My kids were recently watching Phineas and Ferb and it made me wonder (yes, I’m one of those weird people who have deep thoughts while watching children’s cartoons): What would Doofenshmirtz do if Perry the platypus wasn’t around? What would any villain do without their nemesis? I assume they would get bored because their goal is not really to take over the world or “the entire tri-state area;” it’s to fight the nemesis. Without someone to fight, a villain practically loses purpose. Doofenshmirtz puts time into his ridiculous evil plots, but he seems to spend more time making traps and explaining his evil schemes to Perry.

I can’t help but to think that, as Christian, we can be like Doofenshmirtz. Our vision is so haphazard and weak that our main focus is on fighting those who are “against” us–the government, other religions, “sinners”! Some of us spend so much time focusing on who or what we’re against that it’s hard to tell what we even stand for.

Sometimes the finger even points towards the church and we start a hunt for “false teachers” or “incorrect doctrine” as if those are the true enemy. If we spent that time cultivating our relationship with God and letting His love pour through us to others, we wouldn’t really have the extra time to focus on “the bad guys”.

Question: What is more powerful–darkness or light? Light, of course! Light casts out the darkness. So if we focus on God and allow His light to shine brightly through us, the darkness will begin to dissipate. In order to do this, we need to change our focus and have correct vision, a vision that points us straight to God our Father and a vision that desires the advancement of His Kingdom on earth.

In his book, Hosting the Presence, Bill Johnson sums it up perfectly:

I can’t afford to live in reaction to darkness. If I do, darkness has had a role in setting the agenda of my life. The devil is not worthy of such influence, even in the negative. Jesus lived in response to the Father. I must learn to do the same. That is the only example worth following.

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