He Will Take Care of the Rest

James 4:7-8 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

In yesterday's devotional we spoke of avoiding friendship with the world and the devils. Today, I would like us to consider how to repel that pesky devil and his demons. First, I will say this...I do not read anywhere in God's Word where He instructs any of us to rebuke the devil. Jude 9 even tells us, "Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you!'" In Acts 19 some itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the Name of Jesus over some evil spirit. The result was that in verses 15 we are told, "And the evil spirit answered and said, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?' Verse 16 (my summary) essentially tells us that the evil spirit left the man it possessed, leaped on the Jewish exorcists, beat them, and sent them running, naked and wounded. So, we might want to rethink the whole rebuking thing that God never instructed us to do. Instead, God gave us the perfect strategy to make the devils get away from us. He simply told us to push the devil(s) back by...listen now...by putting ourselves under submission to God, and getting closer to Him. In other words, we are to become obedient to God and His Word, and focus on increasing our intimacy with Jesus. Note that there is nothing in there about rebuking Satan. God tells us that if we submit ourselves to Him and draw near to Him, He promises to draw closer to us. The devils will see God's overwhelming presence in our lives, and will tuck their tails and run the other way. However, let me issue this warning. The devil is described as a lion, going to and fro, seeking whom he may devour. This means that he will flee, but then crouch, watch, and wait. He will wait for fickle, inconsistent, little us to fall back into our comfort zone, where we will begin, once again, to stop reading our Bible, and spending less time in prayer. The key to keeping the enemy at bay is to maintain an intimate relationship with Jesus, because only God can overpower the devils, and they know it! So, the next time we are tempted to rebuke the devils when they start acting up, we might want to rethink our strategy, and instead take it as a pretty good indicator that we have strayed from the One we should be submitted to every day. We need to heed God's warning to be sober, be vigilant, submit and draw near to Him. He will take care of the rest.

Today, God extends an invitation to you to accept His free gift of salvation (Rom 6:23). Will you accept it? Anyone who calls on Jesus, by faith, in repentance, confessing your sins, will receive eternal life. Do not put off calling on Him, and receive Him and His free gift of salvation today (Rom 10:13).