The Ultimate Deception

One of the tricks the devil uses to drain believers of spiritual strength is to get them busy with activities. Any irrelevant social or religious activity can be used by the devil to drain our spiritual strength. Please do not be deceived; God is more interested in your relationship with Him than religious activities.

Any activity that does not build you up spiritually might drain your spiritual strength.

Gabriel Idowu

The devil knows believers understand the negative impacts of social activities, so he uses religious activities to occupy and drain them spiritually.

My Experience

I shared this experience in one of the books I wrote. When I moved to the United States of America, I was busy with all kinds of church activities. I was actively functioning in the choir department, drama department, young adult ministry, teenage church, and membership department. I was also in school full-time. Full-time education is enough to drain one’s strength if care is not taken how much more adding other activities.

Throughout that time, I did not pay attention to my spiritual strength. The Lord was using me to write scripts to bless the congregation, but I was no longer studying God’s word for my personal spiritual development. Unknown to me, my ministration was gradually becoming a performance before God. I began to delight in making people laugh. I was less focused on ensuring the word of God touched their hearts. The Fire of God on my altar was getting dim, and I began to exhibit undesirable character traits. My level of tolerance diminished without me realizing it. One woman looked at me one day and said, “what has come upon you? It’s like you are beginning to manifest the roles you played in the drama”. That comment didn’t get me thinking and reflecting on my behavior; it was not until I started noticing anger in my actions and speeches that I realized something was wrong.

Heaven was lamenting over my inner man’s state even though the congregation was getting blessed through our ministrations. At a point, I started perceiving unusual sadness in my spirit after cracking jokes. Even though those jokes were not dirty, they trivialized important truths and occasionally took the bible out of context.

It’s imperative that we consistently draw close to God, in doing that, we become more like him. The word of God says, “there is no unrighteousness in Him.” (psalm 92:15c)

Gabriel Idowu

Church activities and my busy schedule prevented me from going for personal retreats to freshen up spiritually. Even though I was punctual in church, I realized church services were not enough to strengthen my inner man and help my walk with God, for God requires a personal walk with Him, not a congregational walk.