Text: 1 Peter 5:6-10
NLT 1 Peter 5:6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you. 8 Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour. 9 Take a firm stand against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters(1 )all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are. 10 In his kindness God called you to his eternal glory by means of Jesus Christ. After you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.
We saw in Romans yesterday that we have two natures within us that are vying for supremacy. Here Peter takes it one step further and identifies the Devil as our great enemy. He looks for a convenient way to throw us off track and thereby ruining our witness and our very lives. Peter encourages us to beware and to resist (use our will power) as our first line of defense against these attacks. James 4:7 tells us to "Submit therefore to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." It gives us the insight that resisting the Devil can only be accomplished by first submitting to God. As Peter, James and John show us in the Garden of Gethsemane, this can be a difficult task. It is a daily, no it is a minute by minute submission. It is not just a submission in the morning and hope it lasts all day. For us to battle temptation and overcome evil, we must be on our guard each minute and be willing to walk away, walk through, and even rebuke that which happens around us that stands ready to drag us down.
No wonder the Bible is clear that we need one another! I would not want to tackle this one by myself.
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