Monkey Business

  An interesting system has been used for capturing monkeys in the jungles of Africa. The goal is to take the monkeys alive and unharmed for shipment to zoos of America. In an extremely humane way, the captors use heavy bottles, with long narrow necks, into which they deposit a handful of sweet-smelling nuts. The bottles are dropped on the jungle floor, and the captors return the next morning to find a monkey trapped next to each bottle.

  How is it accomplished? The monkey, attracted by the aromatic scent of the nuts, comes to investigate the bottle, tries to grab the nuts, and is trapped. The monkey can't take its hand out of the bottle as long it's holding the nuts, but it is unwilling to open its hand and let them go. The bottle is too heavy to carry away, so the monkey is trapped. 

  We may laugh at the foolish monkey but we are often “trapped" by Satan the same way. We cling to the pleasures of the world so tightly, that we refuse to let go, and do the will of God. Jesus said in Luke 14:33 “ Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple” Is their anything we are holding on to that is keeping us trapped by Satan and away from God?