The pride of man hopes but to blame God for the evils of the world, and to praise himself for the good.

Perhaps it is true that, by some definitions, Satan is more religious than God. Many of the particularly proud sinners are deceived into thinking that Satan is anti-religious, that he likes seeing people do immoral things simply because he likes immoral things. Doubtful; Satan likes for people to do immoral things so that he can blame them for doing immoral things. The Father of Lies laughs not with his teammates, but at them.

Some words we use all the time are difficult to define when we actually have to think about them. We use the word __vil_ all the time but when asked to define what we are talking about, it can be quite difficult. Think about evil as you would think of counterfeit currency. A counterfeit is the corruption of something real. You can have real currency without the existence of any counterfeits. You cannot, however, have counterfeits without the real thing existing first. Evil is dependent on the existence of goodness but goodness is not dependent on evil. Goodness was there first. It is an absolute. Evil must always be thought of in relationship with absolute goodness.

I think timing is better left up to God to decide then religious leaders. I once met a man that brought his wife flowers in the hospital. They held hands, kissed and were as affectionate as any cute couple could be. They were both in their eighties. I asked them how long they were married. I expected them to tell me fifty years or longer. To my surprise, they said only five years. He then began to explain to me that he was married thirty years to someone that didn__ love him, and then he remarried a second time only to have his second wife die of cancer, two years later. I looked at my patient (his wife) sitting in the wheelchair next to him smiling. She added that she had been widowed two times. Both of her marriages lasted fifteen years. I was curious, so I asked them why they would even bother pursuing love again at their age. He looked at me with astonishment and said, __o you really think that you stop looking for a soulmate at our age? Do you honestly believe that God would stop caring about how much I needed it still, just because I am nearing the end of my life? No, he left the best for last. I have lived through hell, but if I only get five years of happiness with this woman then it was worth the years of struggle I have been through.

It may take years of struggle and confession, battle and failure. The places in my life where I struggle with deadly sins are matters of a decade or more of focus, repentance, shame, and grace. I__e traveled some long roads simply to lessen the depth of some of my failures and addictions _ just to get to a place where I can receive fresh grace and encouragement.

What we fail to realize is we often become like Pharisees in our ruthless attempts to identify Pharisees (and impostors). While indeed some people use the old laws of religious pride to tear down men of God, others use the new laws of anti-religious anger to tear down men of God.