The other day I was reading in Luke chapter 21 where it was
describing the last supper and Jesus was telling the disciples about His
upcoming death and that one of them was going to betray Him. What I found so
interesting in this verse was that It said “..and Satan entered Judas..” and
immediately Judas left. Do you find it
curious that Satan entered Judas and not one of his minions/demons . I do.
It struck me that Satan did not want to leave any chance to mess up this
opportunity . He was going to make sure
that Jesus was killed and that he, Satan, would finally have victory. However, all was not what it seemed, and once
again God’s sovereignty is amazingly displayed.
Satan did not realize that what his involvement in, what he
was sure was going to be his ultimate victory, actually was going to be his greatest defeat. Jesus Christ dying on the cross voluntarily
and being raised from the dead means that once and for all death has been
conquered and no longer has its power or sting. The one thing that Satan could
bank on was capturing a soul became the one thing that was now conquered
forever. This goes back to the first
promise of the messiah when in Gen 3:
“…he will bruise his heel, but Christ will crush his head…”. Satan is
and always will be a defeated foe if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord
and Savior. He needs to be respected,
but not feared and maybe most important, he is powerless unless we choose to
give him power.
I have been meeting with some men regularly and we have been
viewing various sundry video series which have been so enlightening and informative. One of the important lessons that I learned
is to embed some phrase like “Satan has no power over me”, or “ sin has no
control over me”, or anything similar to this when you find yourself involved
in a temptation or situation where there is potential to sin. The idea here is to simply have that readily
available so that you recite it immediately and hear the warning!!! In the secular world this could be something
like “count to ten before you speak if you are angry”, or anything that would
give you a few seconds to regroup your thinking and not respond in total
emotion which is often the absolute worst thing you can do, but is something
that comes so natural that the words are flying out of our mouth before we even
know what has happened. Thus, another old adage “think before you speak,” or
one of my father’s favorite was “ make sure your mind is in motion before your
mouth is in gear.” This is also the same idea in scripture when Paul says in 2nd Cor. 10:5 “…to take every
thought captive.” Once again, the idea
of thinking about what our situation is at that moment is critical because it
is the next few seconds that will determine where are we going to turn; to God
or to sin. Remember what I said, Satan
has no power over us IF WE Turn To God and HIS POWER DEFEATS HIM, NOT OUR OWN! Do not for one second think that you possess
the power in your own strength to defeat Satan…You will fail repeatedly and
always. It is Christ in you that will
help you achieve victory right then, but you must Call on that power. 1st Cor. 10:13 “ there is no
temptation has fallen on you that is not common to man; but God is faithful ,
and will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able ; but with the
temptation He will provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
This is an excellent verse to have branded on your brain so that it comes to the forefront effortlessly and immediately because you have used it so much. Of course there are many others, but the point is that this is where the Word is the offensive weapon to defeat sin. Use it and use if often because that is how Jesus defeated Satan in the wilderness and we must have an arsenal that uses the power of God’s Word if we are to walk with Him because we have an adversary that wants to do anything he can to destroy us and is always ready to pounce on us when we let our guard down. Continued...
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