Somedays, all I can do is chuckle and laugh at the situations I find myself in. Many of you are aware that our family keeps and watches a young toddler named Nova in our home much of the time. Her mother is working and needs someone to help and we are more than willing to be there for both of them. Nova has taken our home and our hearts by storm and we love her more than we could ever imagine. However, as she has reached the stage of a active 2 year old she is into everything. So, we must take a lot of precautions around the house in order to keep her safe. I look around and I see the plastic plugs in the electric outlets, the car seats for when we travel, the gates to block the stairs, and the sippy cups to prevent spills, which by the way still don’t always work. The latest necessary addition to our safety efforts are the childproof doorknobs. I laugh because not only are the childproof, but they might as well be called adult proof as well. We struggle to get a grip on the knob hard enough to get the door open and by the time we do she is usually at our feet and is the first one out the door. It is crazy the amount of effort and thought we put into keeping our little ones safe, but we wouldn’t dare not go to these efforts, just in case something went wrong.
As I think about this and laugh, my laughter begins to turn to concern for the rest of us; you and I. What are we doing for safety precautions when it comes to the spiritual dangers of temptations and sins? We don’t think about that, do we? But we must! Satan is alive and active and is taking this world captive faster than we can even blink an eye. What the devil throws us into is far more dangerous to us than any safety concern we could ever face for our children. These dangers are of an eternal nature. Yet we let down our guards when it comes to our spiritual life.
When we are carefree and happy and all is seeming to go well, is when we are most vulnerable to Satan’s crafty and sneaky schemes. The devil knows that and comes after us with whatever it is going to take. He means business when it comes to getting us to fail and to sin. It is time that we mean business and stand up to him. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 16.13 in the NLT version, “Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong.” We must be diligent in doing all four of these things that Paul mentions. I believe we need to see these not as suggestions but as commands. These actions we are to take are our safety precautions against the dangers of hell. Sin is dangerous and we must stand strong in resistance.
Let me encourage us all to look around at our lives, examine our strong points and especially our weaknesses and see where we need to go to work on putting God in place and therefore remove all obstacles that can bring us into Satan’s traps. As Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 6.11, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” Let’s suit up and be strong!
Pastor Michael Tunnell
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