Verse of the day: 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
When it comes to spiritual warfare we must have a balanced view of our enemy. Sadly, too many people (Christians included) have allowed the television to be their teacher in respect to who Satan is, what he looks like, and what he is capable of. For us, the born again believer, our knowledge of both the earthly and spiritual things should come from God’s Word. Satan is, and demons are, real. He is not a made up, fictitious, character. He is not red, with horns, carrying a pitchfork. He does not live in hell (which was created for the punishment of the devil and his angels; Matt 25:41), but as the Apostle Peter plainly states it, he walks about seeking to do us harm. This fact is also verified by Satan himself, who tells God that this is what he is doing, when questioned in the Book of Job (Job 1:7). He is a created being, a fallen angel. He is powerful, but not omnipotent. He was created with talent, wisdom and beauty (Eze 28:11-15), and sadly, it is what he uses today to draw many away from God. His pride caused his fall (Is 14:12-15), and now he and his demons do all they can to keep us from believing in God, and from accepting Jesus as Savior. His desire is to destroy us. Even as Christians, he does whatever he can to distract us and keep us from truly serving God, praying, and living for the Lord. He wants to make us useless for the Lord’s purposes (Lk 22:31). The devils are not to be taken lightly, but we are not to be preoccupied with them or give them more credit than what is do when things go wrong, and bad things happen to us or to someone we love. We are not to be paranoid, but we are to be aware of the fact that the devil is looking to do us harm, as the Apostle Peter warns in this verse. So how do we build up our defenses so that we can equal the playing field in our battle against the enemy(ies)? James tells us that if we resist the devil, he will flee (Jm 4:7). However, both James and Peter are specific about what it means to resist the devil. Peter tells us in this chapter that we must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, bringing all our cares to Him (v. 6). James tells us that we are to draw near to God, and God will draw near to us (Jm 4:8). In other words, the best way to overcome the devils’ attacks is humility. We are to concentrate our efforts to humbling ourselves, in obedience to God and His Word. In doing this, we give the battle over to the Lord (where it belongs) as we are instructed in Ephesians 6:10 to be strong in the power of God’s might. We would be foolish to think that we can defeat Satan at what he has been doing since the creation of man (Gen 3). The bottom line is that every day when we wake and go out into the world, we go out into the battlefield. We must remind ourselves that regardless of what we may face on any given day, our God is greater than our enemy (1 John 4:4). God, in knowing that we would encounter opposition in the world, and knowing that our enemy would be on the attack, has provided us with the equipment we need to stay in the fight. Ephesians 6 describes for us the armor that we have been given, to put on every day, to affect our victory on this battlefield called life. Tomorrow, we will begin a short series on the Armor of God, and how by putting it on, we are in actually putting on Christ, who is really the One who is fighting on our behalf, if only we will get out of His way.
Without the Lord, we are helpless against the devil. He wants each person ever created to suffer eternally, as he will when God judges both man and the devils. However, God’s desire is that none would perish, but that all would be saved (2 Peter 3:9). However, in order to receive eternal life, we must call on Jesus, by faith, repenting and confessing our sins, and accepting His free gift of salvation (Rom 6:23; 10:13). Would you call on Him today?
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