BIBLE PASSAGE:
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
(James 4:7)
MEDITATION:
Have you ever had a situation where the personalities of you and someone else
just don’t seem to mesh? However, it seems that no matter where you go, that
person shows up there too.
It can be even worse if they start pressing you to have a relationship with
them. You wish they would leave you alone, but you don’t want to be rude
and hurt their feelings. If only you could find a diplomatic way of telling
them that you don’t dislike them, but you’re not interested in a relationship.
Now, imagine that the one striving for a companionship with you is Satan.
He can be relentless in his pursuit to ‘win you over’, can’t he? If you don’t
belong to God, then you have a relationship with him by default. That means
he doesn’t have to pursue you, so his attacks can be directed toward those who
belong to the Lord.
The irony is, he knows he can’t steal us from the Lord, so why would he
pursue us so diligently? He knows that if he can destroy our witness, then
we will be ineffective in pointing others to Jesus. That’s why he unleashes
his efforts to discourage us, to convince us to give in to sin, and to create
constant turmoil in our life.
Satan is clever at bringing to our mind the times we have failed the Lord.
He enjoys reminding us of our failures as a way of persuading us to believe
that we are not worthy to be called a member of God’s family. He wants to
distract us from the reality that Jesus loves us and gave his live to pay for
our sins.
It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it? We deserve punishment for our sins, but out of
His great love for us, innocent Jesus chose to suffer the pain and agony for
us, so we could appear righteous before our Heavenly Father, and be given
a seat at His table for eternity….if we elect to believe in Jesus, confess our
sins, commit to repentance and choose to surrender our lives to Him.
When we surrender our lives to the Lord, it means we have a willingness
to exchange our will for His will, and we want to serve Him where He has
called (and equipped) us to fulfill His plans for our lives. When God created
us, He had plans for our lives and gave us free will of choosing to obey Him.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give
you hope and a future.”
(Jeremiah 29:11)
For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and
blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship
through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the
praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He
loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us.
With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of
His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to
be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to
all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In Him we were also chosen,
having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out
everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.
(Ephesians 1:1-11)
How in the world can we communicate to Satan to leave us alone?
The scriptures give us a two-step approach for getting him out of
our life.
First, we need to ‘submit ourselves to God’.
‘Submit’ means ‘to accept or yield to a superior force
or to the authority or will of another person’.
Submitting to God means that we yield our will to His will. Each of us
knows the desires we have, but when they conflict with God’s will, we
choose to put aside our desires out of our reverence for Him. It’s not
always easy, but He has given us the Holy Spirit as our Advocate. When
we submit to the will of Christ in our lives, our natural lusts are brought
under His control.
Secondly, we are told to ‘resist the devil’ and ultimately, he will ‘flee from you’.
Does that mean it’s a ‘one and done’ effort on our part? Because of the constant
attacks from Satan, we know it must be referring to each instance of temptation.
If we resist him today, he will be back the next day, or possibly again the same day.
He even planned to tempt Jesus again.
When the devil had finished all this tempting,
he left Him until an opportune time.
(Luke 4:3)
We understand what resisting means, but how do we do it? God’s Word tells us
how Jesus resisted him – He quoted scriptures accurately.
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God,
tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written:
Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes
from the mouth of God.”
(Matthew 4:3-4)
“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and
worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For
it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”
(Matthew 4:9-10)
What was the result of the tactics of Jesus?
Then the devil left him, and
angels came and attended him.
(Matthew 4:11)
If we truly belong to God, then we should have a desire to be like Jesus.
That means we should follow His pattern for resisting the devil, right?
ACTION:
Questions to consider:
– Is Satan making my life miserable?
If he is,
the good news is – it probably means I belong to the Lord;
the bad news is – I am in a war with Satan.
– How will I resist him and turn him away?
Will I try to use my own ingenuity and faculties,
or will I resist in the same manner that Jesus did?
When we belong to God, we need to pray and ask the Lord to point us
to scriptures for turning Satan away. Then, we need to memorize those
verses and be prepared to recite them when we are tempted.
Pray,
“Heavenly Father, thank You for making me aware of the assaults I can
expect from Satan when I belong to You. Thank You for Your Word that
tells me how to deflect his attacks. Help me to submit to You more each
day. Take away the pride that keeps me from complete submission. Lead
me to the scriptures I need to have ready for turning away the evil one
whenever he tempts me to disobey Your will. Thank You, Jesus, for how
You’ve shown me the effectiveness of quoting from God’s Word.”
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