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Don't be duped! If I told you someone was going to climb through your bedroom window at 1:17am, grab your wallet, your watch and your cell phone, would you get your guard up? You probably wouldn’t think I was serious, say ‘yeah right,’ and snuggle into your warm comfortable bed for a good night’s sleep. What if it did happen? What if you woke up and found that your wallet, your watch and your cell were gone? If it did happen, you’d be duped. That’s what. Duped: conned, deceived, jerked around, fooled, played, tricked. While these other words kind of give an idea of duped, they miss one important thing: to be duped is to see it coming, yet get hit. ----------- If I told you I got news that someone was after you, that someone wanted to destroy you, that someone wanted to drag you into the depths of hell and was going to use all the resources available to do it, would you believe me? What if Allah told you, would you believe Him? What if that someone himself said it, would you believe it? Check it out, Satan said: “I will make things on earth seem attractive to them (mankind) and lead all of them to error, except those of Your servants whom You have singled out for Yourself.” (Quran 15:39-40) Satan has explained it clear enough: we, mankind, have a sworn enemy. So what do we do about it? Well for one, DON’T BE DUPED! ... The Defense - 5 Things to Realize 1. We Choose, the Power is Ours! Satan tries to convince us that we are just pawns in a plan that will play itself out. Allah is the Creator of all things, including men, women and their actions. We are the ‘doers’ of our actions, i.e. we choose to do certain things and not to do certain things. “We showed him the way: whether he be grateful or ungrateful (rests on his will).” (Quran 76:3) While Allah has the power to control our actions, He has given us guidance and left it up to us to follow it. Once we realize that we choose our actions, it only makes sense that we are accountable for what we do. 2. Dupe Check With Satan constantly attacking us, we need to check our choices so we please Allah and make it to paradise. How do we know if we are on track or headed for a wreck? We should always keep ourselves in check. But as the saying goes, ‘no one can be their own best critic’. That’s why it’s important to receive critiques from others with an open mind. No one likes to hear they’re doing something wrong, but we should take every opportunity we can to hold ourselves to account before we are held accountable by the All Seeing, All Hearing and All Knowing God. 3. The Ultimate
Reinforcement Satan admits he can’t win over those people who follow in the path of Allah. When we feel Satan’s whisper loosen our grip on what’s real and what really matters, we call for back-up: “O my Lord, I seek refuge with you from the evil ones. And I seek refuge with you, O my Lord, lest they should come near me.” (Quran 23:97-98) No matter how hard Satan hits, Allah’s got our back! 4. Been Duped?
Undupe! People aren’t perfect: we will make mistakes. Satan dupes us by making us think that minor sins aren’t important. So we might think, “What’s the big deal if I tell a ‘white lie’?” The fact is, lies are lies and sins are sins, and as the Prophet said, even minor sins, “if a person is called to account for them, will destroy him.” [Ahmad] So how do we repent for what we do wrong, whether minor or major? Recognize what’s wrong and stop doing it right away. Hate the action and regret that we ever did it. Be determined never to do the action again. If someone’s rights were violated by the action we should seek their forgiveness and set things right. While we may end up falling into the same trap again, we can always repent and get back on the straight path. Only those people who give up and continue to follow Satan are duped and truly losers. 5. With tough talk like, "then will I assault them from before them and behind them, from their right and their left" (Quran 7:17), Satan can seem intimidating. But we know from the Quran, on the Day of Judgment Satan will back down and double-cross those he duped: “It was Allah Who gave you a promise of Truth: I too promised, but I failed in my promise to you. I had no authority over you except to call you but you listened to me: then reproach not me, but reproach your own souls.” (Quran 14:22) Even now, while Satan thinks he’s all that, we can and have beat him. Just look at what the Prophet said to Umar Al-Khattab! "Never does Satan find you going on a way, but he takes another way other than yours." [Bukhari and Muslim] With these 5 points
in heart and mind, we’ve stacked our defense: It’s time to take the
offense! The Offense - Stay on track and fight the attack! 1. The Best Offense
is a Good Defense We can never pray enough for Allah’s help; the five daily prayers, a night of bonding in voluntary prayers or simply ask Allah for protection from Satan and dupedom. 2. Get the Guide Read, understand, absorb and live the Quran. It guides us
with examples of how people in the past dealt with Satan, it consoles us in our
struggle and it lights hope with the promise of paradise. [See, Quran: Your
Gateway to a 3. Follow the Leader While Satan strives to lead us astray, we should remember the example of the Prophet who was sent to guide us to the right way. If we practice like the Prophet, we too can defeat dupedom! 4. Get Stacked Don’t bear the brunt of the battle alone; you need the help of your friends. As the Prophet Muhammad said, “A person is likely to follow the faith of his friend, so look (carefully) whom you choose to befriend.” [Ahmad] A group of dummies are destined to be duped so find friends that feel the way you do about faith. [Check out Cool or Fool] 5. Never Stop Satan is relentless. He won’t stop until he has us on a one-way trip to hell. We need to be just as persistent in the resistance, always purifying our hearts and filling our minds with the remembrance of Allah. Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves: If You don’t forgive us and bestow Your mercy upon us, we will certainly be lost. http://web.youngmuslims.ca/resources/brochures/52-brochures/90-duped.html |
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