, but the devil did. The oversold, overblown, story of the Oscars slap is an example of a flash in the pan that will not be worthy of historical remembrance.
No, we will not one day read a history book, to our grandchildren, that recounts the invasion of Ukraine by Russia followed by Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. No matter where you find yourself on the spectrum of opinion of the Will Smith slap…1. It was real and revealing of his emotional and marriage struggles, 2. Promotional advertising for Oscars 2023 “who will get slapped next”, 3. An unfortunate angry response for which he has apologized and should be forgiven. 4. Justified behavior for an inappropriate and rude joke aimed at the person you love. None of it is news that really has any lasting impact for your life.
The devil is pleased anytime we focus our energies on popular issues of the day and remove our focus from eternal life impacting issues of our day. Here are a few of those eternal life altering issues of our day that we need to recognize as constructed by the real enemy (satan) to destroy lives: The attack on gender (who God created you to be), The attack on childhood innocence, The attack on human value in dividing us by victimhood, this list could go on and on.
We are easily distracted, perhaps that is because to focus on these eternal life altering issues is too painful, time consuming and depressing. They seem impossible for us to fix and in fact they are impossible for us to fix. We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish and underestimate what God can accomplish.
Moments ago as I was writing this post, I was interrupted by a young man who is in crisis. His crisis had brought him to our church and ultimately to my office door. His situation is not impossible but it is difficult. He did not arrive there today, it was a journey that included ignoring the slaps of the enemy. Now he is beaten down and discouraged. He asked me a question that reveals how the enemy is attacking him right now: “I’m not a loser am I?” I assured Him that God never made a loser and that God loves Him so much He came to earth to die for His sins. We prayed together and he made Jesus Lord of His life. Pray with me for Corey today.
I wanted to share that story to remind you that while popular culture is entertained by celebrity histrionics the world around you is crumbling under the weight of sin. The devil is trying to slap you and your neighbors into submission! We can and should resist the devil but first we must surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We cannot defeat the enemy with our intellectual arguments, our money, our positions of power, our might or our will.
“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ”
We can defeat the enemy in Christ Alone! Call on God and invite Him into our broken world and see what He can do in you, your neighbors, friends, coworkers, family members. As I spoke with Corey I shared a few miracle stories from the people in our church family to help him see what God can do with broken people. Nothing is impossible with our God!