Have you ever driven a car that needed a front end alignment? Somehow one front tire was no longer parallel to the other.  Tires usually get out of alignment by hitting curbs,  dropping into potholes, or experiencing a fender bender.  As you drive the front end begins to vibrate (sometimes intensely), the tires wear out quickly, and even breaking can be affected.  If it is severe enough, the car is practically undriveable. When you start to feel the front end shutter, it’s time to go to an alignment shop where they will make adjustments or replace parts so your front wheels are perfectly parallel again and going in the same direction.

As believers, we need to check our own spiritual alignment, from time to time, to see if we are going in the same direction as Jesus.  Misalignment with Jesus can wear us out and damage us.  Those places in our lives that are not parallel with Jesus, give Satan an opening in our lives to afflict and oppress. Sometimes when we have gone through a stretch of rough road in our lives or have hit a few speed bumps hard, our alignment can drift.  Let me suggest a couple of things we need to inspect to make sure we are still on track.

For most of us, our alignment begins to suffer in areas that are not what we think of as overt sins…adultery, pornography, excessive drinking, drug addiction, embezzlement, abuse, etc.  To be sure, faithful Christians can fall into the snare of the devil and find themselves in these deep weeds of sin wondering how they got there. If we were to examine ourselves we would quickly identify those areas as something that needed repentance and immediate realignment. The people in our lives who cared about us would also point those things out for our benefit.

In many cases, however, Satan prefers to be more subtle.  We just finished a Freedom Weekend where fifty or so people spent an entire afternoon getting free from demonic oppression of one form or another.  Some had entered in through trauma or seasons of sin in their lives.  They were very aware of the oppression that had been coming from those spirits. But others had been oppressed and afflicted for decades and had come to assume that their struggle was just the fabric of life about which nothing could be done…years of anxiety, depression, people pleasing, self-loathing, and so forth. So often we need to look at the not-so-apparent sin to see where we are out of alignment and where the enemy has established a subtle stronghold in our lives.

To begin, the great sin of Israel that God rebuked over and over was idolatry.  That is easy to identify if we are bowing down before graven images and going up to the temples of false Gods to offer sacrifices. But in America, our gods  – the things we put before the God of Heaven – are more difficult to identify because they are an accepted part of our culture.  An idol is anything that we give a greater priority to than God.  It is an alternate source of idenitfy, security, provision, and protection that we go to rather than looking to Jesus.

Many of these idols are even good things when kept in perspective.  We all need a job to provide for our families and to help others in need.  But how many have placed careers ahead of Jesus, ahead of spiritual family, and even our biological family.   No one seems concerned when we can’t worship together or serve in the kingdom because we have to work. Sometimes, we have no choice, but more often we choose it by choosing the career and we choose the career because we want more money, a bigger house, a boat, a fully decked out pickup, and everything our children want that we didn’t have. Our career and our possessions become our identity – our source of significance rather than God.

Nothing is wrong with any of those things by themselves, but when they take priority over God and the Bride of Christ (his church) month after month, they have become “acceptable idols.”  And yet, we always feel justified in our choice to put Jesus after our career, after our recreation, after our children’s activities, and so forth because the good people in our culture approve.  Yet Jesus was very clear that if we don’t put him above everything else in this life, we cannot be his disciple.  A good look at our time, our expenditures, and our involvements might reveal an idolatry we don’t really want to acknowledge.

A second area in which the enemy thrives is in our words. Remember Jesus said that on the Day of Judgment, we will have to give account for every careless word we have spoken. When we come into agreement with Satan through angry, cynical, unbelieving, and judgmental words, we open the door for him.  Ephesians 4:29 counsels us to let no unwholesome talk come out of our mouths but only words that are good for building others up.  We often justify our negative talk and judgments we place on others by assuming they deserve what we said. However,  there are no “unless they deserve it” clauses in God’s command to bless and not curse even our enemies. Gossip, constant criticism, angry outbursts, constant criticism, judgmental statements, etc. also constitute open doors.

Another open door I have become sensitive to lately is the door of non-submission. Scripture clearly commands that we are to be submitted to Jesus, to leaders, children to parents, wives to husbands, employee to employers, etc.  And yet, how many of us are unsubmitted…especially, in our hearts.  The core of Satan’s fall was rebellion…a refusal to submit.  When we rebel against God’s order of authority, we rebel against him.  Certainly, when we come into agreement with the devil on this matter, we provide a legal right for him to attack us.

Finally, I think another open door that few of us consider is a low level of holiness in our lives. On several occasions, scripture calls us to be holy even as He is holy.  We are commanded to avoid the unclean things in the world around us.  But certainly, many of us  compromise holiness with the things we watch, read, listen to, sometimes the people we spend time with, and the environments we frequent.  Remember Paul’s admonition, “Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor. 6:17-18).  We may want to take a holiness inventory, from time to time, to see how well we are aligned with the holiness of God.  Misalignment there, will also be an invitation to the enemy.

I’m not advocating a spiritual paranoia but I am encouraging us to take an inventory from time to time to see where carelessness, rationalizations, and idolatry may be subtle, but over time will allow the enemy entrance into our lives.  We will want to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those areas to us and bring conviction where it is needed.  In the natural world, we keep our doors and windows locked, set up security systems and keep our homes well lit at night.  Perhaps, we (myself included) need to be as diligent in the spiritual realm where the stakes are even higher.