Unka Glen

leeyounger:

Do you need to tell Satan where to go? Here’s a song for ya.

One of my favorite things on the internet is a series of letters that my friend Glen Fitzjerrell (Unka Glen) wrote to Satan. These letters help us gain some perspective on the spiritual battle we all face, and they help de-fang the pitiful (yet all-too-often-effective) tactics of the devil to take people out.

I love those ‘Dear Satan’ posts so much that I have started to write some songs in the same vein as those letters. These songs are both a shout-out to the awesome work Unka Glen is doing, and they are part of my own battle tactic to fight off the old serpent. This is a video of the first ‘Dear Satan’ song I wrote, which is called, “BEFORE.” Sing along if you need some help fighting your spiritual battle. 

You can read all of Unka Glen’s Dear Satan letters, RIGHT HERE

(also, I want to say thanks to my friend Taylor Lane who shot and edited this video, and the one and only Jed Brewer who created the audio production template that makes it sound as good as it does)

I’m amazed. I mean, give credit where credit is due. You can really influence us, getting us to answer to the way you turn around a single word. And it seems like your current word of choice is: purity. The clear Biblical concept of purity is that NOTHING in nature is pure, and we must subject ourselves to a purification process. We submit to the refiner’s fire that yields pure gold. 

But you’ve redefined purity as something we’re born with, like a new pair of shoes we have to keep from getting scuffed, as opposed to the fruit of something that we work through in our relationship with God. Only your little red butt could come up with something so puritanical, pseudo-religious, and just downright unrealistic. Worse still, you’ve turned all this into some kind of idol, one that has the power to create or destroy good relationships.

David said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts”. Those of us bold enough to pray that prayer, find out soon enough that we aren’t pure. The heat of the refiner’s fire brings what is impure to the surface. We rid ourselves of those things and count ourselves happy to be free, searching for the next impure thing to remove. This process may be never-ending, but it is a joyful one, or at least, one that leads to joy and freedom.

I guess you wouldn’t know anything about freedom and joy, huh?

In Jesus name, 

Me

Psalm 66:10; Isaiah 48:10; Daniel 12:10; 1 Peter 1:7

I read the other day that Jesus was accused of being a “friend of sinners”. How about that, huh?. That word friend, in Greek (philos), implies a personal affection based on shared experiences. Jesus sent us after the lost sheep— the poor, the inmate, and the outcast. I guess that’s a sign of how He felt about sinners. I suppose the tax collectors and prostitutes and drunkards would have had plenty of nice things to say about Jesus.

But then there’s you Satan. It’s funny, but as much sin as you’re involved in, nobody ever accused you of being a friend of sinners, did they? In fact, roughly one hundred percent of us sinners would say that you gave us a taste of what we wanted, to gain everything you wanted, and then you left us high and dry. Liars and cheats like you have no friends.

In truth, I don’t know if you have much to do with sinners at all, maybe you feel like you’ve already got them where you want them— on the sidelines and out of the battle. But you sure have spent plenty of time trying to cozy up to religious leaders. Many of them wouldn’t want to be known as a friend of sinners either. A friend of rich people? Yes. A friend of famous people? Sure. A friend of politicians? Oh my yes. But sinners? Not so much.

But devil, you’re no friend of mine, so push on and sell your shabby, counterfeit, knock-off temptations to someone else. My friends are on their way over, and trust me, you’ll be pretty upset about what happens next.

In Jesus name, 

Me

Your lies are stupid. I don’t mean that to be insulting, heck if I’m insulting anyone it’s me for believing your stupid lies. Actually, I haven’t just believed these stupid lies, I’ve often lived my life according to them. 

Here’s a stupid lie: I’m the only one who’s looked at porn. The porn business makes about a zillion dollars a year, but I’m the only one? Heck, if Christians alone stopped buying it, they’d go out of business. Here’s another stupid lie: people won’t think I’m cool if I’m a Christian. Cool people don’t care what anybody thinks. Besides, what, people are gonna think I’m cool for being nothing?

Here’s another stupid lie: I’ll never find someone to fall in love with, and get married. Dang, the whole world, down through the generations, has found a way to pair off and hook up, but you, in an internet-connected world of nearly infinite possibilities, presents such a huge challenge to search algorithms and to Almighty God Himself, that we can’t find someone for you? C’mon.

Here’s another stupid lie: God doesn’t really love me when I mess up. Heck even imperfect people like me manage to love others, even after they’ve made mistakes. I’m supposed to think that a God who says about himself, “I AM LOVE”, somehow is less loving than I can be?

These lies are so stupid, that by simply saying them out loud, they start to fall apart and lose their power. So all that’s over now. The cure is simple: anything that steals my joy, I’m gonna say out loud what that thing is. Your lies are too stupid to work in the cold light of day.

In Jesus name,

Me

P.S. Bite down on that and suck it.

I just spent the past couple minutes looking at myself in the mirror, and then I thought, who on earth really likes their own body? Everybody looks and sees something they’d like to change. Then I thought, who could get all of us thinking about the meaningless surface of things? And that made me think of your nasty little red butt.

I mean, ultimately we need only one person on earth to see us as physically attractive, and that’s our future spouse. But here’s the funny news about that— if that spouse is truly worthy of us, they’d be attracted to us regardless of how we looked. Sure, I should look at my weight and ask if I would be healthier if I lost a few pounds, but if I lost a few pounds, it’s not like I’d start looking like a movie star.

But it’s just like you to get me looking at my wallet, or my grades, or my image in the mirror to tell me what I’m worth. All along you’ve been counting on me thinking of this flesh as the real me. But you know full well that I’m actually a spirit being, wrapped in a suit of flesh. That suit is temporary, imperfect, and all too soon it’s subject to rapid decline. My flesh is the only part of me that will ever die, and I say good riddance.

I am spirit. I seek things of the spirit to satisfy me, I seek to make spiritual connections with others, I seek to have a more beautiful soul. You know what Satan? You can have this ugly world, and all the fixation on external beauty, I can’t compete, and why would I? What would it gain me? Shoot, this world isn’t my home anyway, I’m in my way to eternity in Paradise without this body.

In Jesus name,
Me

P.S. I’ll see ya there. Oh wait, I won’t, huh?

You sure do spend a lot of time trying to get me to feel bad about myself. And not just bad, but somehow…just not what God is looking for. Like I don’t measure up, and I never could measure up. But here’s the thing, if that was really true, why are you pressin’ that dang button so hard? Huh?

You keep telling me I’m doomed, and that it’s too late, and God has had enough of all my screw-ups… But what’s to stop me from going to God, and asking for forgiveness right now? What’s He going to say? “Well, if you had come yesterday that would have been okay, but today, no forgiveness for you!”. That sounds more like the Soup Nazi than Jesus. …Do y’all get Seinfeld reruns in Hell?

Anyway, I think you want me to feel disqualified because you’re afraid I’ll realize that Jesus died for sinners, and I certainly qualify in that department.  I can’t measure up, that’s why Jesus measured up for me. You want me to feel like it’s too late because you’re worried I’ll find out that as long as I’m on the green side of the grass, it’s never too late.

I mean it is too late for YOU (ooh snap!). But ya wanna know what kind of people God is looking for? Lost sheep. God stands at my door and knocks homey, all I have to do is open it.

In Jesus name,
Me

P.S. I think maybe you’re loosing your touch bro, you played this one so hard you made it all seem pretty obvious. 

Every now and then I find myself really freaking out about a certain sin. Like, THIS sin, this one is a game-changer. This sin says I’m not a real Christian, this sin says that God just can’t be okay with me. This sin just disqualifies me completely. But then I wonder, where do I get this idea? Where does it say that THIS particular sin is a deal-breaker?

Then I thought of you.

I mean, you actually want to tempt me with something on one end, and then condemn me for it on the other end. Heck, I wonder how much time you spend tempting me to screw up (which I can do well enough on my own), and how much time you spend trying to get me to see my sin in a screwed up way? Heck, I can’t hardly think of any sin I’ve committed, where I haven’t swallowed every word of shame, guilt, and fear that you whispered in my ear about it.

Isn’t it a sin to let you interpret my sin? Hmm? What’s that? You got all quiet there for a sec. Yeah, it’s bad enough that I mess things up, so when I do, I’m going to God, and I’m going to listen to what He says about my sin. And you know what? His words will set me free. His words will give me the wisdom and strength to make changes. His words will give me comfort. And when He says I’m forgiven, that will be that last word on the subject. Period.

In Jesus name,
Me

P.S. Suck on that.

Hey guess what I just learned about you? If you can’t pull me out, you’ll push me deeper in. If you can’t keep me from going to church, you’ll keep me in church so much that I don’t have any time to serve other people and share the Gospel with them. If I set out to serve others, you’ll keep me so busy doing that, I won’t have any time for church.

I can see now that the whole key is balance, and I’ll bet that word chaps your little red butt. If I have faith but no wisdom, I’ll boldly strike out, flailing around, and end up making a mess off things. And if I have total wisdom, but no faith to act on it, what good does that wisdom do me?

I actually owe you an apology, I often accused you of just wanting bad things for me, but you’d actually encourage me to max out on one good thing, in order to ignore all the other good things I need to be focused on. Anything to keep me caught up and run aground, huh? This frenzied mania, this “target-lock”, this desperate obsession is the problem. I should have known something was up when peace and joy left the dang building. I won’t be this easy to fool next time, I promise.

In Jesus name,
Me

P.S. Bite me.

You had me going there for a minute. Things started looking pretty bad, like dang. Things looked like maybe I’d be stuck with this for the rest of my life. But then I remembered that making things look bad is pretty much the only trick you have. I mean, it’s not like you could stop me. If you could stop me, I’d be stopped, right? I mean, you don’t want me to rise up and kick your little red butt (like we both know is gonna happen) so if you could take me out, I’d already be took out.  All you can do is make it LOOK like God’s plan for my life isn’t gonna happen. All you can do is make it LOOK like my blessing is gonna pass me by. And I have to admit, ya had me goin’ for a second, but then I remembered that I’m supposed to walk by faith and not by sight, so it never matters what it looks like. My eyes will deceive me, but my God never will. As 2 Corinthians 4:18 says: “what is seen in temporary, what is unseen is eternal.” This mess I’m dealing with, it’s really just temporary, and my God will bring me out of it, whereas you… well, you’re still screwed.