I want you to see something today that the enemy does not want you to see. It is one of the most subtle, dangerous realities of our time, and it has been in motion since the garden of Eden. Satan has no creative power. He cannot originate. He cannot produce anything truly new. He can only twist what God has already established. He can only mimic, counterfeit, shadow, and distort. That is why his work is so deceptive, it looks almost right. Almost true. Almost good. But “almost” in the things of God is still deadly poison. Just as a drop of cyanide in a glass of water makes the whole cup fatal, a small twist in the truth makes the entire message dangerous to the soul.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the matter of love. For God Himself is love. The essence of His being is holy love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and the Spirit proceeds in perfect unity of that love. And this love is not abstract, it has been poured out into our lives through Christ. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The gospel begins with love. It begins with God’s initiative, His pursuit, His action to redeem us.

Satan knows this. And because God’s kingdom is built upon love, Satan’s counterfeit kingdom must also speak the language of love. He cannot deny love outright, for the human heart was created to crave it. We are wired for it. To try to erase love would be to expose himself too quickly. So he does not erase it, he replaces it. He redefines it. He makes a shadow version, one that feels good to the flesh but rots the soul.

Think of how the world speaks of love today. Love has been reduced to sentimentality, to tolerance of all things, to blind acceptance without correction, to affirming every desire no matter how destructive. The world says, “Love is letting people be who they are without judgment.” But what if who they are is killing them? What if their choices are leading them to destruction? Is it loving to remain silent while they walk off the edge of a cliff? Or is it loving to cry out, even if your cry offends them, even if they call you hateful, because you care about their eternal destiny more than their temporary comfort?

That is the difference between the love of God and the counterfeit of Satan. God’s love reaches into the pit and lifts us out. Satan’s “love” tucks us in on a burning porch and whispers that the glow is just candlelight. God’s love says, “You are precious to Me, so I will not leave you broken.” Satan’s love says, “You are fine as you are, stay broken.” And millions are deceived because it sounds compassionate. It feels affirming. It offers comfort without change. But it is counterfeit comfort, the kind that numbs you until it is too late.

Look around at the culture, and you will see this pattern everywhere. The world’s definition of self-love tells you to “embrace yourself exactly as you are and never change.” But God’s love tells you, “Yes, I accept you where you are, but because I love you, I will transform you into something greater.” The world’s definition of empowerment tells you to find strength in yourself, to follow your own truth, to worship your desires as sacred. But God’s word says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). True empowerment is not self-exaltation, it is humility, because only in surrender to God do we find real strength.

When people hear, “God accepts you as you are,” they sometimes get confused. They think it means God approves of every part of their life just the way it is, that His love means He has no desire for them to change. But that’s not the gospel, that’s the counterfeit.

Yes, God accepts you as you are. He welcomes you into His arms no matter how broken, how sinful, how stained. You don’t have to clean yourself up before you come to Him. That’s grace. But His acceptance is not approval of your sin; it is an invitation out of it.

Think of it this way: if a doctor accepts you into the hospital, it doesn’t mean he’s content to leave you sick. His acceptance is the doorway to your healing. He meets you in your condition, but he loves you too much to let you stay there. God’s love is like that. He accepts us where we are, but His very acceptance carries us forward into transformation. To stay unchanged would be to miss the entire point of His embrace. Grace is not permission to remain in sin, it is power to rise from it.

This is why Paul says in Romans 6:1–2, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” God’s acceptance is never an excuse to stay as we are; it is the beginning of becoming who we were always meant to be in Christ.

This is where the veil begins to lift, if you are willing to let it. Because once you recognize the counterfeit in love, you start to see it in everything. The enemy copies not only love, but also freedom. The world cries out for freedom. “Be free to do what you want! Be free to define your truth! Be free from restraint, free from limits!” And it sounds good. It feels liberating. But Jesus says in John 8:34, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” The world’s freedom is not freedom at all, it is chains disguised as choice. True freedom is not the absence of restraint, but the presence of righteousness. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Do you see it? Satan cannot erase freedom, so he offers a counterfeit.

He does the same with truth. God’s word is truth (John 17:17). But the world says, “Truth is relative. Truth is whatever you want it to be.” This is not new, Satan has been doing this since Eden. To Eve he whispered, “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1). The twisting of truth is his oldest trick. And the modern age has only dressed it up with fancy words. “Your truth. My truth. Live your truth.” No, there is only one Truth, and His name is Jesus Christ. 

There is something about that first question: “Did God really say…?”, that cracks the whole universe open. It is small, sly, insinuating, almost innocent at first glance, and yet it is a razor that cuts the cord between truth and desire. The serpent’s question to Eve was not merely curiosity; it was an invitation to translate reality through appetite, to recast God’s words as negotiable, to open a door through which everything sacred could be reinterpreted into something palatable to the flesh. Humans are quick learners at that craft. Give us ambiguity and we will make loopholes. Give us complexity and we will contort it until it supports what we want. We do it with laws, with relationships, with morality, with theology, with the very language of love. That impulse is not neutral; it is the terrain where the enemy thrives.

The reason that question is so devastating is not only because it introduces doubt about God’s command, it is because it invites you to start speaking a different language. If God’s words are absolute truth, then to question them is to begin conversing in the tongue of the liar. Once you make that shift, little at first, then larger, you begin to speak Satan’s language rather than God’s. And language matters. Language shapes vision. Language determines the categories in your heart. Tell me how you talk about yourself, and I will tell you how you will live. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” Use the world’s phrases: “do what makes you happy,” “define your own truth,” “love yourself unconditionally”, and you will find yourself walking a path that sounds kind and progressive, but ends in ruin.

Let’s talk about God saying “Depart from me, I never knew you.” That biting sentence from Matthew 7:23 is one of the most terrifying in Scripture precisely because of what it reveals about knowing. God knows, He always has. Psalm 139 sings it: He searched and knew every path of the soul; not a word on your tongue escapes Him; your frame was knit in secret. Hebrews 4:13 declares that nothing is hidden from His sight. So when God says, “I never knew you,” He is not claiming ignorance in an epistemic sense. He is describing relational reality. The word “know” in Scripture is often covenantal. To be “known” by God is to be recognized as one of His own, to have the intimate, mutual relationship of a sheep with its shepherd, of a child with a Father. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep, and my sheep know me” (John 10:14). To be “known” by God is to be embraced in the fellowship of Christ, to be joined to Him by repentance and faith, to live in the language of the kingdom.

So when He tells a person that He never knew them, however outwardly pious or miraculous their activity might have appeared, He is exposing a tragic mismatch: outward acts without inward love, profession without possession, service without surrender. Men and women can do many things in His name (prophecy, casting out demons, impressive religious activity) yet be strangers to His heart. That was the serpent’s original victory: to entice people to mimic godliness, to do the forms while missing the substance, to chatter in the vocabulary of faith while speaking in the grammar of the flesh.

We should not know Satan. To “know” him would be to become fluent in his idiom: self-worship, self-definition, rebellion cloaked as liberation. To “know” him is to answer his question with agreement, to ask whether God really said, and then to bend truth around desire. But “not knowing” Satan means not entertaining his questions, not letting his suggestions reframe the conversation. It means our hearts are so saturated with the language of God that the serpent’s voice sounds foreign, his arguments absurd, his promises shallow.

There is a linguistic test you can apply in your life: whose vocabulary dominates your thinking? When you face a moral decision, what frames your inner monologue? Scripture, prayer, and the pursuit of holiness; or slogans, feelings, and cultural consensus? When you speak about identity, do you reach first for “in Christ” language (beloved, redeemed, new creation) or do you reach first for “me first” language (authentic, my truth, self-made)? When you speak about love, is your definition tethered to the cross (self-giving, sacrificial, purifying) or to the crowd (affirming at all costs, comfortable, non-confrontational)?

Scripture gives us a clear measure of this. Paul contrasts the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:19–23). The two lists are languages from different authors. The works of the flesh read like the enemy’s manifesto: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, envy, drunkenness. The fruit of the Spirit reads like Christ’s accent: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Learn to identify which words color your decisions, and you will know which tutor you have been listening to. If your predominant speech is that of the flesh: “I deserve this,” “I won’t be shamed,” “Do what you feel”, then you are fluent in the enemy’s dialect. If your default is the Spirit’s, then Satan’s whispers will feel like static, not counsel.

Consider also the courtroom image: when we stand before God, nothing will be hidden, not our words, motives, or the languages we practiced. The terrifying reality of “I never knew you” is not some capricious rejection; it is the mirror of a life that practiced another grammar. Jesus warned against mere verbal allegiance, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21–23). That passage is not a legalistic coldness; it is a mercy. God knows the heart. He calls us into a language of repentance because He wants us to be His, not merely to perform His rites. He wants genuine communion, not a script read by actors.

So what do we do with this? First, we repudiate the serpent’s questions when they arise. When temptation tries to reframe God’s word into doubt: “Did God really say…?”, answer as Eve should have: “He did, and because He did, I will obey.” Speak the language of Scripture aloud; let your tongue be trained to confess the truth. Let Psalm 119 be a tutor to your speech: “I will meditate on Your precepts and fix my eyes on Your ways.” Make a habit of replacing slippery cultural phrases with biblical speech. When culture says “follow your heart,” correct it with Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” When the world says “define your truth,” reply with John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

Second, know that being unknown by God is not a game of ambition but a call to humility. If you discover your life is more aligned with appearances than with worship, be honest. Confession is not defeat; it is the dialect of return. The prodigal’s language changed when hunger and repentance taught him to speak sonship again. The publican in Luke 18 found favor because he spoke simply, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” God’s ears are turned toward the voice that confesses sincerely, not toward those who parade holiness externally.

Third, cultivate the speech of the Spirit. Faithful habits form vocabulary. Read Scripture, pray, fast, gather where the Word is faithfully preached, and practice obedience in small things. Notice how little acts of sacrificial love rephrase your heart: giving when it hurts, forgiving when you are justified in anger, serving when you would rather be served, these are grammar lessons in living love. The more you practice them, the less persuasive the serpent’s questions become.

Finally, remember the healing truth: God does know us. He knows us enough to call us beloved, to call us by name, to pursue us with patient grace. Even when we have flirted with the enemy’s language, He is the great Redeemer who translates our broken syntax into sanctified speech. But He insists on truth. He will not exchange appearance for reality. He will not accept worship that is not birthed from the heart. He calls us, therefore, to be a people who speak His language, who live by His grammar, who refuse the counterfeit’s vocabulary even when it sounds tender and persuasive.

So refuse the serpent’s whisper. When the question comes: “Did God really say…?”, answer with your whole life: “Yes. He did. And because He did, I will live differently.” Speak only the language that leads to life. Refuse to be fluent in the devil’s dialect. Choose the speech of the cross, the vocabulary of repentance, the dialect of the Spirit. And when you stand before the Judge, you will not hear the cry of rejection but the satisfied voice of the Shepherd saying, “Welcome home, my child; I know you, and you have been mine.”

Let me bring this back to love, because this is where the deception is most dangerous. We as Christians are commanded to love. Jesus said the world would know us by our love. But not the world’s definition of love, God’s definition. Which means our love must be rooted in truth, must be active, must be transformative. Sometimes that love will look like feeding the hungry. Sometimes it will look like listening patiently. Sometimes it will look like forgiving an offense. And sometimes it will look like gently but firmly telling someone, “The path you are on leads to death. Come with me into life.” That may not feel like love in the moment. But it is love in the truest sense.

And yet, how tempting it is to want the world’s version instead. The world’s love is easy. It costs nothing. It requires no sacrifice, no confrontation, no humility. You can keep your sin, keep your comfort, keep your idols, and still call it love. But God’s love costs everything. It cost Christ His blood. It will cost us our pride. It will cost us our comfort. But it leads to eternal life.

Ask yourself honestly: have you misunderstood love? Have you settled for the counterfeit because it is easier? Have you embraced the world’s definition of tolerance, of acceptance, of self-love, of freedom, without realizing that these are shadows and illusions designed to keep you passive, weak, and untransformed?

This is the veil that must be lifted. The enemy’s methods are subtle. He will not drag you into darkness with force, he will lull you there with soothing lies. He will tell you, “God wants you happy, so do what you want.” He will tell you, “God loves you, so don’t worry about changing.” He will tell you, “God made you this way, so stay this way.” And if you accept those whispers, you will not even notice that chains are tightening around your soul.

But the Spirit of God says otherwise. The Spirit says, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). The Spirit says, “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (Ephesians 4:22-23). The Spirit says, “Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:19). That is love. Love that corrects, disciplines, transforms, redeems.

And here is the final thing I want you to hear: love without truth is not love, and truth without love is not truth. The enemy always separates the two. He gives you “love” that lies, or “truth” that condemns. But Jesus came full of grace and truth. He came to embrace us but also to change us. He came not to flatter us but to free us.

So reject the counterfeit. Let us refuse the easy version of love that the world preaches. Let us love as Christ loved: sacrificially, truthfully, with a love that lifts people out of sin, not leaves them in it. Let us look at our own hearts and ask, “Am I living under the true love of God, or have I been lulled by the counterfeit?” If you lift the veil, you will see that much of what passes for love in this world is not love at all. It is enabling. It is deception. It is comfort on the way to destruction. But real love, the love of God, is a fire. It purifies. It burns away the old self. It reshapes us into the image of Christ. And though it costs us everything, it gives us everything in return. Eternal life. Joy unspeakable. Peace that passes understanding. This is the love the world needs. This is the love that saves. This is the love that Satan cannot counterfeit, no matter how hard he tries.

Let’s talk about another example of a counterfeit: worship. Humanity was created to worship God. But Satan directs worship toward idols: money, sex, power, celebrities, self-image, even self itself. He doesn’t care what you worship as long as it is not the Living God. He copies the act of worship but empties it of its true object. And the world bows daily at altars it does not even recognize as altars.

Worship is not limited to the external act of singing hymns, lifting hands, clapping, or bowing down. Those are expressions of worship, but they are not the essence of worship itself. True worship, as Jesus told the Samaritan woman, is in “spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24). It is about the orientation of the heart. It is about what we prize most, what we run to for comfort, what we sacrifice for, what we cannot live without. That is why worship can be either loud or quiet, visible or hidden, obvious or subtle.

Because of that, the enemy counterfeits both forms. He counterfeits the loud worship: offering concerts of celebrity adoration, stadiums of sports ecstasy, political rallies that feel like revivals. He knows how to mimic the communal energy of people gathering around something greater than themselves, singing in unison, lifting their voices, declaring loyalty. He doesn’t mind if the object is a pop star, a team, a nation, or an ideology. As long as it is not the Living God, he is satisfied. He has replicated the form of worship while stripping away its rightful object.

You can see it in political movements that take on religious fervor. Crowds gather, chants rise, banners wave, leaders are exalted, opponents are demonized. It mirrors worship. And Satan doesn’t care whether it is right wing or left wing, whether the loyalty is to a political party, a social cause, or even to the nation itself. Patriotism can become idolatry when it exalts country above Christ. Political ideology becomes worship when it consumes more passion, more hope, more loyalty than the kingdom of God.

Look at pride parades across the world. What are they, if not worship gatherings? Masses filling the streets, music blaring, rainbow flags lifted like banners, chants of affirmation echoing like hymns, bodies adorned as living icons of a new creed. It is worship, loud, celebratory, communal. But it is worship of self, of desire, of identity apart from God. And here is the lie: it is framed as “love.” The world defends this ideology by saying, “This is about love, this is about being who you are, this is about authenticity and acceptance.” But in redefining love as self-indulgence, they have hollowed it out. God’s love says, “I made you, and in Me you are made new.” The counterfeit says, “Stay as you are, chase what you feel, resist transformation.” One leads to life. The other leads to destruction while waving banners of celebration.

And this isn’t just a Western phenomenon. In other nations, you see political leaders treated like messiahs, their images plastered on walls, their speeches received like scripture, their rule defended with near-religious zeal. You see nationalist parades where the nation itself becomes an idol, worshiped above the God who made all nations. You see cultural rituals, whether around wealth, ancestry, or ideology, become substitutes for devotion to the Creator. The form of worship is the same: communal gathering, collective passion, symbols lifted high, voices unified. But the object is wrong. And misplaced worship always produces bondage, no matter how loudly it is celebrated.

But here’s the more dangerous part: Satan also counterfeits subconscious worship. Because worship at its core is about priority, allegiance, and desire, it is possible to worship without even realizing it. You do not need a song or a ritual to worship. You only need a heart inclined toward something above God. That is what idolatry really is. Ezekiel 14:3 describes people who have “set up idols in their hearts.” 

Notice they were not bowing before statues. They were carrying idols internally. Their affections, their desires, their quiet loyalties were bent toward something other than God.

That is where the subtlety lies. A Christian can sing loudly on Sunday, raise their hands high, declare the greatness of God and still, by Monday, give their true worship to comfort, entertainment, career, reputation, or self. That’s not because they consciously reject God, but because they unconsciously prioritize something else above Him. And here is where Satan thrives. He does not need you to consciously kneel before Baal. He only needs you to repeatedly, quietly, consistently put something before God without noticing it.

Think of how subtle this can be:

•A man wakes up and checks his phone first before praying, because the approval of people has become more pressing than communion with God. That’s worship.

•A woman obsesses over her body image, her beauty, her fashion, not simply caring for herself, but attaching her worth to it. That’s worship.

•A student sacrifices every ounce of energy, not for diligence unto the Lord, but for grades that will secure pride and identity. That’s worship.

•A parent places their child’s achievements above obedience to God, molding their life around schedules, sports, or opportunities that keep Christ at the margins. That’s worship.

None of these people are bowing before a statue. None of them would say, “I worship this thing.” But in practice, their affection, their attention, their devotion reveal what their heart bows to.

This is why the Bible warns us not just against idols in the external sense, but against idolatry in the heart. Colossians 3:5 says: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Notice covetousness, craving something more than God, is labeled idolatry. That’s inward worship misdirected.

Satan counterfeits not only loud worship, but the subconscious worship of Christians too. He is content if you sing on Sunday, as long as your life on Monday quietly exalts something else. He is happy if you raise your hands in church, as long as the rest of the week your heart is raised toward success, self-image, or entertainment. He does not demand that you stop worshiping God publicly. He only works to ensure you split your worship secretly.

But God will not share His glory. He has no interest in partial worship. Jesus said plainly: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). You cannot bow partly to God and partly to idols. And yet many believers live this way, not intentionally, but because they do not realize how subtle worship really is.

That’s why Paul exhorts us in Romans 12:1: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” This is not about one moment of singing, but a continual lifestyle of surrender. Worship is not simply when you lift your voice, it is when you lift your life onto the altar. Worship is when God is first not only in words, but in time, in money, in decisions, in values, in affections.

Take the sacrificial lamb. It is not just an Old Testament practice, it is a thread of symbolism God wove from the very beginning, pointing to Christ and to us. And when Paul calls us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), he is tying us directly back into that same imagery.

From the earliest days, sacrifice was a symbol of worship. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock to God (Genesis 4:4). Later, under the Law, Israel was commanded to bring spotless lambs, bulls, and goats as offerings. These sacrifices were costly, they represented the best, the pure, the first. Blood was shed because sin costs life. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. 

But all of this was never about animals. It was always pointing forward. Every lamb laid on the altar was a shadow of the true Lamb of God. That’s why John the Baptist declared of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ’s death on the cross was the fulfillment, the once and for all sacrifice. No more lambs needed, because the spotless, perfect Lamb was slain.

Now, here’s where it gets even deeper: when Paul says in Romans 12:1, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship,” he is drawing from that sacrificial imagery. He’s saying: just as Israel laid lambs on the altar, now you lay yourself on the altar. But instead of dying physically, you live as a sacrifice, your whole life surrendered, your whole self given over to God’s glory.

And this symbolism stretches in three powerful directions:

1. The Lamb as Jesus – He is the true sacrifice. His blood atones, His death fulfills every shadow. He is the innocent who dies for the guilty, the firstborn who secures redemption.
2. The Lamb as Us – We now embody the sacrifice. Our worship is not just a song but a surrendered life. Every decision, every act of obedience, every renunciation of sin is like laying ourselves on the altar. This is what Paul means. Worship is not a moment, it is a continual offering.
3. The Lamb as Symbol of Transformation – In the Old Testament, the lamb had to be spotless, without blemish. That foreshadowed Christ’s perfection. But it also calls us to holiness. We don’t bring God our leftovers, our half-hearted devotion, our scraps. We bring Him our best. Our whole selves. Because He is worthy.

The sacrificial lamb is a direct symbol of both Christ’s sacrifice and our own surrendered lives. The old lambs pointed to His cross, and His cross now calls us to our altar. The blood on Israel’s altars symbolized atonement, and our “living sacrifice” now symbolizes devotion. When you worship God with your life, your time, money, decisions, values, and affections, you are laying yourself on that altar as a living sacrifice, echoing the lambs of old, fulfilled in Christ, embodied in you. It’s not partial worship. It’s not occasional. It’s continual surrender. That’s why Paul used that language.

This is also why the enemy works so hard to muddy the waters. If he can convince you that worship is only singing, then you will compartmentalize it. You will worship on Sunday and idolize on Monday without noticing the contradiction. But when the Spirit opens your eyes to see that worship is about every priority of your life, the veil lifts, and suddenly you realize that every moment, every choice, every affection is an act of worship. The only question is: to whom?

Here lies the sharp dividing line: everyone worships. The atheist worships. The agnostic worships. The celebrity-obsessed worship. The religious person worships. The Christian worships. The only difference is the object. We either worship the Creator or the creation. Romans 1:25 describes humanity’s fall like this: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” That is Satan’s entire scheme summarized: exchange. He cannot erase the impulse to worship, so he redirects it from the Creator to the creature. And most of the world walks along gladly, unaware they are bowing daily at altars invisible to their own eyes.

Let me emphasize further. At the very heart of humanity is this: we are made in the image of God. That is a truth that cannot be ignored or denied after you learn the truth. That means our very identity, our sense of self, our longings, our dignity, our purpose, flows from Him. To be human is to carry His imprint. Every deep desire inside us is not random, not an evolutionary accident, but something God Himself wove into our design. The Bible provides proof: 

(Genesis 1:26–27) “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This is the starting point. Humanity’s identity is not self-defined but God-imprinted. Every man and woman carries His image.

(Genesis 5:1–2) “When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them ‘Mankind’ when they were created.”
Even after the fall, Scripture reiterates: the image remains foundational to who we are.

(Genesis 9:6) “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Human life is sacred not because of human achievement, but because of divine imprint.

(Psalm 8:4–5) “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” A poetic reflection on the dignity God built into humanity.

(1 Corinthians 11:7) “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God.” Paul still affirms the image-bearing nature of humanity in the New Testament.

(Colossians 3:9–10) “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” In Christ, the image is not just a baseline—it is actively being restored to its fullness.

(James 3:9) “With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” Even fallen, sinful humanity still bears God’s likeness, which is why every person deserves dignity and respect.

That means every core desire within us, every longing, every hunger, every ache for meaning, intimacy, beauty, purpose, was placed there by God Himself. We were designed to crave Him, to reflect Him, to live in relationship with Him. That’s why worship is not optional for human beings. It is woven into our very nature. We will worship something, because we were created to.

We long to be loved, because we were created by the God who is love.
We long to be known, because we were made to walk in relationship with our Creator.
We long for meaning, because we were designed to reflect His glory in the world.
We long for belonging, because we were meant to be His children and part of His family.
We long for beauty, because we were made to behold His majesty and echo it in creation.

Everywhere in the world, across all cultures, people long for connection. Loneliness crushes the human soul more than almost anything else. Why? Because God Himself exists in eternal relationship: Father, Son, Spirit, and we bear His image. “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Even in perfection, Adam needed relationship because he was made in the image of a relational God.

Even those who deny God still cry out against injustice. People instinctively know murder, theft, and betrayal are wrong. That moral compass is not random, it reflects the God of righteousness who stamped His law on our hearts. “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness” (Romans 2:15).

Why do sunsets move us? Why does music stir our souls? Why do we create art, design cities, or marvel at nature? Because we were made by the God of glory and creativity, and His beauty resonates in us. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Creation reflects His glory, and we, as His image-bearers, are drawn to it.

Every person asks, “Why am I here?” That existential ache proves we were made for more than survival. We were created for dominion, stewardship, and glory-reflection. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

Look at parents who sacrifice everything for their children, strangers who risk their lives for others, or communities that rally to protect the weak. That self-giving impulse reflects the God who is love (1 John 4:8). “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Every culture has a concept of life after death. We bury the dead with rituals, we fear the unknown, we long for something beyond this life. That is the image of the eternal God stamped on temporal creatures. “He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

And here is the terrifying brilliance of Satan’s strategy: he cannot erase who we are. He has no power to create anything new. He cannot design an alternate human nature. All he can do is take what God originally designed and twist it. He redirects the desires God gave us, pointing them toward false objects.

• The God-given desire for love gets twisted into lust or shallow relationships.
• The God-given desire for meaning gets twisted into ambition, pride, or achievement-based identity.
• The God-given desire for belonging gets twisted into conformity with the world, peer approval, or tribalism.
• The God-given desire for beauty gets twisted into vanity, self-obsession, or the endless chase for external validation.
• The God-given desire for security gets twisted into control, fear, and clinging to idols that cannot protect us.

Do you see the pattern? The desires themselves are not evil. The problem is in how Satan distorts our pursuit of them. He whispers lies like: “You are your desires. You are your sexuality. You are your success. You are your reputation. You are your failures. You are what people think of you. You are what you identify yourself as.” He hijacks God-given identity and replaces it with labels, categories, and definitions that enslave us.

And here’s the sobering part: most of the world walks along gladly in this state, unaware. Why? Because the counterfeit often feels close enough to the real thing that it satisfies, at least for a moment. Lust feels like intimacy. Pride feels like purpose. Achievement feels like meaning. Control feels like security. Politics or popularity feel like belonging. Nationalism feels like worship. Vanity feels like beauty. Pride parades feel like celebration of love. For a moment, the heart feels filled. But it is an illusion, it never lasts. It cannot last, because the cisterns are broken (Jeremiah 2:13). Only God’s living water satisfies.

This is why Paul warns in Romans 1:25: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” That’s the exchange Satan orchestrates. He cannot invent new desires, so he teaches us to worship creation instead of Creator, to chase shadows instead of substance, to confuse hunger for Him with hunger for things.

At the heart of humanity, then, lies this battle: will the desires God placed in us drive us back to Him, or will they be hijacked and misdirected toward idols? Satan doesn’t need to erase your longing for God. He just needs to distract it, misalign it, distort it until you feed the craving in the wrong place.

Think of it like this: desire is the compass needle inside of you. It always points somewhere. God made it to point to Him. But Satan shakes the compass, places magnets near it, interferes with the pull. The needle still moves, it still seeks north, but now it points at illusions. You think you’re following true desire, but you’re being pulled into a mirage.

This is why Jesus doesn’t just offer forgiveness, He offers reorientation. He doesn’t erase desire, He redeems it. He doesn’t kill the compass, He resets it. He doesn’t silence hunger, He satisfies it. That’s the difference. Satan wants you chasing endlessly. Christ wants you resting fully.

And this is why worship is the central issue of life. Not worship as in singing songs, but worship as in what you love most, what you seek most, what you cling to most. Because whatever has your heart will shape your destiny. If your desires are continually twisted, you will live enslaved. If your desires are continually re-centered in Christ, you will live free.

But the Spirit of God is calling us to wake up. To recognize worship in its subtle forms. To test our hearts: what do we run to first? What do we sacrifice most for? What do we fear losing above all? What do we delight in most deeply? That, my friend, is your god.

So let us not be deceived. Worship is not confined to Sunday. It is not confined to singing. It is not confined to obvious acts of reverence. Worship is your life. And the enemy will counterfeit both the loud and the quiet forms. But God calls us to singular worship: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). No competitors. No rivals. No subtle idols tolerated. The enemy wants split devotion. God demands full surrender. And the truth is, only one of those roads leads to life.

Now, many of you might raise the question: “How am I supposed to live my life now?” You might feel like running away into solitude is the only way to 100% give your life to Christ. The problem isn’t that we work, or care for ourselves, or study, or pursue goals, those things in themselves are not sinful. The problem is where we place them in relation to God. Idolatry is not simply about having something in our lives; it’s about giving it the devotion that belongs only to God. The way we avoid worshiping these things is by centering Christ in all of them.

Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” That’s stunning in its simplicity. Eating and drinking are the most ordinary, daily, unspiritual-seeming acts, and yet Paul says they can be acts of worship if they are done with God in view. That means the division we often create, “this part of my life is spiritual, this part is secular”, is a lie. Every part of life is spiritual because every part of life is lived before God.

The question, then, is not “How do I stop caring about work, appearance, school, responsibilities?” but rather, “How do I live in these areas with Christ at the center instead of myself?”

Think of work. Work can become an idol if it defines your worth, if success or failure dictates your peace. But work can become worship if you view your job as a platform to serve others, to provide for your family, to reflect integrity, to glorify God with diligence. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23). Suddenly, your labor is not for a paycheck, not for your boss’s approval, not for self-image, it is for Christ. That shift transforms ordinary work into worship.

Now let’s be honest, it doesn’t always feel that way. Many people hate their jobs. They dread Monday morning, feel unfulfilled in their work, or feel trapped in a position that doesn’t seem to leave much room for faith. Some workplaces even forbid religious talk, making it seem impossible to center Christ in what you do. And yet, even there, God has not abandoned you or wasted your days. Centering Christ at work doesn’t always mean preaching the gospel out loud. Sometimes it looks like showing Christ through the way you carry yourself when no one is watching, through integrity when others cut corners, through patience when tempers rise, through kindness when the culture of the office is bitter and cold. It looks like doing excellent work, not to impress a boss who may never thank you, but because your diligence itself honors the God who sees.

Even in the most ordinary or thankless jobs, the presence of Christ can reframe everything. A janitor sweeping floors can say, “Lord, I do this to make this place safe and clean for others.” A cashier scanning groceries can silently pray blessing over each customer who passes by. A teacher weary of ungrateful students can remember that Christ Himself is the Good Teacher, and her labor is shaping souls even if she doesn’t see the fruit today. A construction worker, a nurse, a factory employee, a delivery driver, each one can whisper, “Lord, this is for You.” That silent offering transforms the mundane into the sacred.

And if your job feels unbearable, know this: Christ is still present in the suffering. Even endurance itself becomes worship when offered to Him. When you resist the temptation to complain, when you keep your heart soft instead of bitter, when you endure hardship with patience, you are bearing the likeness of Christ who endured the cross. Sometimes faith at work doesn’t look like changing the environment, it looks like letting Christ change you in the midst of it.

Think of appearance. Caring for your body can easily slip into vanity, comparison, or obsession, idols of self-image. But caring for your body can also be an act of stewardship if it flows from gratitude: “Lord, You created me, so I will honor You with how I care for myself.” Instead of looking in the mirror to find value, you look in the mirror and remember: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Instead of dressing to impress or compete, you dress with dignity and humility, saying, “My worth is not in external beauty, but in Christ.” That re-centering makes even appearance an arena for worship.

Think of education. Striving for good grades and a secure future can be idolatry if it’s about pride, status, or control. But it can become worship if your learning is seen as preparation to serve God faithfully, to use your gifts for His kingdom, to steward the opportunities He’s given you. When you see knowledge as a tool to glorify Him rather than a weapon to exalt yourself, your study becomes an altar.

Lastly, think of daily pressures. When we attach our identity to things, career, looks, grades, achievements, we will break under their weight because they were never designed to carry the human soul. But when Christ is the center, you can engage in all these pursuits with freedom, because your identity is secure in Him. You work hard, but failure does not define you. You care for yourself, but aging or imperfection does not undo you. You study diligently, but results do not enslave you. Christ holds you, so you can hold everything else loosely.

This is what Jesus meant when He said in Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Notice: He did not say, “Abandon all things.” He said, “Put Me first, and then everything else falls into proper place.” Worship happens when God is central, and everything else becomes secondary. That way, the good things in life do not turn into ultimate things.

But here’s the other side: this does not happen passively. It requires intentional re-centering, daily. Our hearts naturally drift toward idols. That’s why Paul tells us in Romans 12:2: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Renewal is ongoing. It’s daily. It’s choosing again and again to see your life in the light of Christ. And here’s the beauty: when Christ is at the center, life’s ordinary moments become sacred. Washing dishes can be worship if done with gratitude. Driving to work can be worship if filled with prayer. Rest can be worship if received as a gift rather than idolized as entitlement. Even suffering can become worship if it is endured with trust in God’s goodness.

This is freedom. This is the way to live without worshiping idols. Not by withdrawing from life, not by despising responsibilities or denying beauty or ignoring ambition, but by reframing all of them as secondary expressions of love for Christ. When He is the anchor, everything else finds its place.

This is why the enemy wants you distracted, rushed, frazzled, because a distracted heart slips into subconscious worship. But a centered heart sees through the subtlety and keeps Christ enthroned.

So the answer is simple yet lifelong: seek Him first. Center Him in your work, in your mirror, in your classroom, in your family, in your rest, in your striving. Let every act be reoriented toward His glory. Then even the smallest tasks are worship, and every idol loses its grip.

We can connect this back to love and the counterfeit of love. If we strip everything else away, if we peel back all the layers of religion, all the duties, all the temptations, all the counterfeits, at the heart of it all is Christ, and Christ is love.

That is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Nothing. Not diminished. Not weakened. Nothing. Because without Christ, without love, all else collapses into empty performance.

That’s why Satan works so hard to counterfeit love. He knows love is the essence of God’s kingdom. He knows that when Christ is truly enthroned in your heart, and love is the lens through which you see everything, he has no foothold. So he mimics, distorts, repackages, and resells “love” until the word itself is diluted. He fills it with tolerance, indulgence, affirmation, and calls it compassion. But that is not the center. That is not Christ.

Go back to Christ, and you see the difference. His love is not sentimental, it is sacrificial. His love is not permissive, it is purifying. His love is not self-centered, it is self-giving. His love does not flatter, it transforms. And when you let this love be the center, everything else falls into its rightful place.

This is what Jesus meant when He said the greatest commandment is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39). All the law and the prophets hang on this. Why? Because love is the center. Christ is the center. Without Him, everything unravels. With Him, everything coheres.

And here’s the mystery: when you live with Christ as the center, love is no longer just something you try to muster up, it overflows. John tells us, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The more you abide in His love, the more His love naturally shapes your affections, your priorities, your worship. This is how idolatry is broken. Not by white-knuckling your way into self-discipline, but by being so captivated with Christ that everything else loses its pull.

Go back to the center. Every morning, before the demands of the day press in, remind yourself: Christ is the center. Every night, as you lay your head down, remind yourself: Christ is the center. Every decision, every pursuit, every pressure, filter it through the question: “Is Christ still at the center here?”

Because here is the truth: when Christ is the center, peace follows. Joy follows. Freedom follows. The counterfeit loves of the world lose their shine. The subtle idols lose their hold. And worship becomes natural, not forced, because worship is simply love overflowing toward the One who first loved you.

At the heart of it all, at the center of it all, is Christ. And Christ is love. 

And because Christ is the center and Christ is love, it makes perfect sense that one of Satan’s sharpest counterfeits would target relationship itself, for relationship is where love is meant to root, to grow, and to return us to God.

God created us for relationship with Himself. That was the design in Eden: “I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). Humanity was made to walk with God, to know Him, to be known by Him. Relationship with Him is the root, and all other relationships are meant to grow from that root.

So what does Satan do? He distorts our understanding of relationship itself, so that when we try to imagine or live out a relationship with God, we filter it through broken categories. If our human relationships are casual, shallow, unfaithful, non-committal, then our concept of relating to God will mirror that brokenness. If the world teaches us that love is disposable, then we will approach God with the same disposability. If the world teaches us that commitment is optional, then we will treat our devotion to God as negotiable.

And isn’t that what we see today? The culture has redefined relationships into temporary arrangements. Hookup culture tells us that intimacy can be separated from commitment, that bodies can be used without covenant. Marriage is treated like a contract rather than a covenant, something you break when it no longer suits your desires. Infidelity is normalized, even glamorized. The very word “love” has been hijacked to mean self-fulfillment rather than self-giving.

Now take that distortion and ask: how does this affect our understanding of relationship with God? Instead of covenantal faithfulness, many Christians approach Him casually: a weekend fling, a “hookup” faith where they come close on Sunday but vanish by Monday. Instead of devotion, many approach Him conditionally: “I’ll serve You as long as You bless me, as long as this feels good, as long as it doesn’t cost me too much.” Instead of intimacy, many settle for superficiality: they want God’s benefits but not His presence, His promises but not His pruning.

This is why Jesus said in Matthew 15:8: “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” That’s the language of a shallow relationship, words without covenant, proximity without commitment.

God’s design for relationship is entirely different. Marriage is given as the great earthly metaphor of our union with Him. Paul says in Ephesians 5:31–32: “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Marriage, at its purest, is meant to be a living parable of Christ’s love for His people: faithful, sacrificial, covenantal, enduring. That means our relationship with God is not like a fling, not like a shallow friendship of convenience, it is meant to be like a marriage covenant, a bond sealed in love and fidelity.

Satan knows this. So what does he do? He corrupts human relationships so that when we try to imagine what covenant means, we only see the ruins of divorce, betrayal, and lust. If he can destroy your picture of human love, he weakens your capacity to imagine divine love. If he can distort your view of commitment, he poisons your pursuit of covenant with God. And so once again, he counterfeits: taking the very structure God gave us to reveal Himself, and hollowing it out until it becomes an idol instead of an icon.

But when you bring Christ back to the center, the picture clears. You realize that your relationship with God sets the tone for every other relationship. If you know Him as the faithful Bridegroom, you begin to reflect His faithfulness to your spouse, your family, your friends. If you know His covenant love, you begin to reject disposable relationships. If you know His sacrificial love, you begin to pour yourself out for others. This is why brokenness in human relationships is not only painful socially, it is spiritually devastating. It distorts the very lens through which we are meant to know God.

And we can see this distortion ripple outward. It doesn’t stop at the level of a marriage or a friendship, it spreads into communities, into nations, into the world itself. Look at politics. Look at what has unfolded across the globe, but especially in places like the United States. Politics has become less about governing wisely and more about dividing deliberately. Left versus right. Conservative versus progressive. Us versus them. It’s not simply debate anymore, it’s identity. People define themselves by party before they define themselves by truth. They bind their loyalty not to Christ but to platforms, slogans, flags, and personalities.

And what is the fruit of this? Division. Suspicion. Hatred. Neighbors who once shared life together now glare at one another through the lens of ideology. Families split at the dinner table. Churches fracture over political allegiance rather than standing united under Christ. And behind it all is the whisper of the enemy: divide them, divide them, divide them.

This is no accident. It is a shadow of Satan’s oldest strategy. From Eden onward, he has worked to divide. Divide Eve from God by questioning His word. Divide Adam and Eve from one another through blame. Divide brother from brother, Cain from Abel, until blood was spilled on the ground. Division has always been the tool, because division weakens, isolates, and confuses. And once people are divided, they are easier to control.

It is striking how Charlie Kirk’s death was mourned across the world. A terrible, devastating tragedy, it shook people to their core, not only because of who he was, but because of what his death revealed. For many, it was the first real exposure of the division that has been festering beneath the surface for years. Those who had eyes to see, even if they could not articulate it, felt the veil lift. They recognized, perhaps only in a deep, wordless way, that what we are living under is not just politics, not just disagreement, not just culture wars. It is a scheme. Divide, divide, divide, until finally, blood is spilled. That is exactly what happened.

And of course, a man who openly proclaimed God’s truth was the one killed. That is no coincidence. The enemy does not waste his efforts on the indifferent. He aims at those who expose him, who remind the world of God, who refuse to bow to idols. So when Charlie Kirk fell, it was not only the silencing of a voice, but also the unmasking of the spiritual war we are all living in.

But perhaps the most horrifying, eye-opening part was not even the death itself, but the reaction. For while multitudes wept, while candlelight vigils rose across the world, while even bitter political rivals paused to acknowledge the tragedy, others laughed. They mocked. They celebrated. They cheered the spilling of blood. And if anything could reveal what division does, it is this: it fosters hate so deep that human dignity itself is forgotten. When the image of God in another person no longer restrains us from contempt, when the death of a fellow human becomes entertainment, the enemy’s work is fully exposed. Division has reached its endgame.

This is what we must understand: division is never neutral. It does not simply produce disagreement; it produces dehumanization. It whispers, “They are not like you, therefore they are less than you. They are your enemy, therefore their suffering is justified. They oppose your tribe, therefore their death is victory.” And once those lies take root, anything becomes possible, even celebration at the loss of life.

That is why this moment must not be overlooked. It was not just the death of a man, it was the exposure of a strategy. Humanity has been discipled into suspicion, trained into contempt, addicted to outrage. And Satan is satisfied, because his scheme is working. He cannot erase our God-given desires for justice, belonging, and meaning, but he can twist them into tribalism, vengeance, and hate. And the result is what we witnessed: blood spilled, grief divided, hatred unleashed.

But this is also where the gospel shines brighter than ever. Because Christ alone has the power to cut through this cycle. His cross is the only place where blood spilled becomes reconciliation instead of division. His love is the only force strong enough to teach us to weep even for those we once called enemies. His Spirit is the only power that can transform hearts poisoned by contempt into hearts softened by grace.

So we must not let this tragedy pass as just another headline. We must see it for what it is: an exposure, a revelation, a pulling back of the curtain on the scheme of division. And we must respond not with more outrage, not with more suspicion, not with more tribal loyalty, but with the only answer that heals, Christ at the center, Christ as love, Christ as Lord.

If division leads to blood, then reconciliation must come from blood too, the blood of Christ, poured out not to divide, but to unite, to reconcile, to make peace by the cross (Colossians 1:20).

Isn’t it interesting how this mirrors our broken view of love and relationship? If we misunderstand love, we divide. If we treat relationships as disposable, we divide. If we lose sight of covenant and faithfulness, we divide. And when division grows unchecked, it naturally blossoms into hostility, prejudice, rage, and violence. Division in the heart becomes division in the home. Division in the home becomes division in the community. Division in the community becomes division in the nation. It is all connected, and it is all the same lie: that we are safer apart than together, that we are stronger in suspicion than in unity, that we can define ourselves against others rather than in Christ.

And when hatred festers, Satan barely needs to lift a finger. Humans will tear each other apart on their own. He only needs to fan the flames with lies. Lies through the media, lies through leaders, lies through our own pride and fear. He doesn’t care whether you shout for the left or for the right, whether you wave one flag or another, whether you claim progress or tradition. As long as you bow your heart to something other than Christ, as long as your identity is fractured and misplaced, his purpose is fulfilled.

This is why political division is not just a cultural problem, it is a spiritual battlefield. It is one more place where the enemy counterfeits love with loyalty to causes, counterfeits relationship with allegiance to tribes, counterfeits worship with devotion to parties and ideologies. It is one more way he keeps humanity from seeing the truth: that we were made for unity in Christ.

And unless Christ is the center, the cycle will not break. You cannot legislate your way out of division. You cannot argue your way into unity. You cannot find salvation in a party, a movement, or a nation. Because division is not first political, it is spiritual. Healing cannot come through politics, it can only come through Christ. So look closely at the world around you. Look at the endless arguments, the constant outrage, the tribalism, the suspicion, the labeling, the tearing down. It is not just politics, it is the fruit of misplaced identity. It is the echo of broken love. It is the proof that when we lose sight of Christ, we lose sight of one another.

But here is the good news: when Christ is brought back to the center, the fog lifts. In Him there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, left or right, for we are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

The love of Christ doesn’t just reconcile us to God, it reconciles us to each other. It restores unity where there was fracture, covenant where there was abandonment, sacrifice where there was selfishness. Satan’s counterfeit thrives on division. God’s kingdom thrives on unity. And the only way the cycle breaks is when people stop rooting their identity in tribes, politics, or ideologies, and start rooting their identity in Christ alone.

And this is why healing in Christ is not just about avoiding sin, it’s about restoring our ability to love and relate rightly. When we come back to Him, when we let His Spirit purify our affections, when we learn to sit with Him daily, hear His voice, walk in obedience, we are learning what real relationship is. Not shallow, not conditional, not disposable, covenantal, faithful, transformative. And from that root, every other relationship is healed.

Satan offers counterfeit intimacy, pleasure without covenant. God offers real intimacy, covenant that transforms pleasure into joy.

Satan offers counterfeit faithfulness, loyalty until it’s inconvenient. God offers real faithfulness “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Satan offers counterfeit love, self-seeking, self-indulgent, self-centered. God offers real love “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

And so again, it comes back to the center. Christ. Love. Relationship with Him. The world teaches us how to idolize relationships, to make them about fulfilling our flesh. But in Christ, relationships become about reflecting Him. Our relationship with God doesn’t just save us; it retrains us. It heals our broken understanding of love, it redefines our view of covenant, it restores our ability to give and receive affection in holiness.

And if we let Him be the center, if we learn to “abide in Him” (John 15:4), then suddenly all the counterfeits lose their pull. You stop settling for shallow relationships because you’ve tasted depth in Him. You stop idolizing romance or friendship because you’ve found fulfillment in Him. You stop fearing betrayal or abandonment because you’ve found security in Him. And from that place, you finally begin to live out relationships on earth in a way that reflects heaven. 

Sometimes reflecting on whether we may have misunderstood love in our lives can raise some existential questions. But here’s where it cuts closer to the bone, because love for God is not abstract. It isn’t just a doctrine we affirm, it’s a reality we live. And I must be honest with you: sometimes I find myself wrestling with the very nature of my own love for Him. I ask myself: Do I truly love God because I know Him, because I have encountered His goodness, His mercy, His presence, or do I simply “love” Him because I find Him endlessly fascinating? Is my love the kind of authentic, Christ-like love that surrenders and obeys, or is it a love rooted in the thrill of understanding, in the excitement of learning?

There are times I fear: What if my pursuit of God has only been the pursuit of knowledge, the joy of discovery, the satisfaction of fitting the pieces together? What if I have confused fascination with devotion? And then comes the most searching question of all: If all of my knowledge were stripped away, if I had nothing left but His presence, would I still love Him for who He is or only for what I’ve learned about Him? And maybe you’ve wondered the same thing so let’s talk about it. 

First, there is a difference between interest in God and love for God. Interest can be intellectual. Many theologians, philosophers, and even skeptics have studied God, the Bible, and Christianity with great fascination, yet without worship, without devotion, without surrender. It is possible to enjoy the concepts of faith while missing the Person of faith. That’s why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:1: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Knowledge alone can make us proud. But love humbles us, changes us, roots us in Christ.

But even as I wrestle with this, I’ve begun to see that fascination with Him is not automatically wrong. In fact, it may be one of the very ways He has wired me to pursue Him. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this deep drive to understand people, not just what they do, but why they do it. I’ve been fascinated by psychology, by behavior, by the hidden motives beneath the surface. My whole life, I’ve found myself analyzing people and situations, not to judge them, but to see them clearly, to treat them differently, to respond with compassion instead of assumption. And I’ve started to realize: perhaps God put that in me for a reason.

Because the same hunger that makes me want to understand people has also made me want to understand Him. The same eyes that look beneath the surface of human behavior have been trained to look beneath the surface of Scripture, to search His character, to seek the depths of His love. What I once thought was just my personality, or maybe even a burden, has become a gift. God has used my fascination to draw me closer, to make me hungry not only to know about Him but to actually know Him.

And maybe that’s the point: that even our natural wiring, our curiosities, our inclinations when surrendered to God, become avenues for love. The danger is only when fascination stops at the surface, when it never matures into devotion. But when fascination becomes a gateway into intimacy, when knowledge humbles rather than puffs up, then God takes what He has planted in us and turns it toward Himself.

And so I want to pause and ask you: what about you? What is it that stirs your heart, that awakens your curiosity, that makes you come alive? Is it art, the ability to see beauty in colors and shapes? Is it music, the gift of hearing harmony and rhythm where others only hear noise? Is it logic, the drive to understand systems and make sense of what feels chaotic? Is it compassion, the instinct to notice when someone is hurting, even if they never say a word? These are not accidents. They are fingerprints of God woven into your very being.

Now the question is, have you surrendered those things to Him? Have you asked, “Lord, how can I use this gift, this interest, this wiring, to know You more and to love others in Your name?” Because when you do, ordinary passions become holy pathways. Music becomes worship. Curiosity becomes devotion. Compassion becomes ministry. Creativity becomes a reflection of the Creator Himself.

So take a moment and reflect. The enemy wants you to believe your wiring is random, pointless, or meant only for your own pleasure. But God says otherwise. He knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). He placed gifts within you. He wired your mind and heart intentionally. The very things you might think are just “your personality” may actually be invitations to deeper communion with Him. The question is: will you keep them at the surface, or will you surrender them and let Him turn them into intimacy?

I still wrestle with my motives. But I’ve begun to see that my very tendency to dig deeper, to question, to analyze, is itself a reminder that God made me in His image. And if He can use even that to lead me into greater love, then perhaps the right question is not “Do I love Him because I’m fascinated?” but “Has my fascination led me to the place where I surrender and abide?”

Second, though, don’t underestimate how God uses our minds to draw us closer. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37). Fascination with Him is not automatically wrong, it may be one of the ways He has wired you to pursue Him. Enjoying learning about God doesn’t disqualify our love; it can be an expression of it. The danger is only when knowledge becomes an end in itself, when we settle for ideas instead of intimacy.

Third, ask: what happens when the fascination fades? Love proves itself not in moments of delight, but in moments of dryness. There will be days when study doesn’t feel thrilling, when prayer feels heavy, when worship feels like discipline. That’s where love shows itself. Jesus asked Peter in John 21:17, “Do you love Me?” He didn’t ask, “Do you find Me interesting?” or “Do you enjoy talking about Me?” He asked for love, and then linked it to obedience: “Feed my sheep.” Real love shows itself in action, in faithfulness, in obedience even when it costs.

So ask: Am I obeying Him when it’s inconvenient? Am I seeking Him when it’s not exciting? Am I surrendering my will to His even when I don’t understand? That is love. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Now to the last, most vulnerable question: If I didn’t know all that I know now, would I still love God? It takes us back to the reality that God loved us before we knew Him. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Our love for Him is always a response. Even if we stripped away all knowledge, even if your mind were emptied of all theology, the Spirit Himself would still testify within you that He is Father, that He is Lord (Romans 8:16).

You love Him not because you figured Him out, but because He revealed Himself to you. Even your questions, even your wondering, even your doubts, they all happen under the canopy of His love. Remember John’s words: “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Your love, no matter how frail, no matter how mingled with fascination, is ultimately born of His initiating love.

Real love for God is not proven by how fascinated you are with Him, nor by how much you know about Him, it is proven by abiding in Him. By showing up in prayer. By obeying when it’s hard. By worshiping when it feels costly. By clinging to Him when there’s no intellectual reward. That is authentic love.

And when you feel that pull inside asking, “Is my love real?”, bring that very question to Him. Say, “Lord, refine me. Burn away fascination that is empty. Deepen my love until it looks like Yours. Teach me to love You for who You are, not for what I get from You.” That prayer itself is love.

Because in the end, authentic love is not measured by how much you know, but by how much you remain. Jesus said in John 15:9: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” Stay. Remain. Root yourself. When fascination fades, abide. When questions swirl, abide. When knowledge feels small, abide. That’s love.

And it’s in this abiding, this steady, faithful remaining, that your eyes begin to adjust, and you start to see how everything God has spoken is connected. Love is not just faith, worship, obedience, or identity compartmentalized separately. They all bleed into each other, they all support one another, they all find their coherence in Him. Abiding holds it together, like a thread running through the fabric, tying the pieces into one seamless design. Without abiding, the pattern unravels. With abiding, you begin to see that the truths of God don’t stand apart, but flow together as one.

The deeper you go into Scripture, the more you realize it’s not isolated truths but a living, interwoven tapestry. Like fractals, patterns repeating at every scale, from the smallest detail to the grand design. Love connects to worship, which connects to idolatry, which connects to relationship, which connects to truth, which connects back to Christ. Every thread is bound to the others because everything finds its source and end in Him. He is One, perfectly unified, and His reality spills into every category. When we meditate on Him, we start to see those fractal patterns: the same truth refracting through a hundred angles, the same light reflecting in a thousand ways.

Think of how Jesus Himself taught. He would speak of love, then shift to obedience, then to abiding, then to joy, all in one breath (John 15). He didn’t separate them, because they are inseparable. To love Him is to obey Him. To obey Him is to abide in Him. To abide in Him is to bear fruit. To bear fruit is to glorify the Father. Each truth is not a standalone topic, it is a branch of the same vine.

This is how the gospel works. It spirals outward. It connects. It mirrors the very nature of God, who is not divided. When you see that Satan counterfeits love, you can’t help but see how he counterfeits worship, and truth, and relationships, and identity, because the enemy is always trying to fracture what God has made whole. Every part of the gospel, no matter where you zoom in, carries the pattern of the whole. If you study love, you eventually find yourself at worship. If you study worship, you find yourself at relationship. If you study relationship, you find yourself at covenant. If you study covenant, you find yourself at Christ. And if you study Christ—you find yourself back at love, the center of it all.

Every question we can raise, every theme we’ve seen, every concern about authenticity or idolatry or counterfeit, it all collapses into the same center: knowing Him and loving Him as He is, not as the world presents Him. Everything flows from that.

And yet, when we talk about knowing Him and loving Him, we can’t ignore the reality we live in, the tension between the truth of the gospel and the brokenness that still marks our lives. The gospel does not lift us out of the world just yet; instead, it plants us right in the middle of it, redeemed but still surrounded by fallenness, forgiven but still learning obedience, set free yet still walking through an environment designed to pull us back into chains. That tension is not evidence that God’s love is weak, but that His kingdom is already here and not yet fully revealed. And it is in this space, in this in between, that the depth of our love for Him is proven.

I’ve often wondered out of curiosity: “If everyone just understood and accepted the gospel, would there be no problems in the world?” At first glance, it seems obvious: yes, if all people truly bowed to Christ, evil would vanish. But then we look at the reality of the church, those who do believe, who do confess the gospel, and we see sin still present, struggles still real, division still painful. Why? Is it purely our own failure? Or is it also the environment, the structures of the world, the atmosphere of rebellion that we breathe every day?

This is the tension of living “between the times.” The story of Scripture reveals a tension we live in: the kingdom of God has already come in Christ, yet its fullness is not yet here. Christ has already come. He has already defeated sin and death. His Spirit already dwells in us. And yet, the fullness of His kingdom has not yet arrived. Sin has been dethroned, but not yet destroyed. We live as citizens of heaven while still dwelling in a broken earth.

So yes, it is both. Our shortcomings arise from our own brokenness and from the world’s fallen systems around us. We are bent inward by sin, and we are shaped outward by an environment that normalizes sin. Like fish who don’t know they are wet, we swim in waters saturated with lies, self-worship, and rebellion. Even when redeemed, those currents tug on us.

Now, let’s step further outside the box. Imagine a world where everyone confessed Christ with their mouths. Would that world necessarily be perfect? Not if those confessions were shallow, cultural, or coerced. We see this in history, societies that called themselves Christian while perpetuating injustice and sin. The gospel cannot just be accepted intellectually; it must be embodied, it must be lived, it must transform. So even if the whole world understood the gospel, the problem would remain unless the whole world also embodied it. And embodiment is where our brokenness resists.

But then another angle comes in: what if so much of our stumbling isn’t just failing, but being shaped by an environment that isn’t Christ-centered? This is worth exploring because culture disciples us, even when we don’t realize it. Every ad we see, every show we watch, every song we hear, every workplace policy, every school curriculum, it all preaches a gospel. Not the gospel of Christ, but the gospel of self, of success, of desire, of freedom without God. And whether we like it or not, those sermons seep in. We live in Babylon, and Babylon seeps into us.

This is why Paul doesn’t just tell us to avoid sin, he tells us, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Because the world is always pressing, shaping, discipling. If we do not consciously resist, we unconsciously conform. That means some of what we call “personal sin” is not just individual weakness, it’s the result of being formed in an anti-Christ environment, which is something we either consciously or unconsciously allow. 

Now here’s the harder layer: if we were in a Christ-centered environment, would we stop sinning? If every voice around us pointed us to God, would we finally live rightly? Perhaps more consistently, yes, but not perfectly. Because sin does not only come from outside us. It comes from inside. The flesh resists the Spirit even in the holiest of spaces. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect environment, without cultural corruption, without sinful structures, and they still fell. Their downfall came not from external environment but from internal rebellion. So even in a perfect Christianized society, without an inward transformation of the heart, sin would still sprout.

Now, someone might ask, “But wait, didn’t Adam and Eve fall because of Satan’s temptation? Doesn’t that mean their rebellion came from the outside, not the inside?” And it’s true: the serpent introduced the question, “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1). Satan was the external voice that sparked the temptation. But notice carefully: Satan did not force Eve’s hand. He did not make Adam eat. He presented the lie, but the decision to trust it instead of God came from within. The external temptation only had power because of an internal desire.

James explains it like this: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin” (James 1:14–15). Do you see it? The desire itself is not evil, God gave us desires for love, for purpose, for joy, for intimacy, for significance. But Satan twists those God-given longings into bait. He doesn’t create new desires; he counterfeits the ones God planted in us, luring us to chase them in distorted ways that lead not to life but to sin.

This is why even in a perfect environment, sin is still possible. Adam and Eve walked with God in paradise, uncorrupted by culture, yet when their desires were stirred toward autonomy, toward “being like God,” they chose rebellion. The setting was flawless, but the human heart was free, and in freedom, they bent away from God.

And that’s what we carry today. Yes, Satan still tempts. Yes, the world still pressures. But the sobering truth is that even without external voices, the flesh within us resists the Spirit (Galatians 5:17). The enemy whispers, but the heart agrees. Which means the real battle is not just out there in culture, it is in here, in us.

That’s why the answer really is in our own brokenness. The environment feeds it, yes. The enemy exploits it, yes. But the seed lies in us. That’s why Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles them” (Mark 7:20). Not primarily what surrounds, but what overflows from the heart. That’s why redemption has to be personal before it can be cultural. The world won’t be healed until hearts are.

This is where we have to be brutally honest with ourselves: our brokenness is internal not just because we “messed up” individually, but because sin has fractured everything we are. Our desires, our emotions, our reasoning, even our bodies, all of them were designed perfectly by God, but all have been touched by the fall and bent inward by the world we live in. And Satan knows this. He has no power to invent new desires, so he takes what God made good and twists it. He takes the very design God wove into us and manipulates it until the good longing becomes a destructive craving. I can say with certainty, he has done this successfully to every one of us.

So understand this: everything “wrong” with you at its root is actually something God made right, it’s just broken and being manipulated. A longing for love becomes lust or codependency. A hunger for meaning becomes pride or ambition. A need for rest becomes laziness or escapism. The raw materials are not evil. They were planted by God Himself. But in our brokenness, and under the enemy’s whispers, those good desires turn inward and away from Him.

This is why the gospel is not about erasing who you are, but about redeeming who you are. Not about destroying your desires, but about healing them, straightening them, returning them to their true purpose in Christ.

But here’s an even more mind-stretching thought: maybe God allows us to live in this environment, to struggle in a world not centered on Him, precisely because this is how love proves itself. If the environment were perfect, our obedience would cost nothing. But here, surrounded by counterfeits, love must choose. It must fight. It must remain loyal when loyalty is costly. Perhaps the struggle itself is part of how love becomes genuine. In a way, the friction of this world tests, purifies, and deepens what would otherwise remain shallow.

Now, I know some of you may already be thinking, “Wait, do we really have to prove ourselves to God? Isn’t salvation by grace? Isn’t it true that we don’t need to prove we’re worthy, because Christ has already made us worthy?” And you’re right. We do not prove ourselves in order to earn His love. We could never earn it. Scripture is clear: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

But when I say love proves itself, I don’t mean to God, as if He were testing us to see if we qualify. He already knows the heart. He already sees the depths. Love proving itself is not about convincing God, it’s about revealing reality in us. It’s about whether our faith is genuine or counterfeit, whether our love is rooted or shallow, whether our devotion endures when it’s costly or crumbles when it’s inconvenient.

Think of a marriage: a spouse doesn’t remain faithful to “prove” worth to their partner, they remain faithful because the relationship is real, because love by nature demonstrates itself. The proving isn’t transactional; it’s organic. It’s the natural outworking of what’s true inside.

So it is with God. Love that never costs anything, love that never resists temptation, love that never chooses obedience when it’s hard… can it rightly be called love? Or is it only sentiment? That’s why James tells us, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Not because works earn salvation, but because real faith produces fruit. Real love proves itself in action, not for God’s sake, but for ours. So no, we don’t prove ourselves to gain God’s love. But when we remain faithful in a hostile world, when we keep choosing Him in the middle of counterfeits, our love proves itself real. Not to make us worthy, but to reveal that His grace has already made us new.

God knows our frame, He knows our frailty, He knows the waters we swim in, and He gives us His Spirit not just to rescue us from ourselves, but to resist the world’s currents. And maybe here’s where the fractal comes back in: everything connects again. Our environment distorts love, distorts worship, distorts relationships. Our flesh bends those distortions inward. Satan counterfeits both the external environment and the internal desires. And the only way forward is not merely changing the environment, not merely strengthening the will, but being reborn in Christ, centered in Him, abiding in Him, letting His love shape everything. 

So it all comes full circle. From Eden to today, from the serpent’s whisper of “Did God really say?” to the modern counterfeits of love, worship, truth, freedom, and relationship, we see the same pattern: Satan cannot create, he can only distort. He twists God-given desires into traps, he reframes worship into idolatry, he reshapes relationships into disposable arrangements, he redefines love into tolerance without truth. He divides us with politics, seduces us with self-love, lures us with counterfeit empowerment, and feeds on our brokenness by weaponizing the very image of God in us against us. But in every distortion, the answer remains the same: Christ. At the heart of it all, at the center of it all, is Christ. Christ is love.

Only in Him do our desires find healing instead of manipulation. Only in Him do our relationships reflect covenant instead of betrayal. Only in Him does worship become wholeness instead of idolatry. Only in Him do we find peace, freedom, and identity unshaken by the world’s lies. Everything broken is mended in Him, everything fractured is made whole in Him, everything counterfeit is exposed in His light. And this is why He came, not merely to tell us how to live, not merely to offer us words, but to make us new.