This post is a continuation of “Praying for Your Kids.”
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; [Jesus] came that they may have life and have it abundantly. ~John 10:10
What you see is what you get, right? Most of us live our lives with an eye for only what we can see in front of us or feel with our hands, or heart. For the most part, we pay no attention to the very real activity all around us that we cannot see. However, in many ways, that activity has more influence on the part of our lives we can see.
I’m not saying this to promote a sense of fear or paranoia, much less to give any glory to the enemy or in any way imply that he has more power than God. Any power that he does exercise has been allowed by God. Even if one were to purposely call on the power of Satan, anything that those evil activities accomplish stays within the bounds of God’s permissive will.
There are many tragic things that happen that can only be explained by the power of the enemy. However, anything that the enemy intends for evil, God uses for the benefit of those who love God and for the salvation of those souls.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. ~Romans 8:28
We can place ourselves in closer proximity to God. The closer we are to God the further the devil is from us.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
~James 4:7
When we first start to purposely clean up our lives, the enemy will use a variety of tactics and strategies to get us to abandon our journey to whole-heartedness with God. His purpose is to use us to spread evil, division and discontentment in us and through us to those in our sphere of influence. We must purpose to reject these thoughts and impulses.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but [b]divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ….
~2 Corinthians 10:3
Right now, many of us are not even aware we are in a battle. We don’t know we are playthings in the hands of the one who hates us most. Much of that is because we don’t understand the laws that God has put in place.
Our society doesn’t like laws that “restrict” our “freedoms.” So, we work to change those laws. However, there are some laws that are actually good for us and if we break them, we suffer and can die. The law of gravity, for example. If we choose to step off a 10-story building, we will die. God is a God of freedom. We can choose for ourselves. But our freedoms are to accomplish good, not evil.
Likewise, there are many spiritual (and moral) laws that, if we break them, we can die. If we learn that we are breaking these laws and persist to do so anyway, we choose death, and hell. We go from an accidental death of our souls and the possibility of purgatory, to choosing a soul suicide and condemning our own soul to hell.
For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
~Hebrews 10:26
The spirit realm is a big deal. The eternal destiny of our souls depends on how we handle it. The life we live is not at all that it may seem, and we need all the help we can get.The many dozens of prayers in this book address a variety of circumstances in our lives and can help us by educating us about and protecting us from the plans and schemes of the enemy.
