As a child my mother taught us the song, “Open Up Your Heart” by Bing Cosby. It is a fun, energetic song that has a lot of positive vibes when you sing it. In the song it says, “If I forget to say my prayers, the devil jumps with glee.”

I never wanted that devil hanging around me, so as a child I became conscious about praying.

None of us have ever seen the devil, but we hold a specific picture of it in our minds. When I mentioned the name devil, you surely had a picture of it pop right into your conscious mind. Basically, the image showed up as a small red man with red horns and a long tail. Oh, and don’t forget, he carries a pitch fork!

Back in the early 1970’s comedian Flip Wilson made the line, “The devil made me do it” popular.

That line made its way into my household. We would repeat it when it served our purpose, and also laugh about it at the same time. The Truth that both you and I know is that the devil doesn’t make us do anything. We make our life from our own free will choices. If something isn’t working, we know where the responsibility falls.

1 John 3:8-9(NIV): “The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”

The words from 1 John tells us, Jesus the Son of God came to destroy the work created by the devil. Being born of God, we each have God’s goodness, his light, his energy in us. There is nothing that we can do to make that leave us.

But, from time to time, we may choose to not recognize the God energy in us. Instead, we can go about our life creating self-inflicted-nonsense to deal with, but the Truth remains; we have been born of God.

Whether we choose to acknowledge our Source of existence or not, we are still a part of it. Innately inside us we always know and we feel the right things to do in life. When we are living right, we feel like life is wonderful. We are happy, filled with joy; you know those times! When they are happening you think, ‘Wow, life doesn’t get any better than this!’ They are the times when you feel so wonderful. Everything is going so right you feel like you are living heaven on earth and maybe you are!

In The Revealing Word, a metaphysical bible dictionary, Charles Fillmore states: “The “devil” is a state of consciousness adverse to the divine good. There is no personal devil. God is the one omnipresent Principle of the universe, and there is no room for any principle of evil, personified or otherwise.”

When we override our innate feelings and we choose error thinking it leads us to persons, places or things, that don’t feel good. We won’t feel good on the inside of our body and we will not feel good in our conscious thinking.

Our subconscious will be busy exercising that little voice in our head, sending out warnings, but we will not be listening! After all we will feel as though we know what we are doing and we will justify our actions.

And, just when we begin thinking we’ve got everything under control, things will suddenly begin to fall apart. Sad feelings, worry, anxiety, hopelessness, to the point we might feel like we are living in hell.

Do not bother to blame the devil then.

Instead it’s time to reflect on our actions, take responsibility and see how we may have created our own hell.

Maybe the hell is not yours — perhaps it is a loved one that you see living life this way. For whomever, know that it is not a life sentence, look for God’s light because life can be changed.

Remember, 1 John 3:8-9; Jesus came to destroy the devil, that’s been done. We change our actions to meet with the consciousness Jesus came to show us. Cast out the self-inflicted-nonsense by remembering the seed of God is in you and in everyone else too!

Blessings of God’s goodness and light,

Linda La Croix

Unity Director at Unity of Lake Orion

See her Facebook page, A Spiritual Walk, or website, aspiritualwalk.com.