You can’t even understand the real battle anymore – you’re just shadowboxing.
It could just be the same temptation to sin coming at you every night. That’s enough to exhaust anyone.
Perhaps your work environment has suddenly become stressful. Or maybe you’ve just suddenly realized that the stress has been slowly creeping up on you like a lion creeps up on its prey. There’s a reason for that analogy, you know.
Maybe it’s relational in nature, and you can’t understand why you find yourself fighting the same battles with the same people over and over when you’re supposed to be on the same team. You find yourself lying awake at night, heart racing at the thought of yet another conversation, another meeting. And a sense of dread fills you as you ask yourself, “Why can’t we just figure this out?”
With anxious energy coursing through your body, you finally get out of bed. No sense in trying to rest when your insides are vibrating. Might as well get up and pray.
Might as well get up and pray.
Remember the real enemy. He is an opportunist. He will come at you when you are the most tired. The most weary. The weakest you’ve ever felt. He isn’t interested in a noble fight. He’s after the easy win.
You do have an enemy. It’s not your coworkers. It’s not the medical team who can’t seem to give you answers. And it isn’t the friend or family member dancing on your last nerve.
8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
1 Peter 5:8-9 NIV
These words aren’t included in scripture simply as a remembrance of something Peter said to people way back when. This war didn’t start with us and it doesn’t end with us. This war ends when Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom. Since that hasn’t happened yet, our enemy the Devil is still prowling.
Be alert and sober minded.
Like a lion. A roaring lion.
Do you know why a lion roars? Male lions roar to show their power. It’s a way to gauge their strength, and it can even be used as a way to attract other lions looking for a protector. But the main reason? Lions roar to protect their territory from intruders.
Now let’s just think about this for a second…
Peter uses the lion to depict Satan. Paul calls Satan the ‘god of this world’ (2 Corinthians 4:4). A lion defends his territory and the god of this world claims the whole earth as his territory. So doesn’t it make sense that this ‘lion’ roars loudest when the children of his enemy – the sons and daughters of the only true God – start to encroach on his territory?
And Satan’s roar is loud, but it isn’t always audible. Sometimes it shows up as sickness. As discord among the believers. As financial lack. Basically, the opposite of any and everything that God has promised to His children.
Satan’s roar is loud, but it isn’t always audible.
But he’s not a real lion. Just like he’s not a real god. He’s more like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. Big booming voice – in the form of giant looming battles for the believer – but pull back the curtain. There’s nothing powerful in there. Nothing that can truly overtake us. Nothing over which we have not been given authority.
So remember the real enemy. And remember that He is already defeated.
Let us not waste a single second fighting against one another. Fighting to be understood. Complaining about the length of the battle. Remember the real enemy. Resist him. And remember that you’re not in this alone. Every believer all over the earth is fighting as well.
You are not alone in the fight.
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