{"id":29378,"date":"2020-12-15T03:30:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T11:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=29378"},"modified":"2020-12-13T13:41:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T21:41:12","slug":"december-15-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2020\/12\/15\/december-15-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"December 15, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep\u2019s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”\u00a0<\/i>Matthew 7:15<\/p>\n

The Spider and the Bee<\/b><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Look closely, very closely\u2014can you see it? Camouflaged within the white flower, to the left of the honey bee, is a white spider with just a smidge of orange stripe to it.\u00a0 Clever.<\/p>\n

My husband and I were out on a four-wheeler ride high in the mountains last spring, when we stopped at a beautiful creek to have lunch. I ambled down to the water\u2019s edge where I saw a lovely, white flowering bush, the type that often grows along streams in northern California. Actually, what caught my eye first was the honey bee, large and in plain sight, but as I watched him gather pollen for his hive, my eyes were soon <\/span>drawn to a streak of orange and the ominous outline of a white spider above the bee. In perfect camouflage, it patiently waited, ready to nab unsuspecting insects.<\/p>\n

At the bottom of the flower stems, I noticed a haphazard heap of honey bees on the ground\u2014they were alive but the poor things seemed paralyzed. Apparently, the spider had jumped his prey when they got too close, injecting them with his toxic venom. The unsuspecting honey bees eventually tumbled to the ground, where the spider would later have his feast. It was sad to see that so many bees had fallen into his trap.<\/p>\n

This whole spectacle got me thinking about how the Bible warns us of the wolves that are out there seeking to devour the sheep (us). Perfectly disguised, yet something amiss, like the spider on the flower, it may be just one little streak of orange that is off, but off <\/i>it is, and needs to be avoided at all costs or, sadly, peril awaits.<\/p>\n

The Bible gives us a huge clue about identifying these dangerous wolves who may cross our path: “You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?”\u00a0<\/i>(Matthew 7:16). It should be very apparent to us and look as strange as mismatched thistles, thorns and fruit.<\/p>\n

So why then do so many fall prey to obvious distortions of Bible truth? I surmise that it lies with the analogy of the spider and the bee. The spider remains hidden from view, until just the right moment, to inject his venom which finally renders the bee powerless. Slowly, Mr. Bee loses control of his senses, his natural protective instincts, and he is trapped. He can\u2019t fly, he can\u2019t walk away, he lies motionless and eventually falls in a heap at the bottom of the ever so beautiful flower where he stopped to dine. Not a pretty picture.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, we know we aren\u2019t to walk in fear of “what\u2019s out there”, but we do know You give us spiritual discernment. We need this gift more than ever in these perilous days. Open our eyes to what\u2019s harmful to our spirits and against Your ways. Thank You, Jesus, amen!<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-7DQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29381,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29378\/revisions\/29381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}