VIDEO Our Methodical Enemy

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:11

 

British innovators have developed a new type of body armor that’s lightweight and comfortable yet can stop a bullet traveling at the speed of sound. If the apostle Paul saw today’s military protective wear, he’d say much the same as he did in Ephesians 6:10-17 about the armor of the believer. The technology has advanced, yet the concept is still the same. We need to protect ourselves.

Ephesians warns us against the “wiles” of the devil. The Greek word Paul used there was methodeia, from which we get our English word method. Satan has his tried and true methods for damaging our lives. He plots and schemes, so we must constantly wear the body armor of the soul.

If we’re living in the armor of God, we’ll be able to stand against the wily methods of the devil. Make sure you’re protected today against all the craftiness of Satan. From head to toe be covered with the blood of Christ and clad in His armor.

Satan is indeed a formidable enemy…and therefore it is incumbent upon us to take cover in knowledge of his ways and weapons and the Gospel countermeasures God has given us to oppose and defeat him. Philip DeCourcy

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Ephesians 6 | Take Up the Armor of God| Derek Prince Bible Study

Psalm 72 Leaders

May he be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. Psalm 72:6

In July 2022, Britain’s prime minister was forced to step down after what many felt were lapses in integrity (the newly appointed prime minister stepped down just months later!). The event was triggered when the country’s health minister attended an annual parliamentary prayer breakfast, felt convicted about the need for integrity in public life, and resigned. When other ministers resigned too, the prime minister realized he had to leave. It was a remarkable moment, originating from a peaceful prayer meeting.

Believers in Jesus are called to pray for their political leaders (1 Timothy 2:1-2), and Psalm 72 is a good guide for doing so, being both a ruler’s job description and a prayer to help them achieve it. It describes the ideal leader as a person of justice and integrity (vv. 1-2), who defends the vulnerable (v. 4), serves the needy (vv. 12-13), and stands against oppression (v. 14). Their time in office is so refreshing, it’s like “showers watering the earth” (v. 6), bringing prosperity to the land (vv. 3, 7, 16). While only the Messiah can perfectly fulfill such a role (v. 11), what better standard of leadership could be aimed for?

The health of a country is governed by the integrity of its office-bearers. Let’s seek “Psalm 72 leaders” for our nations and help them to embody the qualities found in this psalm by praying it for them.

By:  Sheridan Voysey

Reflect & Pray

What qualities do you look for in a leader? How can you pray more often for your local and national leaders?

Father, please empower our leaders to be people of justice, integrity, and goodness.

Learn more about Psalm 72.

Put God’s Priorities First

If we trust God and seek to honor Him in our decisions, we’ll have the chance to see Him work mightily 1 Kings 3:5-14

Imagine if God showed up and said, “What do you want? Ask, and I’ll give it to you.” How would you answer? Most of us would ask for loved ones’ safety, enough money to meet our needs, or a long, healthy life. Solomon may have been tempted to name something similar—but he made a different request. What he wanted was an understanding heart so he could serve God’s people well.

Solomon’s life was full of personal needs and desires not so different from our own. But when given the opportunity to ask God for anything, he prioritized the Lord’s concerns. God was so pleased with the request that He gave Solomon not only wisdom but riches and honor as well (1 Kings 3:13)! This encounter foreshadows Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you” (Matthew 6:33).

God won’t necessarily give wealth, influence, or long life because we put His priorities first, but He will always be faithful to provide all we need according to His purposes. Solomon’s heart was set on seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness, and the Lord honored that in a multitude of ways—both tangible and intangible. When we make God’s priorities ours, we too will have the chance to see Him work mightily in our life.

Sodom and Gomorrha

“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” (Jude 1:7)

These cities provide two stern examples of God’s judgmental wrath. Their sin had reached such an intensity and had become so widespread that the entire region suffered the “vengeance of eternal fire.” Just like the awful misuse of human sexual potential distorted by the angelic beings cited in the previous verse, these cities had become so perverted that God’s longsuffering and mercy had ended.

“But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly” (Genesis 13:13). Whatever they were involved with had become so heinous and so completely a distortion of everything God created man for that God appears to have reached the limit of human vocabulary to describe it. Their character (wickedness) and their deeds (sins) were “too much” for God.

Two classifications are listed. The first, fornication, is cited nearly 100 times in the Old Testament and is referred to over a dozen times in the New—always as a condemnation of sexual behavior outside of the intimate relations of husband and wife. The other classification is going after “strange flesh.” Genesis 19 makes it perfectly clear that this “exceedingly” awful sin was homosexual perversion.

For these sins God rained down “brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24). The Scripture is precisely clear: vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19), and He made Himself absolutely clear about His view of widespread fornication and homosexual behavior. This example is a sobering warning for those societies that promote such lifestyles. HMM III

Ever Feel Abandoned By God?

• Your prayers seem to go unanswered.
• Evidence of God’s working is scarce.
• You and fellow-believers languish while the godless appear to flourish.

Is this God’s cruel joke? Or could there be a Divine reason behind our sense of abandonment?

Is it possible that God, who is intent on teaching us to live by faith, purposely removes evidence of Himself from us in order to strengthen our faith? What quality of belief is required when His documentation is everywhere present?

Our faith is in its purest form when, amidst scant evidence for the existence of God, we still choose to believe.

This was precisely Job’s experience: Seemingly abandoned by God, and having sustained great personal loss, he exclaims,

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him… I go forward but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him. But He knows the way I take and when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold… He performs what is appointed for me… “(Job 13:15; 23:8, 10, 14a)

A person who elects to walk with God in those bleak periods of spiritual desolation is indeed a lethal instrument in the hand of God.

Consider C. S. Lewis’ perspective from his writings in “The Screwtape Letters”. In the following monologue Satan is coaching his protégé Wormwood:

“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human looks (around)… a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

As a fellow pilgrim, may I ask you: “Have you resolved in your soul to follow the Master, whether there is evidence or not? Whether He blesses you or not?“

Of such a person God is well-pleased! (Hebrews 11:6)

“Follow me.”

John 1:43-51

John 1:43

That simple word won the heart of the fourth disciple. Has Jesus never said the same to us?

John 1:44, 45

So the good work goes on by one telling another. If each Christian would try to bring another to Jesus, how much would be done!

John 1:46

Nathanael who is elsewhere called Bartholomew

John 1:47

A man of a simple-hearted, frank, open spirit.

John 1:48

There he had probably been seeking divine light by much earnest secret prayer, and the Lord Jesus knew this. How startled must Nathanael have been when his secret habit was thus openly spoken of.

John 1:51

Like a guileless Jacob, he had believed, and like him he shall see the mediatorial ladder which connects earth with heaven. Those who are willing to learn shall be graciously taught. Very quiet was the work of Jesus, and yet he had in two days gathered five choice men, who became his faithful disciples, and the pioneers of his kingdom. Jesus now removed from the Judean valley to Galilee. The journey would occupy him two days.

John 2:1-12

John 2:1-2

Marriage was thus honoured. Jesus would not have his people despise social joys and duties.

John 2:3, 4

The word for “Woman” in the Greek is far more respectful than would appear from the English; but still the sentence was a rebuke, and was meant to prevent Marys overstepping her position. No human relationship could give any man or woman the right to dictate, or even suggest what Jesus should do.

John 2:5-10

By turning water into wine our Lord showed the difference between his teaching and that of John, and also drew a line between his spiritual kingdom and the sects whose righteousness lay in meats and drinks.

John 2:11

So the presence of Jesus elevates our household joys and turns them from water into wine.

God Has a Remedy

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. (1 John 1:9)

Seekers and inquirers have often voiced this deep question of concern: “Why does God forgive? and how does God forgive sin?”

There is plain teaching throughout the Old and New Testaments concerning God’s willingness to forgive and forget. Yet there are segments of the Christian church which appear to be poorly taught concerning God’s clear remedy, through the atonement of Christ, for the believer who has yielded to temptation and failed his Lord.

God knows that sin is the dark shadow standing between Him and His highest creation, man. God is more willing to remove that shadow than we are to have it removed!

He wants to forgive us—and that desire is a part of God’s character. In the sacrificial death of a lamb in the Old Testament, God was telling us that one day a perfect Lamb would come to actually take away sin.

That is how and why God forgives sin now. In John’s words: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2a).
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