Before there was any fall color or the slightest hint of fall temperatures in my part of the world, homes all around me – from modest bungalows to million dollar estates – were transformed by decorations of spider webs, goblins, sheet-clad ghost figures, ghouls and images of human carnage.

For weeks, lawns have been littered with towering skeletons, creepy skulls, motion-triggered recordings of howls and witch cackles, the likenesses of animal carcasses and half-butchered bodies. Any day now children outfitted as zombies, their faces lined with fake blood or painted to resemble a corpse, will be marched through streets and shopping malls to collect sweets – all the while being desensitized to the horrors of death.

This is Halloween in America. This year, it’s expected to generate a record $13.1 Billion in sales of costumes, candy, decorations and such.

Notwithstanding the profits and friendly ads for “fright night” fun houses, there is nothing remotely fun about actual death or dying. (Visit a crime scene, a hospital emergency room, or a cancer treatment center if you’re not sure.) Halloween imagery is fraught with contradiction as it repurposes as harmless fun what folklore historicallly considered demonic. Ghouls, for example, were considered by ancients to be evil spirits, grave-robbing cannibals that fed on dead bodies and children.

To depict death as charming, playful and somehow appealingly is a monstrous lie. Jesus said lies have but one source: the devil. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44b)

Why do people who claim to follow Christ invest in celebrating lies and death? They are deceived, their minds led astray. The Bible calls satan “the deceiver of the whole world.” (Revelation 12:9)

Satan seeks to deceive us into embracing death. Jesus, on the other hand, offers rescue from a death sentence justly earned. “For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Whenever and wherever death and destruction are glorified, that is the work of the devil.

Jesus plainly said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

Death is no friend. It is the last enemy to be destroyed. (1 Corinthians 15:26) God’s desire is that no one should perish, that we “not die but live and declare the works of the Lord.” (Psalm 118:17)

God has provided a way to escape death by choosing the One who died that we may live. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

This is good news worth celebrating. If you agree, consider being among the outliers in the neighborhood. Enjoy the fall foliage, have some hot cider or just enjoy a good meal, and give thanks. No scary costumes, no grotesque images, no tricks: just gratitude for the gift of life, love and truth.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)