Thursday, April 10, 2008

Keeping Sober and Alert

I Peter 5:8 "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

I believe that God wishes for us to enjoy life on earth. It reflects His creativity, beauty, and handiwork, therefore we are to enjoy it. Ultimately, we are to enjoy Him in everything that we do, for that is the reason for which we were created: to enjoy God and to glorify Him. Yet in the midst of all that, there remains the grim reality that we have not yet arrived to the Promised Land, and that we must live and travel in a evil and depraved world.

The reality is that there is a great war transpiring between the forces of Light and the forces of Darkness. And in this war there are no neutral parties. One is either for or against God and His army of Light. It is in the fray of such a war that we have entered this world and are instantly called to bear arms. That is why, I believe, Peter exhorts us to be of sober spirit and to be on the alert. One of the tactics of evil is to sedate the minds of the inhabitants of earth. The kill can be made much more swiftly and efficaciously when the enemy is sedated or drunk to the point where they foolishly forget that no war exists.

If I truly believed that a bloody war was transpiring and that my adversary, the devil, is looking to destroy me, would I fall asleep as Peter and the other disciples did in the garden of Gethsemane? I think I focus a lot on the sin in my own heart, which is good, but I ought to have equal awareness of the Adversarial Lion who prowls about looking to devour the weak and the spiritually inebriated. There is also a sense in which the priesthood of believers are also watchmen standing guard for one another. If I fall asleep, how many do I endanger because of my lazy sedation?

So how do I stand sober and alert? I think this is something to which I will have to give much more contemplation. However, one verse comes to mind that reminds me of one thing I can do, and it is from Colossians 4:2, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving." Prayer, coupled with the Sword of the Spirit, is the single most effective weapon I have to fight against the kingdom of darkness, and in protecting myself and other brothers and sisters in Christ. Today, Levi, be of sober spirit and be on the alert, for the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

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