And the
Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he
may sift you as wheat: But I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: Luke 22:31-32
The gladiators were a very rough bunch
of men. They had what could quite easily be considered the worst job in the
world. Their one task every time they went to work was to stay alive. The
Romans got great thrill and enjoyment out of watching two gladiators fight each
other to the death. Could you imagine living every day knowing that your next
fight could be your last? I’m sure it put a whole new perspective on the way
they looked at things.
It is not all that different for us in
our spiritual lives. Jesus told Peter that Satan wanted to destroy him. He
wanted to “sift him as wheat.” That is pretty serious. If you heard that
someone was on their way over to your house to kill you and cut you up into
small pieces, I’m sure you would barricade the door, call 9-1-1, and wait with
your breath held and gun loaded. You would be completely alert to any sound,
and your awareness would be at an extreme level because you would recognize the
danger. Any sign of that person would surely bring the gun to your shoulder in
an effort to defend yourself.
The danger to our spirituality is no
different. Satan does not care about us in the slightest. He is waiting for any
small opportunity to absolutely destroy our Christian life and testimony and
maim us to the point that we can never again effectively serve God.
Christianity is not a video game where we can die over and over again and just
resurrect like nothing happened. This is war, and it is serious. We must be
alert to every temptation, every sign of the devil gaining a foothold in our
lives, and every area where Satan would try to make us fall prey to his
devices. We are in a life-and-death battle for our spiritual survival and we
must pray for God’s help every day to ensure that it will not be our last day
of effectiveness for God.
Quote of
the day: “Satan is perfectly willing to have a person confess Christianity as
long as he does not practice it.”
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