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Before we begin today I have some quick housekeeping to take care of. The series going through the book of Judges is something that I am not neglecting but rather it requires for me to read more than just that one book of the Bible. To do it justice I’d need to read through Joshua, Deuteronomy, and maybe even Leviticus along with rereading Judges since most of the problems that Israel suffers in the book of Judges come as a direct result of them not obeying God’s laws.
Today however, we are going to dig a bit deeper into what it means when the Devil is described as a roaring lion seeking for whom he may devour in 1st Peter 5:8. Firstly it means he is crafty because lions don’t hunt in the way that a cheetah does. Cheetah’s are solitary hunters and they have to pick a single target to pursue with all their might while lions are pack predators that have numbers to their advantage.
When lions hunt they will divide themselves up into two groups. One small group will cause a herd of prey to stampede in a specific direction and also direct it towards where the rest of their pride is lying in wait. When the herd comes by there the lions who are in wait will pounce at the right moment and take a few of the animals down so that the rest of the pride can eat.
Peter’s descriptor is prefaced however by a couple of instructions to the church; be sober and vigilant. In some translations it reads be sober minded which has many implications primarily that our mind just like our body can become drunk in a sense. To better understand this let’s look at the physical part of this analogy.
Drunkenness comes when we are saturated by alcohol to the point where it impairs our inhibitions. Many people who are drunk will have an altered state of mind from it due to the effects of brain chemistry. But this only occurs if one thing happens, you drink. The alcohol needs to be consumed and in certain quantities for you to become drunk. Spiritually it’s the same way.
The world is bombarding us with messages that stir up our passions and fears. It causes panic and worry but these things shouldn’t have control over our lives. We shouldn’t let it alter our thought process which must be hard wired through the lens of scripture. We can be concerned over something but that concern is to be brought forth to God when we speak with Him. When we gather together with other Christians it’s for the express purpose of growing in knowledge of His omnipotence through which we can learn to trust Him.
When Paul wrote to Timothy he said “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2nd Timothy 1:7) A sound mind is one that is not tossed about chaotically by emotions for it has a bedrock in the truth of who God is. This mind remembers that God cares about us and will listen to us when we come to Him boldly knowing our position as His children who have the right to approach Him. Read Philippians 4:6-9 to understand how we have the peace of God with us.
Paul, when he wrote this letter to the church in Philippi told them to be anxious for nothing but to turn to prayer, submitting their needs to God. Then he follows up that instruction with one that directs how they should focus their thoughts to counter the things of this world. Namely the anxiety that they were struggling with. Anxiety is not a new thing and Paul isn’t telling the church to ignore it but to combat it. Acknowledge and fight it’s attempt to take control over our lives. We are to focus on what is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and praiseworthy. Saying that these are to be our meditations. To meditate is to purposefully think about and consider something. Making an effort to focus our thoughts.
One of the messages that this world is currently is the notion “your truth.” And this is one of those ideologies that can easily cause an impediment to being sober minded because it puts forth the notion that truth changes from person to person. Truth doesn’t change just as facts don’t change. I’m focusing on this because the first thing that Paul tells us to meditate on is truth.
Since truth doesn’t change it provides us with a solid foundation. If you’ve read Welcome to the Armory then you know I’ve talked about this in greater detail before. But the short of it is that because truth is solid and unchanging we are able to move forward in life using it as our foundation. When we are dealing with finances we use simple truths such as one plus one is two in order to figure out how much things cost and how much money we will be spending. For how we conduct ourselves in public on matters such as moral right and wrong the scriptures are sound truth for those things.
There was a time at my job where they needed me to do overtime and work on a Sunday. I personally don’t like working on Sundays because growing up it was always the family day of rest. I was considering calling in sick that day but when I expressed my feelings to my parents over the phone as I was running errands on Saturday night. What they did was remind me that it would be dishonest to do so. Not only was it dishonest but that one act would also ruin my witness of faithfulness to the company working when they asked me to help them. Now as I write this I’m realizing that my decision in that action was putting into practice the words Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2 NKJV)
I want to finish this by going back to our conversation about lions. The enemy will use one thing in life to bring us right into the sights of something else that is going to take us down. In my example it would have been a single dishonest moment where I would have behaved like everyone else does. Call in sick when I wasn’t even sick just to avoid work. That’s a very worldly behavior based on selfishness.
I was so focussed on running away from the initial lions attacking from the back that I didn’t recognize the lions that were lying in wait for me to make a bad decision. One other important detail to this story is that my work, which is manufacturing, had been struggling to meet customer demands and due to this many of us had been doing a lot of extra work. This was compounded by lacking the personnel needed to achieve the goals since people were leaving once it got difficult for them. That’s why we were being tasked with coming in earlier, staying later, and coming in on the weekends like I was facing at that moment. I was worn out and tired of the extra hours being required of me which brings us to a new point that I didn’t even realize needed to be made.
Being alert includes knowing our own condition and when we are tired, weary, or anything else like that which alters our way of thinking. From there we are able to be more careful about our actions and take steps to prevent us from going down bad roads. In my case it was calling my parents and expressing frustrations. An acronym that I heard growing up is H-A-L-T or halt. And it stands for four main states of mind that we need to be more aware of: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. It’s a simple acronym but it helps me sometimes as I’m going through a tough time to think about my condition. A joke that makes my point is “Never go grocery shopping while hungry or you’ll buy the whole store.” We laugh because we know that if we go into a place with food while hungry we’ll just start buying whatever looks good to us at that moment instead of what was written on our list.
This brings us back to verse 9 of 1st Peter chapter 5 which tells us to resist the devil steadfast in our faith. And for most of us what we have to resist is the urge to do something while emotionally charged with something other than God’s peace, joy, grace, or any of the other fruits of the spirit. In John chapter 15 verse 5 Jesus uses the analogy of a fruit bearing vine to describe the life of a disciple saying “I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” When we read this verse it’s with the understanding that the nothing which Jesus is referring to is living a life empowered by God to be a witness to others about Him. It also includes having the strength to resist the devil.
In order to do our work as Christians and to remain strong we need to abide in Jesus Christ. We need to make Him our priority in life. That’s why so many churches begin the new year with a week of prayer and fasting. A time where they give something up for the sake of putting Christ first in their lives to go deeper into their relationship with Him.
Until next time, Courage and Godspeed.