Daily Java: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. (1 Peter 5:8-9).
Life in Christianity can sometimes take a bad turn and you wonder why. After all, you are serving God. Who can want you to stop?
We forget that there is an adversary who want to stop our relationship with God. He has tried to stop relationships with God from the beginning.
In the garden of Eden, he tried his best to stop the first real relationship with God that Adam and Eve had. He did a pretty good job, too, when it comes down to it.
From that moment on, humanity was separated from God and no longer had the relationship they had before. In fact, the very coming of Jesus was to repair that relationship rift that was created so long ago.
Each of us comes to that relationship rift with God when we begin to sin. And we come back through Jesus and his grace.
However, the devil does not want that. His whole mission is to tear and to break down. He looks for every opportunity he can get to do just that.
He walks around through our lives like a lion on the prowl looking for weakness. And he will exploit them in every circumstance and incidence he can.
On the one hand, he is nothing to laugh about. He can destroy those who are not careful and who do not have the hand of God on them.
But God is greater and you are not alone. It isn’t as if we fight this battle by ourselves, valiantly struggling against an opponent that is so much greater than us that we are doomed from the beginning.
Yes, without God we are doomed. All sin and fall short of the glory (Romans 3:23). Everybody has already failed in their lives. By ourselves we have already lost.
But we do not have to. God is greater. Jesus said that the one in us was greater than the one in the world. God is greater, God is more powerful, God is in control.
In spite of his power, the devil is so limited in what he can do. He cannot read our minds. He cannot make us do anything. He can put it in front of us that we constantly think about it and he can tailor things to our personal desires, but he cannot tell what we are thinking.
As long as God is in our minds and has control over them, the devil cannot win. Although he is not powerless, at the same time, he is not all powerful.
We can resist him and when we do, if we do it in the name of God, he will flee. He cannot stand that name.
And we are not alone. Everybody in the world goes through the same fight. Some have already given in and no longer fight. Others weakly fight feeling defeated. Still others are beginning to feel the power God gives them. But all fight that fight of faith.
Know this: God has won and the devil has lost. All he is doing now is marking time until the end when he knows he will be punished. And he wants to take as many as he can with him..
But you do not have to go. God gives power. Resist the devil. God will give you that power.
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