8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)
Let’s not be deceived. Lions are beautiful, powerful, and made for killing. They are dangerous but pretty animals. The beauty can be deceiving. And so, it is with Satan. We don’t naturally recognize this enemy until we see him for what he really is.
Jesus and Peter do not describe devil as dark or scary but as beautiful beings-lions, angels of light.
The devil is the father of lies and his approach to us is the trick of indulging us so that we are led to an addiction, a hurt, habit, or hang up.
We can’t find a way out of bondage until we see it’s a spiritual battle we are in.
Spiritual battles have physical consequences. Consider your own life, when have you paid the price for a repeated wrong pattern of behavior? For me, it is weight issues. No matter how I try and conquer the battle of the bulge-it seems I never win the war. I picked that external evidence but some of us have battles that no one would guess we fight. The truth is we are all recovering from something.
We have to know what we are fighting against and can’t defeat on our own.
Jesus has the victory. We have no fear of losing when we share our battles with Christ.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:31; 37 (NIV)
IF GOD BE FOR US, IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER WHO IS AGAINST US!
Let’s Pray:
Dear God,
You are all powerful. You know me; You know the battles I fight. Help me to win the war against the devil. God, please purify my heart and mind. Help me to have a clean spirit controlled by the Holy Spirit. Help me to be more than a conqueror over the issues in my life. Thank You God. I pray in the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.