1 Peter 5:8-9 “Be sober, be vigilent; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”
This past week I have been constantly reminded of this truth. Sunday was filled with an amazing time of fellowship and learning more about loving God from my heart and not my hands and having God be my delight and nothing else in this world. The entire day was absolutely wonderful. Monday followed as one of the toughest days I have had in a while. I felt under complete attack after a slightly scary visit to the doctor. The rest of the day I found myself collapsed in what felt like a never ending river of tears before the Lord. The faith I have that God is still present in an awful situation is based off of the past, He always has been before. The hope is for the future and the hope I have in the Lord goes way deeper than my suffering does.
This only drew me closer in to the Father and I found myself diving deeper into scripture than ever. Not because I felt like I had to, but because I geuinely wanted to. This was only followed my another attack and this time it was bringing up past temptation. All I could do was pray in the midst of a very strange situation and praise the Lord I was delivered. It has been a very humbling week as I see I am never immune from attacks and I see the need to take these words in 1st Peter to heart.
We always need to be alert! Spiritual warfare is a very real and constant thing that we cannot fall asleep to. God is always bigger than whatever attack Satan has against us. They may not always be obvious too, thus the great need for us to be prepared with our armor on. (Ephesians 6:10-18) God does not leave us without help because the Christian walk is not all easy. We are told we have an enemy that goes after us like a roaring lion! He is not going to wait until I am off in Africa to attack, he is always looking to attack us. But look at God’s promise that follows in verse 10 of 1st Peter 5: “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you.” God wants to take these awful things from our enemy and use them to transform us more to His likeness for His kingdom and He can because He is greater than the one that is in the world! Verse 11 concludes-
“To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. AMEN!”
