There’s an Imposter Among Us
5 minute read
I grew up in a girl house.
We did stereotypical girl things like have the most epic dress up closet ever (thanks mom!), we played with Barbies, and we had tea parties for sure. That said, the majority of my memories revolve around playing sports and spending a lot of time outside on my bike.
Because of this, I speak Tomboy fluently, but I do not speak Boy-Boy.
You know what I mean: farts and poop and cutting each other down to show you love each other and of course… video games.
Ugh video games.
Growing up, we had a Sega. We played Mickey Mouse and Lion King once every blue moon, and later on we had an N64. I'm pretty sure my guy friends played Bond on it 97% of the time, and Allie beat me in Diddy Kong Racing the other 3% of the time.
With this as my only frame of reference, when our 6.5 year old talks about video games, I get all in my head.
Oh man. Did we give him that Nintendo Switch too young? Is he going to be a video game obsessed child? Is he getting outside enough? Why must he speak in a Mario voice at all times? How do we handle this, Crawford? Where’s Crawford? Ohhh cool, playing Mario with Field.
What. Is. Happening. I. Have. Lost. All. Control!!!!!!!!
I know technology decisions are personal choices within a household, and for a child whose family has a generation 1 iPad that barely works and is very rarely used, we felt it was fine to give him a Switch for his 6th bday after he asked for it for an entire year. (For the Boomers in the house, a Switch is sort of like a souped up Gameboy).
He’s got a Paw Patrol game and a Mario game and no internet access. He comes home from school with pictures he’s drawn of Mario (explained to me in Mario voice - Isa Mario, Mamamia! - help), and he talks in detail about building a Mario world out of blocks with friends at school.
Innocent enough, right?
Soooo a couple weeks ago, he came home with drawings alongside his Mario worlds with some new characters he told me were called “Amungus” from a video game he learned about at school. They look like squashed down teletubbies, and he mentioned something about an Imposter, and really that’s all he ever divulged because I’m pretty sure that’s all he knows. Alongside these Amungi (if you will), he has also drawn the character Huggy Wuggy. Huggy Wuggy is a tall, weird looking bear of some sort he told me is the bad guy…
K.
I went to dinner with his bestie’s mom and another friend with older children this week, and during this dinner I learned the word I thought was “Amungus” is actually “Among Us” and refers to a socially interactive video game based on deception with an Imposter they’re trying to find. There’s definitely violence and some horror aspects too.
I mean, YAY y’all!
If that’s not bad enough, our friend with the older children reported back after dinner that she learned from her 16 year old Huggy Wuggy is from a straight up horror video game.
Gulp.
I’ve spun out on this internally (duh, you know me), and while we’re not stripping the Switch from his paws, to say we are now on high-alert is accurate.
Well, I’m on high alert. Gup is probably on low to medium alert. But that’s pretty much how we roll on a daily basis anyway.
My point is this:
We have to be so careful where we let these little hands and eyes and minds go, but we also have to deal with the very real reality that we cannot protect them from everything, so we’ve got to pray over them and give them the right tools.
And the same goes for us too. God wants to protect us (and our children!) even more than we want to protect them, and because of His heart for our good, He gives us tools and warnings throughout scripture to stay out of harm’s way.
1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
Satan is real, and he is your personal enemy prowling around like a carnivorous, blood-thirsty lion seeking only to devour you. In other words, he is not cool or funny or a Halloween character chumming it up with Dracula.
He is out to destroy your life.
While I’m not here to decipher his plans, I do know a lot of times it’s a slow trickle. It is so nonchalant and seemingly innocent, before you know it you’re so knee-deep in deception and temptation you cannot claw your way out with anything but the power of Jesus.
I’m not saying put down the Mario because it’s Satan’s work, but I am saying we’ve got to be on guard even in the seemingly small stuff.
Check yourself before you text that male/female co-worker, dabble on a website you shouldn’t be on, add-to-cart when you darn well KNOW you cannot afford it, expose your mind to that book or TV show you know deep down won’t bode well for you, or before you pour “just 1” drink.
It’s almost always innocent at first, right?
In addition to his deception of the innocence of an action, Satan also loves to attack when we’re weak physically. This was revealed to me through my mentor when I was sick a few months ago. In response to my request for prayers for healing, she added she would be praying for protection from the enemy during sickness, and it hit me so hard – that lowdown loser for sure attacks when we’re physically weak.
When anyone in our house is sick, it often feels like the walls start crumbling in all realms. I’m not wishing this upon anyone, but if it does happen to you too, this passage just blows Satan’s schemes to prey on us in our weakness out of the water:
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
We dug into the context of this passage in this post, and it definitely applies here as well to spiritual warfare. Look at this victory we have: If Satan attacks when we are weak, God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
ZAM. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Thus far, we’ve covered that Satan is into the slow trickle, attacking when we’re physically weak, and for a final look at his schemes because he’s already gotten too much airtime - we address the fact that he is the Father of Lies. He cannot create anything on his own, so every single thing he’s doing is a replica or manipulation of what God has created.
This means he is the ULTIMATE Imposter Among Us, and this also means, by the grace of God, we’ve just tied this back to the original anecdote.
Doesn’t naming him the Imposter or the Father of Lies give him so much less significance? Satan is powerful, yes, he was one of the highest angels before he fell after all, but it feels to me like KNOWING for a fact someone in power is a big fat imposter takes the stinger out a little bit.
Not enough to not be on guard, but definitely enough to know without a doubt MY GOD - Creator of heaven and earth, Alpha and Omega, Refuge, Shield, Strong Tower, KING OF KINGS - is far, FAR more powerful than any scheme of mimicry done by Satan’s evil hand.
The deep thinker among us (can’t stop) might be asking, “If God is so powerful, why does he allow Satan to enact such schemes?”
The answer to this starts here:
We live in a fallen, broken world whose brokenness started with the temptation of the serpent (Satan) and man succumbing to it in the Garden of Eden. Because of this, there is sin everywhere, and we all commit it. You can’t escape it, I can’t either.
God loved us so much, He gave us the law in the Old Testament for how to rightly relate to Himself and to others.
We could not uphold the law.
He knew this, so He fulfilled the Old Testament prophets’ promise of the Messiah (Jesus!) to perfectly uphold said law and to then sacrifice His life and then conquer death and sin in order to mediate between us and a perfect God.
Jesus is coming back, and in the meantime, we run the race well on this earth only by and through the power of Christ in us. We will stumble, yes, but we will never stumble so far out of His reach if we but receive the forgiveness of our sins through what Jesus did on the cross.
And then we must address where Satan fits into the above narrative:
Everything I’m about to spout about Satan (aka Lucifer) is paraphrased from this article if you want to dig into this further:
Lucifer was an angel who was kind of a big deal in heaven. When Satan learned of God the Father’s plan for God the Son to walk the earth as Jesus and die for all of our sins as a living sacrifice, Lucifer was enraged. He couldn’t fathom being forced to reside beneath anyone of such lowly caliber - aka of any human - and with his rage and overall self-glorification-seeking ways, God the Father removed him from heaven with other fallen angels (aka demons) to be cast down to hell full of misery forever.
Satan did not lose his power as an angel - and really we need to do another post about angels, but here’s a good one for reference so you’re not stuck with me today until the cows come home - but in sum, angels are dang powerful. Satan still has that power, but it has no heavenly or eternal value for good, only for evil. He is the Prince of the World because this broken, sinful, upside down world is as good as his life will ever get.
How ironic that the reason Satan couldn’t fathom being in heaven any longer was because he was incapable of humbling himself to be ruled by a man (remember Jesus was 100% God and 100% man), yet here he is, the Father of Lies and the Prince of the World among a bunch of lowly humans.
Sucka.
With all of this in mind, I’ll finally answer the question:
God could send Jesus back at anytime to fulfill the prophecies of Revelation and crush Satan and his minions for good. He hasn’t done this yet because He’s not finished with his plan here on earth, and when this feels annoying or unclear, it comes back to this simple Truth: His ways and thoughts are higher than our own. Until we are made whole in Christ with His return, God allows Satan to tempt us because while Satan does have worldly power, God is the Creator of both heaven and earth, and He has the most power. Thus, he beats Satan at his own game by using Satan’s temptations to teach us and to sanctify us. And the really, really good news is, God always, ALWAYS gives a way out, and because of that, when we yield to said way out, it brings us closer to Him and thus brings glory back to God.
Our goal on this earth is not to conquer the world. Our goal is to glorify God, and one way we do this is by resisting temptation!
We won’t do this perfectly, but we can start viewing Satan as the evil, lowdown loser he is, and we can also be acutely aware of how cunning he is. Thus the necessity to live as The Body of Christ each running our own race toward the same goal - eternity with Jesus. We are on guard with tools against the schemes of the Imposter Among Us knowing - knowing! - we are on the winning team. Forever.
In the meantime, don’t you ever, ever think for a second Satan’s schemes have the power to snatch you from God YOUR Father’s hands. You are His.
Isaiah 43:1 “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” In temptation, remember whose you are!
Your tools as a Believer in Jesus:
God’s infallible Word
Scripture memory
Prayer
The Holy Spirit, your Helper, living inside your heart
Biblical community
Attending church
A clear path to confession of sins straight to God the Father through Jesus
Worship - both privately and corporately
Thanksgiving
The Armor of God found in Ephesians 6:10-18
Father God, you are victorious now and forevermore. Thank you that because of Jesus, we get to share in this victory with you! A victory over sin and shame and suffering through life eternal with you, in heaven. God we forget the value in this when we succumb to temptation. We forget we have the power living inside of us to overcome every bit of temptation that comes our way. Will you please remind us of this incredible gift you’ve given us? Will you please remind us we are yours forever, and because of this promise, we have no fear of the devil’s schemes. We are your children and heirs to your Kingdom because of Jesus! Let your Word be our weapon and our faith be our shield as we enter this week please Lord. And let your name be glorified! In Jesus name, amen.
Suggested Scripture for the Week:
S/M: 1 Corinthians 10:13
T: James 1:13-16
W: Romans 8:28
Th: John 3:16; John 14:6
F: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
S: Hebrews 2:18, Eph 6:10-18