My friend likes to tell the story of when his wife came home from a shopping trip with a beautiful new dress.
When he saw the price tag he was aghast. As a minister he had a very meager income and the dress was way too expensive. He asked her to explain how she could justify spending so much on a dress.
She responded, “The Devil made me do it!” He then asked, “Why didn’t you follow Jesus’ example and say, ‘Get behind me Satan!’” She responded, “I did, but he said it looked good from back there too!”
Satan, and his New Testament incarnation the Devil, is the out picturing of man’s failure to take personal responsibility for his own thoughts and actions.
Beginning with Adam in the Garden of Eden who blamed first Eve “the woman” and then God “that you gave me” for giving him the fruit to eat; we tend to blame others for our personal failings.
The rest of the book of Genesis, and the rest of the Old Testament, can be seen through this lens of learning to take personal responsibility for ourselves.
“A thing to be true or real must have Truth in it, then, must it not? If then, as Jesus distinctly states of the one whom He called the devil, ‘there is no truth in him,’ (John 8:44) how do you make him a reality?” (Myrtle Fillmore, How to Let God Help You)
Jesus is literally telling us that the devil and satan do not exist in and of themselves. They are erroneous concepts that hinder our spiritual development. He is telling us that our belief in a power separate from God, separate from good, is the beginning point for all error and for all lies.
Many times the Bible tells us to “fear God.” The primary meaning of the word fear in this context is to have awe and respect. We are to fear God the same way we fear gravity or a hot stove.
I’m not going to step off a giant cliff or to touch a lit burner on a stove. But I can work with gravity by strapping myself into a hang glider before stepping off the cliff and I can work with the stove by putting water into a pot to touch the burner with.
A teacher of mine once wrote, “We are not punished for our sins but by our sins.” When we make mistakes there is the natural outworking of consequences. We have learned how to work with the principles of gravity and heat just as we can learn to work with spiritual principles.
In this seemingly endless campaign season we are being told to be afraid. We are told by candidates to be afraid of their opponent or their policies of destruction.
Whether it is one parties desire to take us back to a time that never existed or the other parties desire to lead us into a time that can never be, fear is a powerful motivator. Most of the daily news reporting feeds this atmosphere of fearing our neighbors; we must be afraid of the “other.”
“Do not be afraid!” this is the message the angels bring to Elizabeth and Joseph and Mary and the Shepherds during the birth stories in Matthew and Luke.
This is God’s message to each of us, there is nothing to be afraid of. “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  (John 14:27) So when we hear a message of fear, in the sense of being afraid, we know that it is not of God.
Politicians, preachers and others who are pedaling fear are not in tune with the infinite, unlimited, eternal presence and power of love that is God. They are using fear to control and manipulate you.
When we begin to take personal responsibility, the so-called ‘fall of Adam’ becomes a step-up in the gradual ascent into conscious participation as co-creators with God symbolized by the “New Heaven” and the “New Earth” of the book of Revelation.
We gain the ability to respond with love in a conscious awareness of God as our infinite, abundant and immediate source and supply of all needed good. This is my vision for you!
Blessings of peace, joy & love
Rev. Matthew E. Long, Peace Unity Community