Jesus came with a mission to reveal our Father and God. Peter described it in the simplest terms: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. Acts 38:10

By His actions Jesus plainly showed God's mercy and compassion. He took away the actual sicknesses and torments of real people. And, He took away their sins.

. . . So that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. That's how Jesus explained all that He did, and why.

Jesus literally applied God's mercy to people in the condition they were in. Their pains and anguish broke His heart. So, He broke off from them the malevolent source of their afflictions. He meant to help them right there - not somewhere else. He showed that God's extreme power is actualized through a Father's compassion. Jesus commanded and expected His followers to do just what He did; to do it the same way and for the same reason.

Awesome power is fearsome. But power steeped in compassion and mercy is endearing, overwhelming, irresistible.

Mission assigned.

When the devils gathered, they too, had a mission. They knew they could not lie to us directly about the vast and present powers of God's mercy expressed by Jesus Christ. The Bible account was written. They must distort and diminish and denigrate Jesus' revelation.

So, they conjured a scheme to engage some unwitting accomplices. They would set in motion high sounding, reasoned and scholarly notions about the goodness of God while stealing from Him the opportunity to display that mercy in any practical or immediate way.

They would frame God's mercy in this manner: "See how merciful is our God that He forgives our sins even though we persist in them and are unfaithful. See how kind, that He should grant us everlasting life with the promise of release from tears and torment, suffering and disease."

They would insist that God is good and merciful, but ascribe the highest merit to 'true' believers whose 'nobler' faith resigns to endure the enemy's brutality, and trusts that God will make it all better . . . someday.

And wouldn't this message best be proclaimed to genuine sons and daughters of God by their own leaders? And shall it not be sanctioned and perpetuated through the hierarchy of protectors, definers, and explainers of their faith, so they are prone to believe it?

Mission creep.