There’s a famous painting that shows a king playing chess with the devil. Satan sits across from him with a smirk on his face, believing he has the king in checkmate. The king looks worried, sweating, with his hand on his head as he studies the board. But here’s the thing – the king never should have sat down at that chess table in the first place.
We do this same thing in our spiritual lives. We think we can get close to sin and still come out winning. We love the thrill of seeing just how close we can get to the edge without falling off. But Satan is a master at this game, and he’s been playing it far longer than we have. He doesn’t care if he wins through checkmate or through the poisonous spider sitting on the table that the king doesn’t even notice. As long as he can destroy us, that’s all that matters to him.
The scary part is how Satan makes his moves look attractive. His chess pieces don’t look quite right if you examine them closely, but when we’re caught up in the game, we don’t notice. We get so focused on the thrill that we miss the danger right in front of us. This happens with our phones, our entertainment, our relationships – things that aren’t necessarily wrong in themselves but can become doorways to places we shouldn’t go.
But here’s the hope in this whole picture: as long as we have life, we still have one more move available to us. There’s an angel in the painting, watching over the game, because God is interested in every decision we make. A master chess player once studied this painting for hours and discovered that the king actually does have a winning move – he just can’t see it from where he’s sitting.
That winning move for us is Jesus Christ. We don’t have to stay trapped in Satan’s game. Today is the day we can choose to step away from that chess table and surrender our hearts completely to God. The question isn’t whether we’re strong enough to beat the devil – we’re not. The question is whether we’re willing to let God fight the battle for us.