From The Archives - “Having A Good Image Of Your Father” by Ed Dufresne
Open your Bible to John 10:10. We are going to read a few scriptures and shed a little light on the devil. “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Jesus came to give you life, not death. Satan comes to give you death; to steal, to kill, and to rob you. When I was serving the devil, all he gave me was death, but Jesus gives me life. Jesus came to give you LIFE, not death. There is no life in Satan. He is sowing lies to the church today. Every time a man of God preaches the Word, Satan will come to try and steal the Word by sowing a deception. One deception, if I may say so, is that God is afflicting you, that God is the one who took your husband, that God is the author of your problems.
The Bible says in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
Well, I have good news for you! I am going to prove to you that God is a good God, and the devil is a bad devil. Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Have you ever heard someone say, “I have been seeking the Holy Ghost for fifty years”? They must have been seeking something else. Remember, the scripture said, “Ask, and it shall be opened unto you; For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?” How many of you are fathers and mothers? If your child asked you for something good, would you give him something bad? You wouldn’t, would you? That is what Jesus is saying in these verses.
The Bible says that, as fathers, we are to chastise our children, by spanking them as the Word directs us. But God is a spirit. How does He chastise us? By the Spirit, through His Word. When you correct your children, you would not do anything to hurt them, and neither would God. I will prove it to you by this verse. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11) Can you tell me, after what you have just read, that when you ask God to heal you that He says, “No, you just keep that sickness for a while, because I want to teach you something through it.” NO WAY!!
I was discussing this with a friend, and I asked him if his son needed correction, would he as a daddy, make an incision on his son’s face, put a piece of cancer in the incision and tell him, “You keep that for a while until you have learned your lesson.” This friend answered, “If you ask God for a fish He wouldn’t give you a serpent.” If you did something like that to your son, you would be thrown in jail. God is total justice, He is unable to be unjust. He gives good gifts. He is our daddy! He isn’t a devil! Don’t blame God for your problems. I don’t care what anybody says, GOD IS NOT OUR PROBLEM! That is a DECEPTION. It is a lie from Satan! Together we are going to expose the devil. God is a good God, and He’s not the one afflicting you. God is for us. He is on our side: the winning side! He is working with us, and He teaches us through the Word. II Timothy 3:16 says, “All scriptures are given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Instruction and training with the Word of God. God is not playing games with His kids.
The church is beginning to find out who the source of their problems are. It’s Satan that has been robbing the church of their health. It’s Satan that is the author of your problems. NOT GOD! God is a good God. When did God trade places with the devil? He hasn’t! He is still a God of Love.
“Beware of (Watch out for) false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15) Ravening, in the original Greek, means “spoiling,” and wolves means “lights.” SPOILING LIGHTS. God has shown me that it was the image of our Father that is being spoiled. So many people come to church today, find Christ as their Savior, and the first thing someone says to them is, “Now God is going to teach you a few things.” When sickness comes, they think God is doing it, and when the car gets wrecked, they say God is doing it to perfect them. Before you realize it, they have given up. They figure, “What’s the use? I might just as well hang around the bars; I have just as many problems.”
VICTORY is the name of the game with Jesus! He lived victorious by speaking the Word of God, “It is written.” He whipped Satan at his own game with the Word. That is what the Lord wants us to do. Let’s get hold of the Word. People may say that is not being humble, but a humble man is one that will stand on the Word of God. An egotist will not take anyone else’s word but his own, but a humble man will. The devil is spoiling and twisting the image of God in our minds, and I am going to be a light for Jesus.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs or thistles? Even so every Good Tree bringeth forth Good Fruit.” Matthew 7:16–17. Not evil, not damnation, but good things. A good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. So, God is a good God!