“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” – 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)
Authors Bob and Debby Gass along with Ruth Gass Halliday of ‘The Word Today Caribbean Edition – November 2010 to January 2011’, wrote that the devil knows that once Christians stay close to God, neither he nor his demons have any power over Christians. In order to destroy Christian relationships, Satan has to consistently prepare diabolical plans, such as:
1. Keeping us busy with non-essentials.
2. Tempt us to overspend and go into debt.
3. Make us work long hours to maintain empty lifestyles.
4. Discourage us from spending family time together. When the family disintegrates, it is no longer a refuge from work.
5. Overstimulate our minds with televisions and computers, so that we can’t hear God speaking to us.
6. Fill our coffee tables and nightstands with newspapers and magazines so that there is no time for Bible reading.
7. Make sure couples are too exhausted for physical intimacy, that way they will be tempted to look elsewhere.
8. Emphasise Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, diverting our attention from the real meaning of the holidays.
9. Provide ‘good causes’ so we wouldn’t have time for eternal ones.
10. Make us appear self-sufficient thinking we gained everything by our own strength and not by God’s wonder-working power.
Brethren, let’s evaluate our relationships against this background of the enemy’s plans. Let’s silence Satan’s roar by managing our schedule and understanding what’s important.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, I repent for (state) and ask for Your forgiveness. I ask that You cleanse me from every evil habit and help me to lay aside every weight and the sins that so easily ensnare me and help me run with endurance the race that is set before me, in Jesus’s name. Amen!
Read: 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12; Hebrews 12:1; Titus 2:3-5
Bible Reading Guide: Psalm 94:1-11; I Corinthians 6; 2 Chronicles 1
