Since I posted here. I have been very busy with family responsibilities and work. I am away from home for the moment and the time alone has given me pause to think.
I can only speak for myself, but as I get caught up in the daily battle I can lose sight of who the enemy is.
The bureaucrat who is carrying out his duties, as unreasonable as they seem, he is not the enemy.
The folks standing in the hallway of your hotel in the late evening drinking and talking loud, while their 'sports group' kids run around making noise, they are not the enemy.
Our flesh, though it can seem like an enemy, leading us astray, is not the enemy.
1Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:"
Satan has had 6-7k years to perfect his trade, he rebelled against an almighty God, which he knew was God. There was no doubt, he served him and saw all of heaven under His glory.
You and I rebel but we don't see all.
I do not believe that Satan in omnipresent nor omnipotent, those characteristics are reserved for God.
But as we learn more about the human body, we know that our thoughts, feelings and things that we don't wish to show the world can be 'seen' in the patterns of our brain; which can be read by scanners. Heat signals our body gives off and our gestures that we preform can develop into descernable patterns.
Satan, to use a phrase, 'reads us like a book'. He only can do what God allows; but as we grow in Christ God the Father 'allows' Satan to sift us as wheat: Luke 22:31 "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:"
In our eyes we will 'fail' this sifting (or worse, we think we've mastered the situation). We will fall short of the glory of God as long as we are on this earth we are still affected by sin. But there is no need for dispair; God is beside us all the way: Hebrews 13:5b "for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
Whether we realize it or not if we are still in this world; if the Lord has not taken us home: then He still has a purpose for us to be here. A task that is for us only, something He wants only us to complete.
What is that thing? Is it a big task, will everyone 'notice' us while we carry it out, will no one here on earth see or even notice that anything has happened at all. Does it really matter... great or small it is our previlage to serve a great and powerful God.
If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ and His work on Calvary for your salvation, then you are an adopted child of God.
The promises in His book, the Holy Bible extend to you, you didn't earn them in fact you cannot earn them. Yes some of them are conditional but if Jesus Christ had not saved you from well deserved eternity separated from God you would have no access to them.
It is all about Christ.
If you are preparing to do battle with the world, if you are setting up defences against this person or that, don't lose sight of who the actual enemy is.
Sometime in the future I would hope to follow up on this, our battle with Satan cannot succeed in our own strength.
Don't know when I will get a chance to post again, the family issue, though under control, is still ongoing and consuming much of my time and thought.
If anyone is reading all of this, then know that I am praying for you, if you are not saved that you will recognise you lost condition and accept what the Lord has done for you.
If you are saved, that you will not stumble.
Good night. js
