A precious friend of mine knew I was going to speak at a ladies retreat last spring and said I just had to get my nails done and have gel ones put on. She talked about how pretty they would look and pointed out that mine currently would not qualify as pretty. So, I followed her suggestion and had gel nails put on. They looked beautiful. I loved them. Then I began to realize they limited my ability to do some things I could do easily with my natural nails. I also realized you had to visit the nail salon for maintenance of these nails each month.
Five months ago, I had the fake nails removed. Since then, I have been trying to allow my damaged nails to grow out and allow my nail beds to recover from the damage. Before putting the gel nails on, I had no idea how they damaged your natural nails. Now I know, but I had to pay the price of 5 months with nasty, brittle nails to learn. Finally, the damaged nails appear to have grown out and I am back to my natural nails again. Now they are soft and brittle, so I need to give them time to regain strength so they won’t break so easily. This is a bit of a pain, and I have to be honest, I’ve thought more than once, “Oh, I should just go get the fake ones put back on.” Ultimately, I know it will be worth it to hold my ground and take care of my natural nails.
Fake may look pretty for a while, but then the ugly comes to light. This isn’t only true with nails, but with other things and people too. The master of disguise is Satan himself. He doesn’t come out with horns and a pitchfork like cartoons show him. He comes posing as something beautiful and eventually, the ugly comes to light. He uses this disguise to come after you. He tries to talk you into doing something and tells you all of the benefits of it and then once he has his hooks in you, the damage is done. 2 Corinthians 11:14 says, “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
We must be on guard, because Satan will use attractive things to lure us into his trap. There is one way to prevent ourselves from falling for his tricks. Through spending time with the Lord on a regular basis we grow to know His voice and in doing so, we can recognize an imposter when he comes our way [John 10:3-5]. James 4:7 tells us to resist the devil and he will flee.
I think we all would agree the real deal, Jesus, is the one we want to follow. Having a daily date with Jesus is like an insurance policy against Satan. If you invest time in the Word and in conversation with the Lord daily, you will recognize the traps of the enemy before you step into them and then you can resist the devil and he will flee. Prevent yourself from facing personal harm or from being the cause of harm to others. Choose Jesus. He chose you.