BIBLE PASSAGE:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body,
I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2:20)
MEDITATION:
When we receive salvation from God, we enter into a new life.
It is not a utopian life, but it is a life that has been changed. We
begin a new journey with the Spirit of the Lord living within us.
No longer are we controlled by the influences of the world, but
we start experiencing the joy of Christ living in and through us.
We also enter into a major conflict as Satan increases his efforts
to cause failures in our lives. Before we were saved, we belonged
to Satan and were destined to eternal damnation, but now that
we have surrendered and committed our lives to the Lord, God
has removed us from Satan’s influence, and he does not like it!
When we were saved, we received God’s seal as His children, so
Satan cannot win us back no matter how hard he tries. However,
he will increase his efforts to make our lives miserable and to
prevent us from having a positive influence on others.
Our greatest defense against these attacks is our faith in the Son
of God. Our faith is what gives us the ability to resist and reject
the ideas Satan tries to create in our mind. We have a faith that
the Holy Spirit within us is our advocate and will help us during
our times of weaknesses.
Let’s be honest, all of us can suddenly have sinful thoughts that
enter our mind. Sometimes we may think,
“Where in the world did that come from? I wasn’t
thinking anything even closely related to that!”
We cannot prevent being blindsided with unrighteous thoughts,
but it is what we do with them that matters the most. We can
either hold on to them and embellish them in our minds, or we
can ask the Holy Spirit to escort those thoughts out of our mind
before they cannot contaminate us.
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord,
that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their thinking.
(Ephesians 4:17)
We demolish arguments and every pretension that
sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we
take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
(2 Corinthians 10:5)
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are blessed to know that the
Holy Spirit will convict us when we are yielding to Satan’s
influences in our lives. The Spirit will also encourage us and
help us to rise above our failures.
When we fail in our efforts to obey and serve the Lord, we do not
have to stay down; instead we can rise to our feet with a renewed
determination to resist the devil and obey the Lord. Obedience is
how we show our love for the Lord, and the Spirit will help us to
increase our efforts to grow closer to the Lord and develop the
characteristics of Jesus in our own lives.
Satan is a cunning adversary and he would like to use our arrogant
pride (which is not a righteous trait) to convince us that we can battle
him in our own strength, but as we mature spiritually, we realize
this is not possible.
All of our victories over Satan are a result of our faith and have
nothing to do with our own efforts. Our only contribution is to
pray and depend on the Holy Spirit to fight our battles for us.
It doesn’t mean that we sit and wait; we still need to continue
in our efforts to become more righteous, grow closer to the Lord
and to develop the characteristics of Jesus in our lives.
Nothing more and nothing less than faith will produce success
in our life. We have to depend on our faith in the Holy Spirit’s
ability to help us overcome Satan and all of his devious schemes
to cause us to fall prey to his temptations.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We may be strong in resisting
temptations in several areas, but we have at least one area where
we constantly feel vulnerable. Satan knows our weak areas and
will attack them at every opportunity.
And when he succeeds in his efforts, we find ourselves in a dark
valley with a loss of our close fellowship with the Lord. We can
feel the loss of our ‘connection’ with Him and it can result in a
questioning of our salvation.
Why does it affect us in this way? Because Satan is the great
“Accuser” who seizes every opportunity to use our failures as
a way of creating an overwhelming guilt in our lives. It can be
discouraging and cause us to have a fear that we may not be
able to reestablish our relationship with our Creator.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have
come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of
our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the
ACCUSER of our brothers and sisters, who accuses
them before our God day and night, has been hurled
down.”
(Revelation 12:10)
When we start having doubts about our salvation,
we need to read, reread, and read again 1 John 5.
Jesus showed us that the best response we can have
for Satan’s temptations is – God’s Word.
Look at how Jesus responded to Satan’s efforts to tempt Him:
Jesus answered him, “It is also written:
Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
(Matthew 4:7)
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!
For it is written: Worship the Lord your
God, and serve him only.”
(Matthew 4:10)
ACTION:
Are you losing the battle in any area of your life? Maybe
it is because you have not completely died to yourself.
The life God is calling you to live, is not ‘your life’, it
is ‘His life’ living in and through you.
Put yourself upon the altar once again and die to self in
all areas of your life. Living the same life (or worse) that
you lived before salvation, should cause you to wonder
if you have really died to self and allowed the Holy Spirit
to have full control of your life.
Pray,
“Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and saving me.
Thank You for the promise that those who belong to You
will receive the Holy Spirit. I pray that I will allow the Holy
Spirit to give me wisdom and guide me in my efforts to become
more like Jesus. Thank You, Jesus, for showing Your love to
the world and every individual when You freely and willingly
sacrificed Yourself on the cross as an atonement for our sins.
Protect us from abusing what You did for us by treating Your
sacrifice as a free pass to continue a life of sin.”
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