When my kids were little, they could count on receiving a handmade card and a little money in the mail every holiday. Their Great-Grandma was world class in investing into their lives even with a long distance relationship. It’s now part of her legacy that has outlived her. One particular holiday, instead of the typical dollar or two, they each received a 20 dollar bill in their card. The kids were so excited and couldn’t wait to go shopping. But one of my kids would never make it to the store to spend their money … there was trickery going on. My son is the oldest of my 3 kids who are each born 1 year apart. Logan was born to be a business man. He sees opportunity and he capitalizes. The boy has always been slick. He saw his naive youngest sister with $20 and nowhere to spend it at the moment, so he moves in for the sale. Logan gathers a collection of his broken, useless, unwanted old toys and says to Paola, “Pao, you can have all these toys, all of this right now, for your $20.” It looked like so much to her, and even more importantly it looked like something she could have right now instead of waiting for our next shopping trip, so she happily bought the trash with her new money. Later that day, we overheard Logan bragging about his $40 of spending money, and discovered the bad deal that had been made. My friend, have you made a bad deal? Have you unknowingly bought a plate of complete trash? Have you been tricked? Tricked into settling for far less than you were created for. Tricked into believing lies that simply are not true about you, but adopting them as your identity. Tricked into doing things you never wanted to do, but now here you are ashamed that you’re doing them. That’s the work of the devil. Satan is the deceiver. He’s the slimy snake who slithers his way in with complete trash for your life and convinces you to trade what you have for what he’s offering. That’s what he did to Eve in the garden. Genesis 3 tells how Satan showed up in the Garden of Eden and tricks Eve into eating the apple, and so sin entered the world. Eve didn’t intentionally sin. She didn’t wake up that day deciding she was going to rebel. She was tricked. Tricked by the deceiver. Tricked into trading her perfect life in the garden for the offer of knowing what she didn’t know by eating the one fruit God told her she couldn’t eat. And maybe this is what has happened to you. You too have been tricked. Tricked into some stupid choices that have created chaos in your life. Tricked into going down a path you never intended. You didn’t wake up one day thinking, “today is the day I’m going to really screw some things up”. You were tricked. Tricked into buying the trash offered by the enemy of your soul. And sweet girl, that’s how you end up with a trashy life. You buy the trash from the deceiver, the devil. You weren’t created for a trashy life. When God designed you, he had unbelievably good plans for you. He looked at you and called you his masterpiece. But, you have been deceived into believing there’s something wrong with you, you don’t belong, you’re broken, you’re too far gone, and this is all there is for you. But honey, that’s not the truth. The stories you’ve believed were crafted in the pits of hell. We also see how the enemy deceived one of Jesus’ closest friends. Judas has a bad name now, but before his big screw up, he was hand selected by Jesus to be one of his 12 disciples to personally learn from him. Jesus was training him. Judas knew who Jesus was.