A Scripture caught my eye.  ‘But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief.  For you are children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night.  So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armour of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.’  (1 Thessalonians 5:4-8)  I can’t remember reading those verses in the New Living Translation before and I thought, ‘Yes!  That’s what we need!  Some clear-headedness!’   

We Don’t Belong to Darkness and Night

As Christians, we are no longer of the night.  Our time of being of the darkness is past.  Praise the Lord!  Colossians 1:13 says, ‘For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.’  This is one of my favourite verses.  Jesus delivered us from Satan’s domain so Satan has no rights over us.  Jesus died an excruciating death on the Cross to redeem us.  That’s why I get upset as Halloween approaches.  Why do some Christians think it’s okay to flirt with Satan’s kingdom when our wonderful Jesus went through so much to rescue us from it?   Why do they watch movies, play games, dress up or read about the occult?  It’s muddleheaded thinking! 

Muddleheaded Thinking

I understand the attraction of stories.  I’ve had a lifelong love of books.  As a child, I read everything written by Enid Blyton so I had a diet of pixies, elves and witches.  But in Blyton’s books, the witches are the baddies as far as I can remember.  I enjoy the writings of C. S. Lewis and his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a favourite. It represents Christianity through allegory.  The witch, symbolic of Satan, is soundly defeated by Aslan!  But my childhood reading was also influenced by the Bible. Our family had daily devotion time around the Bible.  We attended two services on a Sunday and a midweek meeting.  Scripture was constantly discussed and Christianity was demonstrated by my mostly saved extended family every day.  (Super blessed I know!)  I understood the difference between the reality of God’s Word and fantasy.  I had a good grounding in my faith.  In my opinion that is not the case for many Christian kids today.  They are reading about all kinds of occult practices disguised in wonderfully written adventures and watching them on screens but their Bible knowledge is basic.  

There Is No Such Thing as a Good Witch

I once heard someone say ‘Reading books about the occult and witchcraft is like drinking a chocolate milkshake with poison in it.  It will still kill you.’  I’ve had to face culling my home library of books and movies.  It’s a continual, sometimes painful process as the Holy Spirit identifies content I’d be muddleheaded to keep.

The Bible is Clear!

The Bible teaches against witchcraft.  ‘Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord… (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)

A Dragon is NOT Your Friend!

I recently wrote a new Bible Lesson titled, ‘A Dragon is NOT Your Friend’ to explain to children that the Bible describes Satan as a dragon.  He is not someone they can train or befriend!  The dragon is the real enemy of every Christian who is killed or hurt for believing in Jesus.  One day there will be a final battle and Jesus will destroy the dragon and his followers to remove evil from the world and make everything new.  (Revelation 20:1&2; Revelation 20:10)

You’ll find the lesson here: https://cooeekidsministry.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/A-Dragon-is-NOT-Your-Friend.pdf

The Apostle Paul exhorts Christians to be awake, sober, and watchful.  Soberness does not mean being boring or not having fun.  Being sober means understanding the value of things. That means not being excited by the things of this world but being clearheaded. 

He wrote to the Corinthian church:   Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:  “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”  Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”  (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)

We cannot let the world influence our thinking.  That would make us muddleheaded indeed!  We are in the world but not of it.  (John 17:14-15)  We are not to be conformed to it.  We are being transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:2)  You can’t get more clearheaded than that!