Passage of the Day: 1st Peter 5: 8 - 9 … 8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
My Journal for Today: Having been in discipleship ministry now for many years, dealing with Satan’s stronghold of habitual sexual sin, I’ve always been drawn to the imagery of this passage. Here Peter gives believers a clear perspective on the devil’s role in the trials and temptations of life. And, I’m afraid, all too often, Christians come to feel that Satan is winning the war as he stalks us, roaring so loudly as to scare believers into thinking that his strength exceeds that of God, Himself.
It’s a lie from hell [!] into which we believers cannot be suckered. If we fall for it, like the stalking cat, the enemy will pounce on us and devour our testimonies and our witness. As Christians, we can take heed from the truths below about our prowling foe and the Lord Whom we follow …
SCRIPTURE: 1st John 4: 4 … You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them [the forces of evil], because the One Who is in you [i.e., the Holy Spirit] is greater than the one [Satan] who is in the world.
SCRIPTURE: James 4: 7 … Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
SCRIPTURE: 1st Cor. 10: 13 … No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
These, and other scripture passages like Is. 41: 10, Phil. 4: 13, 2nd Cor. 12: 9, Rom. 8: 31, and 2nd Tim. 1: 7, which I have embedded into my heart/mind over the years of discipleship, give me ample evidence and encouragement, from God’s own word, that we can, as Christians, always choose God’s way and resist Satan … even with the expectation of victory in this life (and most certainly the glorified victory in the next). An unbeliever or even a discouraged Christian cannot tell me that this is untrue; because I have experienced and walked in this truth for decades now.
We should take heart from the confrontation that Jesus had in the wilderness with the stalking enemy, recounted in Matthew 4 and/or Luke 4. Most certainly Jesus was/is the God-Man. However, as believing, born-again Christians, we can invoke the same power of God’s word from God’s Spirit to do what Paul claimed for believers; and that is to take captive of every thought to the obedience of Christ (see 2nd Cor. 10: 5).
Yes, we are in a spiritual war (see Eph. 6: 10 – 13); … BUT … we need not fear (again Romans 8: 31, 2nd Tim. 1: 7, and/or Isaiah 41: 10). We have the power to overcome and be overcomers like our Savior (see John 16: 33). God has given us access by His grace to his full armor as well as the high ground of prayer in the Spirit (see Eph. 6: 13 – 18). And as long as we stand with these, we will prevail!
I truly hope – and will pray below – that you know – AND BELIEVE – all the scriptures I’ve quoted above for my journal entry today. Because you have a roaring lion, in Satan, stalking you. No, not all of the tough circumstances of life are created by the stalking devil; but many of our trials are either his ploys or the result of our own ill-begotten choices. And we can/will only be overcomers IF we know and believe in those citations from God’s word which I’ve cited above. So, I pray that we all can be victorious against Satan in life as was our Savior in the wilderness (again, go read the first verses of Matt. 4 and/or Luke 4 for that story).
My Prayer Today: Lord, we who know You as Savior, stand with You, as our enemy stalks us. Help us to know and believe and use Your word to do battle with him. Amen
Showing posts with label Satan's devices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Satan's devices. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Thursday, August 06, 2009
2009 – Day 217.Aug 06 – The Accuser
Passage of the Day: Job 1: 1 – 12 … Linked for study …
My Journal for Today: I hope you have read through and meditated upon today’s highlight passage, again the first 12 verses in the Book of Job. Because, in these first few paragraphs, some rather disturbing and puzzling truths unfold.
The first one is that Job was a good man, a believer and follower of God … par excellence. In modern day Christian comparison, he would be considered a husband of the decade, a blessed and successful business man, and father of the year, year after year, all wrapped up into one package. And then we’re given a glimpse into the inner workings of heaven; and what we read – at least to me – is somewhat puzzling and very unsettling.
We see God interacting with Satan; and not surprisingly, though the beautiful, powerful, fallen angel is doing all he can to challenge his creator, the Lord God, with accusing schemes, this banished creature is given what Chuck Swindoll calls a permission slip to do evil against Job’s life. And have you ever really thought about that? Here, poor, unwitting Job goes to sleep at night thinking that all is right with the world and with His God, and when he wakes up in the morning all hell, literally, breaks loose around him. So, what’s that all about?!
And we clearly see from this biblical scenario, that God, at times, plans and interacts with Satan, to carry out a scenario which involves seemingly unjustified and unfair actions in the lives of believers; and we haven’t a clue what’s going on. In fact such circumstances, which we can’t explain, will, as we’ll see with Job, challenge our faith and make us wonder even about the character of the Living God.
But as I ponder this rather frightening proposition, my mind brought forth a wonderful, but very challenging truth from Isaiah 55: 8-9, which says, …
“ For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
This is God speaking to Isaiah, letting him know that there are just some things which God does, in His far reaching scheme to bring mankind to Himself and to recreate us in His image, which we simply will never understand in our natural, rational way of thinking. And yes, sometimes those purposes and plans involve Satan, even to the point of giving him permission to do things which we consider WAY out of bounds, unfair, and downright evil.
My friends, when I think about what’s going on in this world right now, I sometimes feel like Habakkuk and how he must’ve felt when he came to God in Chapter 1 of the book named after this Prophet. Habakkuk was, in essence, asking, “God, what is going on? Why are You allowing all this evil to go on in the world?” And if you read the rest of the book, you see that God gave Habakkuk a lesson in faith, showing him that God can, and often does, allow things to get worse before they are rectified. And Habakkuk learned, what Job will ultimately learn, … that God will – in the end – ALWAYS make things right. And we, who know Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of this truth, can certainly take that truth to the bank.
But then, as I really think about all of this, I stand in awe of the realization, that God even allows evil people to do very evil things, maybe even for a long time; and then the Lord allows them, by His grace, to be received into the family of God. Think of the anti-Jobian case of John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, who sold slaves before he repented of that evil. Or there was the supposed conversion of Ted Bundy, who was reported to have repented and received Christ as Savior and Lord only hours before he was executed for brutally murdering all those young women. And finally I think of how God patiently waited on yours truly, allowing me to live a double-life of habitual sexual sin for 22 years; and after all the damage I did, the Lord allowed me to receive His saving grace and enter the family of God and to become an ordained minister of His gospel. … As the kids would say these days, … What’s that all about?
Yes, my dear friend, there is much about God’s plan and purpose, we can’t understand; and there’s much about his allowing Satan to work in the world that we simply cannot accept in our human reasoning. But God truth, though it’s mysterious, is God’s truth; and His plan is HIS plan. Again I say, as I do often, “God is God; and we are not.” And we need to learn that lesson if we’re going to be living out our lives, dealing with Satan, and desiring to know and serve God in an ever darkening world.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, though I may not understand Your ways all the time, Your ways are Yours; and may I always accept them as being for my good. Amen
My Journal for Today: I hope you have read through and meditated upon today’s highlight passage, again the first 12 verses in the Book of Job. Because, in these first few paragraphs, some rather disturbing and puzzling truths unfold.
The first one is that Job was a good man, a believer and follower of God … par excellence. In modern day Christian comparison, he would be considered a husband of the decade, a blessed and successful business man, and father of the year, year after year, all wrapped up into one package. And then we’re given a glimpse into the inner workings of heaven; and what we read – at least to me – is somewhat puzzling and very unsettling.
We see God interacting with Satan; and not surprisingly, though the beautiful, powerful, fallen angel is doing all he can to challenge his creator, the Lord God, with accusing schemes, this banished creature is given what Chuck Swindoll calls a permission slip to do evil against Job’s life. And have you ever really thought about that? Here, poor, unwitting Job goes to sleep at night thinking that all is right with the world and with His God, and when he wakes up in the morning all hell, literally, breaks loose around him. So, what’s that all about?!
And we clearly see from this biblical scenario, that God, at times, plans and interacts with Satan, to carry out a scenario which involves seemingly unjustified and unfair actions in the lives of believers; and we haven’t a clue what’s going on. In fact such circumstances, which we can’t explain, will, as we’ll see with Job, challenge our faith and make us wonder even about the character of the Living God.
But as I ponder this rather frightening proposition, my mind brought forth a wonderful, but very challenging truth from Isaiah 55: 8-9, which says, …
“ For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
This is God speaking to Isaiah, letting him know that there are just some things which God does, in His far reaching scheme to bring mankind to Himself and to recreate us in His image, which we simply will never understand in our natural, rational way of thinking. And yes, sometimes those purposes and plans involve Satan, even to the point of giving him permission to do things which we consider WAY out of bounds, unfair, and downright evil.
My friends, when I think about what’s going on in this world right now, I sometimes feel like Habakkuk and how he must’ve felt when he came to God in Chapter 1 of the book named after this Prophet. Habakkuk was, in essence, asking, “God, what is going on? Why are You allowing all this evil to go on in the world?” And if you read the rest of the book, you see that God gave Habakkuk a lesson in faith, showing him that God can, and often does, allow things to get worse before they are rectified. And Habakkuk learned, what Job will ultimately learn, … that God will – in the end – ALWAYS make things right. And we, who know Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of this truth, can certainly take that truth to the bank.
But then, as I really think about all of this, I stand in awe of the realization, that God even allows evil people to do very evil things, maybe even for a long time; and then the Lord allows them, by His grace, to be received into the family of God. Think of the anti-Jobian case of John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, who sold slaves before he repented of that evil. Or there was the supposed conversion of Ted Bundy, who was reported to have repented and received Christ as Savior and Lord only hours before he was executed for brutally murdering all those young women. And finally I think of how God patiently waited on yours truly, allowing me to live a double-life of habitual sexual sin for 22 years; and after all the damage I did, the Lord allowed me to receive His saving grace and enter the family of God and to become an ordained minister of His gospel. … As the kids would say these days, … What’s that all about?
Yes, my dear friend, there is much about God’s plan and purpose, we can’t understand; and there’s much about his allowing Satan to work in the world that we simply cannot accept in our human reasoning. But God truth, though it’s mysterious, is God’s truth; and His plan is HIS plan. Again I say, as I do often, “God is God; and we are not.” And we need to learn that lesson if we’re going to be living out our lives, dealing with Satan, and desiring to know and serve God in an ever darkening world.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, though I may not understand Your ways all the time, Your ways are Yours; and may I always accept them as being for my good. Amen
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