“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 5:6-11 ESV).
We who are followers of Christ are not yet perfect people, and we won’t be until we are with Christ for eternity in our glorified bodies when Jesus returns to take us home to be with him. So the New Testament Scriptures are filled with instructions to us in how we ought to live as true followers of Christ, and how we ought not to live, too, now that we belong to Christ. For as those who belong to Christ we are in a process of sanctification, of being made holy, of being conformed to the likeness of character of Jesus Christ.
So the first instruction here to us is that we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt us who are following him with our lives. So we don’t exalt ourselves. Now this doesn’t mean that we put ourselves down, or that we don’t talk about holy living, or that we don’t give our testimonies at all. That is not what this is saying. This has to do with us bowing to our Lord, submitting to his will and purpose for our lives, and becoming dependent on the Lord and denying self.
We are no longer “My do it” people. We aren’t in it for self-glory. We do what we do in submission to our Lord and to his will and purpose, and as led by the Lord and by the teachings of his word. We are not looking for the praise of human beings. Now, it is nice to get encouragement, mind you, but we will do what we do for the Lord even if no one encourages us. “Likes” are unnecessary, especially if they are shallow and insincere and self-promoting which some of them are, I believe. Changed hearts and lives are the goal.
So, if we don’t receive any or many “likes,” and if we do not get much in the way of approval from other human beings, or of positive responses, we should not let that discourage or dishearten us. We should not get anxious about such things thinking that those things are necessary. They are not! What is necessary is that we are walking in obedience to our Lord, doing what he has called us to do, in truth, and that we leave the results to him. And we pray sincerely for the salvation of human souls for eternity.
Another essential thing here is that we are people who are serious-minded about God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – and with regard to the teachings of the Scriptures which are in agreement with the New Covenant, and with regard to holy living, and regarding us NOT living in sin. We are to walk in the fear of the Lord, taking him and his word seriously, believing both his promises (in context) and his warnings, and obeying his teachings and heeding his warnings, being watchful and discerning.
And then we need to take seriously these warnings about the devil, who is our adversary who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. So we can’t play with sin. We can’t be people who test fate. We are not to dabble in things which are contrary to the will and purpose of God for our lives and which are immoral, impure, dishonest, wicked, perverse, sensual, alluring, and all for the purpose of being self-entertained. For the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” So don’t take in the garbage.
And we cannot “resist” the devil if we keep an door open for him. Right? I hear so many who are addicted to sexual sin, more specifically, who say that they are resisting the devil, but that sin just overtakes them, as though they have no control over the matter. But they do. For sin is a choice of our will just like holy living is. And Jesus already made that way of escape for us. But if we don’t take that way out, we are not going to be able to resist the devil, especially if we are feeding our minds with the garbage of this world.
And sometimes resisting the devil is going to be painful, and not necessarily because our flesh desires something contrary to the will of God, but like Job, because we are being tested in our walks of faith via difficult circumstances which present challenges to our faith. And the devil is going to whisper all kinds of lies in our ears, and so we have to resist him, and we have to counter his lies with the truth, even if we have to shout them out at times. For I think sometimes the devil is deaf, and so we need to be verbal.
For the devil is against those of us who are walking in purity of devotion to the Lord, though not necessarily in absolute perfection, but in faithfulness and in sincerity of devotion to the Lord. And so even if we are being very guarded, and even if we are protecting our minds against the evils of this world, he will find ways of coming against us to try to accuse us falsely or to try to discourage us, because he wants us to back down and to give up and to stop living for the Lord and to return to living for self.
So, daily we must put on that armor of God with which to fight off the devil’s schemes against us (Ephesians 6:10-20). And this is not some ritual we go through, but this means that we are walking in holiness and in obedience to our Lord and we are resisting the devil, and we are fleeing temptation, and we are witnessing for our Lord in sharing the truth of the gospel and in refuting the lies of the enemy as a matter of daily practice, by the grace of God, in the power of God, and for the praise and glory of God.
Some of these times of testing are short-lived. Others are more long-term. But the grace and the love and the mercy of God is with us who are with him, on his side, doing as he commands. And so he is going to see us through every trial, and every pain, and every suffering, and he will make us stronger in our walks of faith and obedience to him because of these trials which test our faith. And then one day he is going to call us home to be with him for eternity – all glory and praise to him for all that He has done!
But not everyone is walking in holiness and in righteousness, in obedience to the Lord, even if they profess faith in Jesus Christ. And so we need to pray for them that they will have their hearts turned away from their sinful practices to now walk in obedience to the Lord in holy living. For if we walk according to the flesh, and not according to the Spirit, and in sin, and not in righteousness and holiness, the Scriptures teach that we do not know God, we are not born of God, and we will not have eternal life with God.
So, the following is a secular song about a man praying to God for the salvation of a young boy’s life, even if it means the man dies. And if we spiritualize the words, this can be a prayer to God for the salvation of human lives out of slavery to sin and into walks of surrender and obedience to our Lord in holy living, even if it means that we die in the process of sharing with them the truth of the gospel which will save their lives from hell and which will give them the hope of eternal life with God.
Bring Him Home
By Alain Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg / Herbert Kretzmer
God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there…
He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son…
You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhTJA_A_PzQ
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