ICS Daily Devotions
Be Vigilant of the Devil

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Sometimes we divert our attention from God. The devil is tricky, deceitful and shrewd in manifesting himself in our difficult situations when we lose the peace of God. The devil is described as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, therefore we need to be constantly vigilant.

The wiles and schemes of the devil are not solely focused on sifting our faith through persecution. The devil attacks in all forms of wickedness such as sickness, oppression, obsession, depression etc. He steals the things that God has blessed us with like our possessions, our peace and our joy. The devil will take hold of our guilt and hold us in condemnation with his accusations, so that we will not trust in God for a breakthrough. He also deceives us into thinking that God is the cause of all our sufferings. He will accuse and remind us of all the sins in our lives. He will attack us with negative emotions and actively try to convince us with excuses not to approach God. The devil’s goal is to totally undermine our new identity in Christ. The devil will lie to us and say that God is punishing and tormenting us and has left us in what seems to be a hopeless situation.

When a crisis hits, the devil will approach our minds with thoughts such as “What have I done wrong to deserve this?”. We may start to review our past, not realizing that this is the devil’s trap for us to dwell on the wrongs we did in the past that we cannot change, to make us feel discouraged and worthless. This will become the devil’s playground where he will condemn us and make us feel that we have no worth. Once we lose our spiritual direction, the devil will confuse us even more and will deceive us by using our love for God to continue to dwell on or glorify the suffering or sickness that has come upon our lives. When we are under pressure and we make wrong habitual sins or bad decisions in the flesh, we may forget our new position in Christ and that we have been redeemed from our sins. Therefore, once we have repented for our sins, we should move on, return to God and seek His face. We must not continue to dwell on the sins done in the past that have already been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. We need to stand strong in the Lord and dwell on the righteousness of Christ instead.

The devil will not leave us alone, whether we are committed Christians or not. His purpose is to destroy us. Therefore, it would be wiser to submit to the Word of God and have the armor of God in place.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Although it is mainly people who harm and hurt us with their actions and words, we should not fight them. Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians that the enemies are the principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. The enemy will try to deceive us, telling us we are still under his control as slaves of sin but we no longer are because of Christ.

Romans 6:18-19 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

We always need to be vigilant of the devil but more importantly, we need to remember the spiritual position that God has given us. We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies far above all principalities and powers and we have victory in Christ.

Sermon Series: A Transformed Life