“With God we shall do valiantly; it is He who will tread down our foes.”
Psalm 108:13
Satan is dedicated to annihilating those who fear God. He is intentional about weaving lies into our circumstances just to discourage or paralyze those who are seeking to be available vessels. He intricately strategizes the aim of which his flaming arrows will target. He assigns his help to be a nuisance in order to cause our footing to be misplaced. And he does this all with the desire to stop the Kingdom of God from furthering- let alone coming at all. But it is coming.
King David beautifully recorded the faithfulness of God in the very midst of attack:
“When evildoers assail me to eat my flesh
my adversaries and foes; it is they who stumble and fall…
Because though an army encamp against me my heart shall not fear.
Though a war arise against me- I will be confident.
The one thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.
For HE will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble;
HE will conceal me under the cover of His tent.
HE will lift me high upon a rock.”
Psalm 27
Satan’s schemes are intended to make us forget who we are in God, the power that is in freedom, and the unstoppable force of victory that comes from Jesus Christ. They are intended to cripple us. He gets to his goal of attacking the Kingom by going through us. We give satan so much more credit than he deserves. He and his demons shudder in complete terror at the name of Jesus yet we respond to his threats as if he’s the great and powerful Oz, forgetting that Oz was just a wimp behind a microphone and thunder generator. Ha! GOD commands the thunder to speak!
In light of who I am to God, I can be rejected by all mankind because I am chosen by the Creator of mankind. I can be looked down on by those I hold in the highest regard because in my ugliest, God turned His eye toward me and with joy He claimed my soul as His own. If I depend on someone other than Him to make me feel secure, loved, or enough, I am drawing water from a dry well and it will never be enough to satisfy me.
God fascinates me. I ask and He says with delight “It is yours!” I seek and He reveals. I knock and He welcomes me in. I have found the fullest satisfaction not from the words of man but from the presence of the Almighty. There is freedom in living in surrender to the only God who could have made me beautifully righteous through Jesus Christ. The only God who could have justified me. The only God who could call His purpose to arise within me. Who could have wooed my soul into eternity while my flesh remains on earth fulfilling His call. Who could satisfy the longing in my heart to be wanted, chosen, loved…only God could restore my vision for the beauty of his masterpiece when I gaze into a mirror. Only God could perfect His strength in the very essence of my weakness. Only God could give me the confidence to boast in my weakness because of how faithfully He has my back. Only God. There is no other. Our confidence in the Lord is a greater threat to Satan than anything he could throw our way. So with the boldness of Esther, with the confidence of David, with the obedience of Ruth, I charge the gates of hell re-claiming everything satan stole from me, and I’ll snatch some souls from the entrance while I’m there. Because I am God’s precious commodity. I’m chosen. And I shall do valiantly.
