Double Agent
By Grant Gaines
Of the many movie series that have come and gone, very few have been as successful or had the same longevity as the James Bond movies. The fast cars, big explosions, and fancy gadgets have made the Bond movies a fan favorite for over 50 years. But arguably one of the most underrated subplots of the Bond series has been the presence of the “double agent”.
A double agent, as the name suggests, is a secret agent who “doubles” or pretends to be on one organization’s side when in reality is spying on that organization while working for a different group. Through their deception, the double agents are able to get highly sensitive information that they would not otherwise be able to acquire. In the Bond movies, the presence of a double agent is what keeps the audience on the edge of their seats the whole movie as they try to decipher which “good” guy is actually a bad guy and which “bad” guy is actually a good guy.
Everyone loves a good double agent thriller, but did you know that as Christians we have an Enemy who is pretty stinking good at playing the role of the double agent? 2 Corinthians 11:14 (NLT) describes Satan’s craftiness by saying that, “…Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
How does the Prince of Darkness play the role of the double agent and “pull the wool over our eyes”? He takes something that God intended for good and causes us to use it for evil. For example, Satan will take your family which God commanded for us to love and care for (1 Timothy 5:8) but cause us to love them too much, thus turning them into an idol which we are commanded against having (1 John 5:21). Or Satan will take money which we are to use to provide for our family and church and will cause us to have such a great attachment to that money that our relationship with God is hindered because Satan knows that, “…[we] cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24, NIV).
But the Father of Lies doesn’t stop there because, as Pastor Greg Laurie once said, “Sin knows no boundaries – not only does it follow us when we’re far from God but it follows us to the very throne of heaven.” You see, Satan hates prayer so much that he will even go “behind enemy lines” in an attempt to make us have fruitless prayers.
Satan knows a thing or two about prayer and therefore knows just the thing to do to make our prayers to God as appealing to Him as a tree that does not bear fruit (See Jesus’s attitude towards this type of tree in Matthew 21:18-19). First off, Satan knows Scripture (Matthew 4:6) which is our playbook teaching us how to pray. But more significantly, Satan knows how to frustrate our attempts to spend time with God because he himself served, talked, and worshiped the King of kings at one point before he fell from heaven. Talk about a double agent!
So how exactly does the Thief rob us of intimate time with the Lord? Jesus gives us an explanation in the heart of His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others… And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words”(Matthew 6:5,7, NIV).
While these appear to be two different problems, they both spring from the same root – pride, the very thing that caused Satan, formerly an angel called Lucifer, to sin in the first place (Isaiah 14:12-15). Satan causes us to sin in prayer when he makes us think that prayer is more about us than it is about God. That it is more about our performance in prayer than His compassion to answer those prayers. That it is more about the one making the requests than the One who is, “…able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” (Ephesians 3:20, NIV).
We sin in prayer when we pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11-12 who took great pride in his own righteousness, his eloquent words, and the audience of Jews around him. Jesus spurns this Pharisee’s approach to prayer but honors the lowly tax collector who came humbly and fearfully before the Lord (Luke 18:13).
In an honest moment of personal reflection, which of these two men do you relate more to: the Pharisee or the tax collector? Do you find yourself coming before the Lord in pride or in the reverent fear that Ecclesiastes 5:2 (NIV) instructs us to have in prayer when it says, “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.”
Clearly, God does not care about the words we utter in prayer, whether few or many, eloquent or simple. Instead, the Lord is looking for genuine and sincere prayers from His followers. That is why we must join David in asking that God would, “…give [us] an undivided heart…” (Psalms 86:11, NIV) that we may truly seek Him and His glory while in prayer rather than allowing our double agent Enemy to cause us to focus on our own glory. For it is when we pray with our eyes fixed on God, that the power of the risen Savior is truly displayed in our lives!
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
