JESUS WAS THERE ALL THE TIME
James 4:7,8 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Here we have two very important doctrines for the Christian. One concerns Satan and the powers of darkness and the other the Lord. Both need to be practiced every day if we are to have victory and blessing. This affects us in the spiritual and physical realms. Since both tie in together, how we deal with one will also affect how we are affected by the other. An example might be if we let Satan and the powers of darkness have victory in our life, we very well could become discouraged and turn from Jesus. If we don’t have fellowship with God, Satan and the powers of darkness can easily turn our attention to worldly things and draw us away from the Lord.
The powers of darkness are nothing to take lightly. In many parts of the world demon activity is practiced and feared. It is not seen as a childish fantasy, or something Walt Disney may put on the screen. Jesus himself dealt with them, and they feared him. Although Jesus created Satan and all the fallen angels, they hate him and are in constant rebellion against him. They have no desire to repent and humble themselves before God. They realize that they are doomed to spend eternity in great torment in hell. They hate God and everything that makes God happy. This not only includes Christians, but all of his creation. If they can hurt a bunny, they feel that they have done a good thing to hurt God. They show no mercy or kindness. They have chosen to be evil and hate everything that is good.
Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Then Paul reminds us to put on our armor of God. This is truth, righteousness, readiness from the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and prayer. We can not think that we can be like a osterridge and put our head in the sand, and then pretend nothing is wrong or that the powers of darkness will not attack us. They could care less if we believe that they are real. In fact they will try to make us believe that they are not. If we don’t believe that they are real, we will concentrate on the effect and not the cause of our problems. It is like putting a bandaid on cancer. It may be out of sight, but it will only continue to get worse.
All Christians have authority over Satan and the powers of darkness. The only power they have over us is what we are willing to let them have. Most Christians fall into the latter category. Mostly through ignorance, but also fear will allow the powers of darkness to bring defeat to the Christian. Because of the relationship we have with Jesus as his Bride, he has given us his backing or authority. He has given this to us in the form of the keys to his kingdom. We see it in Matthew 16:19. It says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” This also has two very important aspect that the Christian needs to practice every day. The reason I say this is not only are we under attack by the powers of darkness every day, but we need God’s help for so much every day. People and especially men are great for messing things up. If you remember that very thing is part of the curse that God put on men. They would struggle by the sweat of their brow to make a living.
When things start going wrong the first thing we should think of is that we are under attack. Satan and the powers of darkness will use anything and everything to frustrate us into accepting defeat or even blaming God for what is going on. All we have to do is to tell them to go to the pit and never come out, and command it in the name of Jesus and they have to go. They have no option. Then the next thing we need to do is ask the Holy Spirit to help us where we were having problems. He is more than happy to glorify Jesus in doing it. The problem for both of these things from taking place is if we do not do them!
The next thing from today’s verse is to come near to God. If we have spent all our day fighting Satan, the powers of darkness and the evil of this world, we will have missed the best thing and that is practicing the presence of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly Father all day long. Jesus didn’t suffer on Calvary’s cross so we could have a trouble free life and then pay no attention to him. He created us so we could have a personal relationship with him and love him as he loves us. We can literally walk and talk to Jesus all day long. The only thing that is keeping us from doing it is us! It is all a matter of want to. I think that most Christians are more concerned about what Satan might do to us, than what Jesus wants and can for us.
How are you dealing with your life? Are you active or proactive. Do you spend most of your time frustrated fighting the powers of darkness, or enjoying your time with Jesus? Remember if you are a child of God, you are also the Bride of Christ with his backing.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you so much for helping and blessing us so much. Please help us to keep our focus on you as we go through our day. Please help us to practice your presence in such a way as to have you more real than the physical world around us. We ask this in your holy name.
