Month: February 2024

Crosses: Burden or Blessing?

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(Mark 8:31-38)

As we continue our series, Rethinking Religion, in this post we give our attention to a topic that can be a deal breaker for people when it comes to Christianity. I’m not talking about how smug Christians can sometimes come across when our concern about being right overshadows our call to be loving. Neither am I referring to the perception that some of our beliefs are downright absurd.

No, what I’m referring to is the observation that in a number of ways, the believer’s life doesn’t really seem to be any different or better off than the non-believer’s. Therefore, if the casual observer notes no discernible difference, no greater appeal or attraction to the Christian and his way of life, then why bother? What’s the big deal?

Moreover, to many, the whole category of Christianity’s perceived requirements – the “have to’s” and the “musts,” arguably make it quite unappealing. Christians must live according to a strict set of rules. They have to go to church. Christians are supposed to give offerings. They are required to read their Bibles. You could add plenty more to the list, I’m sure.

While it isn’t the purpose of this post to address each and every one of these perceived requirements that may not make Christianity all that appealing, for the sake of brevity, I will simply respond that a Christian doesn’t have to do any of the those things mentioned, or anything else, for that matter. There are no requirements in the life of a Christian; he is free to live however he pleases.

But here’s the thing: a Christian wants to do these things. God’s grace and love have changed his heart, bringing it into alignment with God’s plan for how to live. Not perfectly, mind you – but changed hearts nevertheless now see as opportunities what used to be viewed as requirements.

There’s another observation some have of Christianity that doesn’t appear to be noteworthy or especially attractive. It doesn’t seem like the Christian has any special dispensation from God regarding suffering or hardship. So if a believer and a non-believer both have to struggle with traumas and tragedies like cancer and unemployment and divorce and sexual abuse and chronic pain and miscarriages and the list goes on, then why bother? If God is in the Christian corner, shouldn’t he guard and protect believers from such things? If he’s capable of doing so, which Christians claim to believe he is, then why doesn’t he do more to shield them from such things?

It’s this last question surrounding the matter of hardships that we’re giving our attention to in this post. Each of those hardships listed – and so many more – could be considered what we call a “cross.”

Although it often uses the term in a lighthearted manner, the secular world is familiar with that term, “cross.” She says, “This is my cross to bear,” referring to her love of chocolate and the need to show restraint whenever surrounded by copious amounts of chocolate that are available to her. He refers to his “cross” when being stuck living in Southern California with its beaches, sun, and near-perfect weather. 

However, when Christians use the term, there really isn’t anything lighthearted about it. The way Jesus used in in Mark 8 reflects this. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (v.34). 

The cross Jesus refers to in the life of a believer is a burden that tests or tries one’s faith. That burden is unique in the life of the Christian because of her faith in God. So even if a believer and a non-believer experience the exact same hardship, it affects the Christian differently. It is a cross.

For example, everyone would agree that cancer is awful all around, no matter who is experiencing it. But cancer doesn’t cause a non-believer to question or doubt God’s love in the face of suffering, because God isn’t a part of the equation for them. And while no one likes to struggle financially, such struggles don’t cause a non-believer to second-guess if God is really able to provide as he promised, because God isn’t a factor. So what makes a thing a unique cross for a Christian is the impact it has on one’s faith.

To help us properly understand the role of these crosses for the Christian, let me ask you a reflection question. Has anything of great worth to you or anything you truly value ever come without difficulty? Was anything that was really worth it easy for you? Now you might be able to fire off a short list of a few things that could qualify, but generally speaking, for a thing to be truly appreciated and valued, it probably involved hard work and adversity to get it. In fact, that hard work and sacrifice that was required are often why we value it.

Consider the gift of children. Even conceiving itself can be a hardship for many couples, let alone delivering a baby. When it comes to delivering a baby, I don’t know too many moms who would say that it was a piece of cake. The things we appreciate require hard work.

Like getting a college degree. Or getting – and staying – in shape. A great marriage isn’t easy. The list goes on, and we could share stories about the hard work and the struggle we’ve put in to get to enjoy many of the things in life we’d say are worth it.

So then, should it surprise us that following Jesus would be any different? Why should it shock us that he makes such a big ask of us to bear crosses – hardships – for a greater faith and deeper relationship with him? If virtually everything in life that we value or appreciate requires a great deal of sacrifice and struggle, surely we ought to expect the same when it comes to our greatest treasure, Jesus.

But we are surrounded by countless people who prefer the easier path of playing the victim and spending their lives complaining rather than putting in the hard work to achieve or acquire things they value or appreciate.

Sadly, Christians can be numbered among them. The result is that many of the things that should be crosses to bear for Christians are not, because of their refusal to pick those crosses up. There’s no cross when it comes to Sunday morning, because sleeping in and sports win over worship. There’s no cross to bear when it comes to lending my neighbor a hand, because I “don’t have the time” (or more accurately, refuse to make the time). There’s no cross to bear facing any ridicule or ribbing for being a Christian because nobody at work or the gym even knows I’m a Christian to begin with.

The Christian life is pretty easy when we don’t bother with those crosses Jesus called us to pick up… until we come to find out that neglecting those crosses brings with it its own set of struggles later on. Have you ever counted the cost of avoiding hard work or effort life in general? It often ends up costing more in the end, doesn’t it?

So it is with our crosses. When we avoid them, it often ends up costing us more in the end. Like maybe my marriage. Or my job. Or a friendship. Or my self-control that results in an addiction. So avoiding the hard crosses potentially leaves us much worse off than if we had picked them up and done the hard work in the first place. But just as hard things are worth it, so are crosses. 

In fact, the more we pick up the crosses Jesus allows in our lives, the more we see them for what they really are – not burdens, but blessings. But in order for us to see the blessings of our own crosses, we must first look to the greatest blessing that would ever come from a cross – the cross of Christ.

Jesus’ cross is hands down the greatest blessing. There alone do we find relief from the burden of our sin. For every cross we neglect, avoid, or ignore, Jesus’ cross forgives. For every time we blazed a path of our own making instead of following in his footsteps, Jesus’ cross forgives. For every time we pridefully presumed to know better than him, Jesus’ cross forgives. For every time chose wrong over right, Jesus’ cross forgives. And at Jesus’ cross we find not only forgiveness, but also freedom – freedom from guilt, from shame, from regret, from fear, and ultimately freedom from self.

Here’s how it works. The forgiveness that flows to me from Jesus’ cross leads me to look differently at my own crosses to bear. That’s because, to pick up a cross and bear it, carry it, I have to let go of something else. What, exactly? Self.

Jesus told the crowd, along with his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (v.34). Deny self. In our society today, you will not find a more radical ideology than that! To a culture that has cemented its celebration of self in how we identify – gender, sexual or political orientation, skin color, and an endless list of other labels, Jesus demands that we let go of it. Deny it. To a culture that says the real problem is everyone else failing to embrace me for who I am, Jesus says, “Wrong – who you are is the problem. Self is the problem.

You want something that is real, something that matters, not just for this short life, but for eternity? Then listen up.” “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (v.35-37). Insist on self and risk losing everything. Let go of self and gain everything in following Jesus. 

Then, when we aren’t so enamored with individualism and consumed with self, we can see what matters most. “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this…” (v.31-32). THIS is what it looks like to deny self and be free to serve others. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh Jesus, denied himself and suffered and died, not for self, but for you. For me. For everyone else. For the greater good. For eternity. For suffering to be temporary and for salvation to be forever. For limiting the number of occupants in hell. And for freeing us to put each other first. That’s what the gospel does. 

Who benefits when we are free of serving self? My neighbor. You may disagree with me, but that care for my neighbor, care for the greater good of the group over self, seems to me to be what is sorely lacking in our culture today.

One of the things I find so appealing about World War II history is the selflessness of that generation. I’m aware that movies and books covering that period may occasionally go over the top in glorifying the spirit of those times and the heroes who served them. Nevertheless, there was a very real awareness of the need to come together to serve the greater good of society over the individual, and if that hadn’t happened, the outcome could have been disastrous. 

I don’t know that it could be done today. Oh I don’t doubt there would be many armchair quarterbacks sharing their opinions of what should be done. I don’t doubt there would be many activists somehow imagining that their boycott or opposition or stand for this or that might be making a grand difference. But I do doubt that our self-absorbed, self-serving society would be able to come together for the greater good if it means sacrificing our individualism.

But Jesus can change that, because the cross he died on not only forgives us, but frees us from self and empowers and equips us to pick up our own crosses. When we pick up those crosses, others are blessed. We are blessed. And God is at his best through us.

Trials: Test or Trap?

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(Genesis 22:1-18)

Can you imagine? A father-to-be having to wait 25 years for his promised son to arrive, with each passing year casting compounding doubt on whether God would deliver? Then, the son is born, and the father-son bond is allowed to be firmly forged into and possibly well beyond the teenage years? Then suddenly, the loving God who gave him demands him back. And not just in any manner, mind you. Not by some humane means that would limit suffering, but in one of the most vicious manners still even to this day by which one ends the life of another: a violent stabbing with a knife! Can you imagine???

This account is really a good fit not only for the start of the season of Lent, with its emphasis on the ultimate perfect sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus, but also as the start of our seasonal series, Rethinking Religion. To anyone outside of Christianity, this is the sort of account that could so easily serve as justification for rejecting religion, particularly the Christian God and the shocking demand he makes of a father in these verses. What kind of a twisted, blood-thirsty God could ever not just condone – but go so far as to command – child sacrifice?

The window of understanding as to where God’s heart truly is in this encounter is revealed right away at the beginning. “Some time later God tested Abraham” (v.1). Before we explore the significance of testing, take note of Abraham’s response. After God called out to him, Abraham replied with “Here I am” (v.1). How different Abraham’s response was from the first time God called out to a man, Adam, after he sinned! There was no, “Here I am,” from Adam, but rather hiding and shame. At that time, the fallen sinner wanted nothing to do with a holy God.

What had changed? God’s gracious promise of deliverance through a Savior that would come had been passed along repeatedly to Abraham. His relationship with God was not one based on fear or terror or shame, which is why he stood ready to listen to what his good Lord had to say. He listened with ears that knew his good Lord’s gracious promises and good intentions for his life and his eternity. That confident faith in his good God might also explain why Abraham didn’t question or pushback on God’s gut-wrenching demand, but instead dutifully followed through with the wishes of his gracious Lord. 

Now back to the matter of testing, which is how this whole account is introduced. If we are to know God’s heart, we have to revisit his purpose for testing. We must not confuse a test with a trap. Though they may even appear to look identical externally, their purpose is entirely different. The purpose of a trap is to catch someone in the wrong. It does not have the target’s best interest in mind, but rather stems from a mind already made up that a wrongdoer needs to be caught, exposed, and punished. A trap is not an attempt to gather more information in order to determine guilt or culpability; it is a setup to catch the guilty person in the act.  

But a test is different. Really, ultimately, a test is for the benefit of the one taking or receiving it. As you look back on your education and consider all the quizzes and tests you spent countless hours studying for, they probably didn’t feel like they were for your benefit at the time, but they were. A test allows the taker to assess how well they are grasping the material. Some are better than others in achieving this purpose, but ultimately, the test shows you where you’re at.

When you are ready to get your driver’s license and get behind the wheel of the car, you don’t take a driver’s test for the instructor’s benefit, but for your own. If you don’t pass it the first time, the test reveals what you need to work on to become a capable driver. And while passing the test and getting your license provides all the other drivers on the road with peace of mind, the greatest benefit is for you to feel comfortable and confident behind the wheel. Tests are for your benefit.

So it was with God’s test of Abraham. The test wasn’t for God’s benefit, since nothing is hidden from him. God was not waffling in indecision about what he thought of Abraham. It wasn’t as if he just wasn’t sure what to make of him or somehow couldn’t get a good read on him. No, God’s omniscient eyes see the heart of every man and know exactly what is in each man’s heart. 

But man, on the other hand, does not. Oh, we often think we do, but we could not be more wrong. The prophet Jeremiah captured that frustration when he wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus taught the same striking truth: “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come…” (Mark 7:21). So we if we are deceived by our own hearts (which, by the way, is why the advice to “follow your heart” is some of the worst advice you could ever give or receive), how can we ever hope to accurately discover anything dangerous or sinister dwelling inside our hearts? How can we ever determine if we are genuinely growing in grace or remaining stagnant in our faith? The answer is through testing, which is for our good.   

We might wonder why Abraham needed to be tested. But the test itself often reveals the potential heart issue. When we look at what God was calling Abraham to do, it becomes quite clear to us. God knows the inclination of the human heart to worship people and places and possessions – created things – rather than the Creator who gives us those things. Therefore, he was well aware of the potential danger of Isaac, Abraham’s long-awaited gift of a son, becoming Abraham’s greatest treasure and number one priority.

Now to the ears of many, this makes God come across as an insecure deity who needs and feeds off of attention and significance – as if being primary importance in our lives is for his benefit. But God is not worried about himself. He is God regardless of what we think of him. Even if all refused to believe or trust in him, God would still be God. He doesn’t need our faith in him; but we do.

His desire to be number one in our hearts is for our sake, not his. Because he is well aware of another force at work against us, one not interested in using tests to bless us, but traps trip us up. Satan is constantly looking to spring his traps to distract us from what is most important in life: our salvation. 

And there is absolutely no trap that Satan considers off-limits when it comes to his goal of seeing us forfeit our salvation. Sure, he will use sin, dressing it up and making it desirable and pleasing to us so that we become so attached to it that we either cannot escape getting tangled up in it or are so entrenched in it that we believe ourselves to be beyond being forgiven and saved. 

But he is just as likely to trap us with good things – blessings from God, even, like family, children, jobs, belongings, etc. – so long as these good things fill our hearts so there is little room for God and his salvation to remain there. The evil one cares very little what it is in our heart that crowds out our love and devotion for God, as long as it serves to fracture our faith bit by bit until it is all but swept out of our hearts. Satan will delight in anything that takes root in our hearts, so long as it isn’t the grace and forgiveness of God through the gospel. 

But while the devil doesn’t care about our hearts, God does. Immensely. Intensely. How much does he care?

Can you imagine? A father-to-be having to wait not 25 years, but thousands of years for his promised son to arrive? Then, the son is born and the father-son bond is forged, with the father witnessing for the first time ever in history what it looks like for someone to finally live the holy life he created mankind to live. And the Father can’t hide his delight, verbally expressing his pride multiple times during his Son’s life! Then, the loving Father-God, with the full awareness of what the future held, a full awareness of the bitter rejection his Son would face, a full awareness of the soul-crushing suffering he would endure, knew he had to turn away from him and abandon him? And not just in any manner, mind you! Not by some humane means that would limit suffering, but rather one of the most excruciating methods of death ever devised: crucifixion! Can you imagine???

That’s how much he cares. He cares enough to allow – and even send – trials that test us and test our hearts. Not to trap us. Not to trip us up in the faith. But to gauge where our hearts are at, so that when we are lacking in faith, we can first of all realize it. But then even more importantly, we can run to the God who can strengthen it, who can forge it through testing into something stronger than we could have ever imagined it to be. Through his faithful forgiveness, he can purify our hearts, rid them of impurities, clean house, and dwell in us unopposed. He carries out this work repeatedly when we recall our baptism, when we receive his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, and when, after sweeping out the sin from our heart in confession, we hear the sweet music of absolution.   

Can you imagine? You don’t have to. God graciously provided Abraham with a substitute sacrifice in the place of Isaac. To Abraham he provided a ram. To us he provided the Redeemer, his own Son. The Substitute who sustains and strengthens us to endure trials and tests and see them for what they are, God’s ongoing work of drawing us ever closer to him and making us more sure of our salvation in him.

A Real Glimpse of God’s Glory

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(2 Corinthians 4:3-6)

Nobody likes a fake. Especially when you paid a lot of money for it. The Saudi Crown Prince had da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” proudly displayed, hanging in his personal yacht – or so he assumed. Imagine how he must have felt then, having paid $450 million for the work of art, only to find out it was a fake. Art professionals determined it wasn’t actually an original, but rather a copy. Nobody likes a fake.

Fake art is one thing; fake people are another. When we refer to someone as a fake, we are not paying that person a compliment. What we’re saying is that they may present themselves one way, but it isn’t an accurate representation of who they really are. They are pretending, like an actor so immersed in the character he’s playing that he refuses to ever depart from the role.

If people didn’t know who Jesus was, it wasn’t because he was a fake. Jesus wasn’t pretending to be something he was not. No, any groups or individuals who had an issue with trying to figure out who Jesus was struggled because of their own preconceived notions or opinions about who he was or who they thought he should be. Jesus didn’t hide who he was. Nonetheless, even though he wasn’t hiding who he was, he did still need to reveal himself.

That’s what the season of Epiphany in the church year is all about: revealing who Jesus is. At Jesus’ baptism the voice of his Father’s approval was revealed. At a wedding in Cana his divine power over nature at even a molecular level was revealed when he changed simple H2O into the finest wine. Through his words and actions, his teaching and preaching, at a pace which allowed the Holy Spirit to work in the minds and hearts of the slow-to-believe, Jesus was revealing who he was over the course of his ministry. As his time on earth drew to a close, he knew the view that awaited his disciples and onlookers on Good Friday. So he gathered on a mountain with just three of his disciples and made his most spectacular revelation yet. 

That event – the Transfiguration – could have been what Paul had in mind in verse six. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” Where else was God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ as it was at the Transfiguration, where the Gospels describe him as emanating a light brighter than any natural light they had ever witnessed? “There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Mt. 17:2).

Jesus’ face shifted supernaturally right before the disciples’ eyes, and the glorious light beaming from it was more than the human eye could handle. If you’ve ever had the chance to watch a solar eclipse and tried to view even the slightest bit of it without the recommended eye protection or other protective measures, you learned the hard way how unwise that is. Staring into the sun is a sure-fire way to go blind! 

But seeing that light in the face of Christ was so very important for the disciples, for in a short matter of time, it would appear that that light would be snuffed out. They would descend from that glorious experience to the foot of the mountain, where the final walk of Jesus would end in Jerusalem. There he would endure a week of enemies plotting to extinguish that light. Finally, as the last breath of life escaped from Jesus’ lips on the cross, surely it looked as if the light of Jesus’ life had given way to darkness, that death had won yet again, continuing its 100% success rate. 

For death had always won up to that point, with the exception of two miraculous occasions by which God chose to circumvent death and usher his own directly to heaven without experiencing it (Enoch and Elijah). Otherwise, death darkened the light of life in everyone who was ever born. No one has ever been able to manufacture a method of keeping that light of life burning forever. Nor will they.

So Jesus revealed who he was, pulling back the veil briefly for his inner circle of disciples to witness. And in the face of Christ the disciples could truly see a taste of what God was all about. God and his glory were and are inextricably linked to the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Savior of all.

While God did in fact reveal his glory in the Old Testament, we notice that God’s glory in those cases was terrifying. Why should his glory be terrifying in those cases? Because God’s holiness was so clearly and profoundly on display, not only through the giving of the law, but in the show of holiness that was powerfully manifested both audibly and visually. That glory was terrifying! Yes, his righteousness, his perfection, his holiness rightly cause sinners to crumble in his presence. But it was only one side of the coin of God’s glory.

Christ, however, completes the picture of that glory. Christ not only embodied the righteousness, the perfection, and the holiness in his flesh and flawless life, but also the grace, the compassion, and the mercy of God, which are also very much included in the full picture of his glory. We could not know that forgiving grace apart from knowing Christ, and God’s glory would remain only a terrifying thing. But in the face of Christ, God’s glory is made complete. That makes perfect sense, because in Christ we see what God looks like. That is the big reveal: Christ shows us the face of God. 

Yes, in Jesus, we see what God looks like. Paul states it plainly in verse four: “Christ… is the image of God.” You know how frustrating it can be when someone tries to describe what a person looks like. They describe the color of their hair, maybe the cut. They might describe any pronounced features. Perhaps they’ll try to compare the person to a celebrity or an athlete who may have a similar look.  At any rate, no matter how detailed their description may be, there’s a better way.

That’s why we ask if they have a picture. A picture shows us what the person looks like. Whereas a description gives us a fuzzy likeness, a picture sharpens the detail and fills in the blank. When we see a picture, an image of the person, we know what they look like.

To see Christ is to see God. Christ is the image of God. Christ is what God looks like. 

And the image of glory is maximized when we see the Christ on the cross. There the glory of God’s holiness is plain to see as the wrath against lawbreakers and the unholy is poured out. There also the glory of God’s forgiveness is plain to see in how God’s grace put his Son in my place to endure it. It’s not me on the cross, but the Holy One! It’s not his sin being paid for but mine. It’s not his sin needing forgiveness but mine! That is the greatest glory of God, and we see it more clearly because of the glory Jesus first revealed on the mountain.

What is tragic is that not all see this glory. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ” (v.4). It isn’t that God’s glory isn’t there, but some simply cannot see it. They have been blinded to it. The “god of this age,” Satan, is the one behind this work.

Why does Paul refer to him as the god of this age? He isn’t somehow putting him on a similar plane to the true God, but is rather underscoring two things: 1) unlike the true God, Satan’s power is limited. Whatever power he has will come to and end when Jesus comes again. Unlike the true God, his power is not eternal. 2) the title simply reflects that he dwells in the heart of all of those who don’t belong to the true God. No, they may not outwardly worship the devil, of course (most don’t!), but to reject the true God is to belong to the one who opposes him, the one who calls truth lies and lies truth. To not have the Triune God as one’s God is to have the devil rule in the heart in his place. 

But One who revealed his glory on the mountain still reveals it today. Though not through a brightly beaming face, his glory is nonetheless revealed powerfully through the gospel. What is the gospel other than pointing to Jesus and his saving work? Paul wrote, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (v.5). The god of this age delights in keeping the attention on self and selling the lie that we are in control and calling the shots in our lives. But Paul and his companions preach a different message – as do we today.

Jesus Christ is Lord. The One who paid the precious price of himself wants not only to be our Savior, but our Lord, the One who calls the shots in our lives because he alone knows the absolute best paths of blessing for our lives. The One who bought and paid for us to be his own longs to guide and direct his own in paths of righteousness and fulfillment. 

And he isn’t asking to be the equivalent of a business partner, going 50/50 in overseeing our lives; he longs to be the Lord, the authority, the ruler in our hearts and lives. And this is no outrageous demand that causes us to bristle or stubbornly dig in our heals in defiance, but one that we crave, a relationship arrangement that we are obliged to submit to, for we know he has our best interests in mind more than we ever could. When the Lord of love is the Lord of your life, blessings in Jesus reach new heights.

That allows us to humble ourselves to new lows, to truly see ourselves as Paul did, as “your servants for Jesus’ sake” (v.5). When Jesus is my Lord, overseeing my life better than I ever could, I am free from the stress and strife of thinking I can somehow manage my life better than he can, and that freedom then allows me to be your servant for his sake, and you to be your neighbor’s servant for Jesus’ sake. 

If the veil is ever going to be lifted, if those blinded by the god of this age are every going to see, it’s going to be through you and me. The glorious Jesus reveals himself to his disciples, as he did on the mountain, not only so that we can see his glory ourselves, but also to awaken in us a burning desire to serve others in ways that might allow us to point them to Jesus through his gospel.

In that way the veil can be lifted. The blind can see. And what shall they see? Not a fake. Not a pretender. No, they shall see the most glorious sight imaginable: their very real loving Lord and Savior, Jesus.

The Devil Is Real. So Is Deliverance.

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(1 Peter 5:6-11)

While I enjoy the outdoors and being in nature when it comes to things like hiking and camping, I’ve never had much of an interest in hunting. I have no experience hunting and have little desire plan a hunting trip anytime soon. I certainly wouldn’t be much of a threat to any game being hunted. In fact, I’m sure that any animal being hunted would actually be better off if I accompanied the hunting party. One way or another, it’s highly likely that I would end up alerting and scaring off any animal.

That being said, I think I get the basic gist of hunting, which is to do your absolute best to go undetected by the game you’re hunting. Then, when the animal unsuspectingly comes into your crosshairs, you have as good a chance as possible of bringing home a trophy. So long as the animal doesn’t smell, see, or hear you, then it doesn’t even know you’re there and is less likely to be scared off. That gives you the best chance of success.

When it comes to something like hunting, we are used to being the predator pursuing the prey. But in our verses from 1 Peter, he turns that around and warns us that we are actually being hunted, and by a predator who can do much more damage than just end our physical life; he can cause us to stumble and lose our eternal life. Peter warns us, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (v.8). The devil is real, he is dangerous, he is on the hunt, and you are what he’s hunting!

But just like any unsuspecting animal being hunted, if the predator is not detected, then neither is the perception of any real danger. It doesn’t surprise us that this is the case for the secular world that brushes off any talk of Satan being real. Satan’s got it easy picking on those prey, because they are oblivious to his existence and are therefore unaware that they live each and every day right in the center of his crosshair. Unless they become aware of their prowling enemy and nothing changes, when they breathe their last physical breath, Satan’s kill shot will then usher in their eternal death. 

While it doesn’t surprise us that the world would brush off any satanic threat, can Satan make inroads in the Church picking apart drifting believers who refuse to acknowledge him as a threat or even question his existence? You tell me. If we don’t feel he’s really all that dangerous, we aren’t going to be on high alert and have the focused mind that Peter encourages. And that’s exactly how a predator would want it. If he isn’t perceived as a threat, then the prey will carry on without a second thought, head in the clouds and aloof to the danger.

While I’m pretty good about it most of the time, I admit that once in a while I do get sucked into nature video clips of predators gobbling up their prey. The ones that really catch my attention are the predators swallowing their prey whole, while it’s still alive. A snake slowly engulfs a frog. A komodo dragon gobbles up a baby goat in seconds. The prey is completely devoured!

While Peter likens the devil to a lion rather than a snake or komodo dragon, the threat is nonetheless clear. The devil is on a hunting party 24/7/365. He will not think twice about devouring unsuspecting prey.

What are we to do? In addition to being vigilantly alert, Peter calls on Christians to put up a fight. He writes, “Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings” (v.9). Resist! Put up a fight! Stand firmly in the faith, and be encouraged that there are many more Christians who are a part of that same resistance, refusing to be helplessly devoured by the evil one. When he does attack, resist him; fight back! 

Too often we don’t even put up a fight! That may be because in weakness we honestly find sin to be more pleasing than living in grace. We don’t even want to put up a fight because we don’t wish to say no to sin. But be extremely careful when this is the case. The more we give into sin, the more we crave it, and it can consume us until we are willing to permanently trade in grace for gratification. Sin is never content to be the occasional guest in our heart – it wants to take over the throne of our heart entirely!

We can also fail to put up a fight because we give too much credit to the enemy and not nearly enough to the Victor who has already defeated him! We let the gloom of Good Friday get the better of us. We reason that if the devil could successfully scheme to sentence the Son of God to death by crucifixion, then how could we ever stand a chance against him? How quickly we forget, though, that that day of mourning, that tear-filled Friday was not how the story ended! 

No, it was not defeat that took place at Calvary; it was merely the battleground where our perfect Substitute soldier made the most noble sacrifice of all, not to be dealt defeat, but to deal defeat to his enemy and ours! That defeat came when Jesus offered up himself to ensure victory. And three days later it was confirmed!

Freed from the restraints of death, the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples to share the glorious victory together. Jesus won. Victory was ours. Jesus won. Victory still is ours. So fight back with all the courage and confidence of one facing a defeated enemy. When Christ is in you as a believer, then victory is in you as well – fight back!

But how? How do you fight back? How do you resist? It’s one thing to speak of battle and talk about predators hunting prey. But how do we fight back when no physical weapons are involved? How do we resist when there’s no one on whom we can land a physical punch?

There’s a sure-fire way not to do it. Don’t resist by relying on your own willpower. When we look back on the battles we’ve lost to the devil in the heat of temptation and determine that we were just weak in that moment, but next time we’ll be stronger, we give ourselves far too much credit. We are deceived into thinking we’re on a level playing field with the one who is the experienced, expert tempter! How downright foolish of us!

The question is, how many times are you willing to cycle through that lie as it repeats itself in your life? Will months go by? Will it be years, decades even, that you regularly enough lose the battle but keep pretending that “next time” you’ll just try harder and won’t give in to the temptation? If that is your only course of action, to determine that “next time” you won’t give in, be ready for a very long and very frustrating soul-sapping, unwinnable battle.

No, the key to successfully resisting the devil is to make sure our footing is solid. We fight best, we give ourselves a chance, only when we stand firmly in the faith and in the object of our faith, Jesus.

Now if that is true, then it makes sense that the stronger our faith is, the more effectively we’ll be able to put up a fight, right? Well then, how do we fortify our faith? How do we firm up our footing? If we look earlier in the verses, Peter provides two examples of how to better prepare for battle with the evil one by bolstering up our faith. 

First, he wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (v.6). Remember who already defeated the devil! If in Christ we have the One who already handed the devil defeat, why would we foolishly insist on securing victory against him on our own? In humility, acknowledge our weaknesses and limitations, own up to and confess that our sins give Satan the upper hand. In humility, let us lower ourselves beneath God’s mighty hand, both acknowledging our inability while also relying on his powerful ability to deal the devil as many blows as it takes to knock him off his tempter’s track.

Think of the person getting caught in a sudden downpour. So long as he stays out in the open, it will not take long until he is completely drenched, soaked from head to toe. But if he seeks shelter, a covering over his head or a large umbrella, just as quickly is he protected from the relentless raindrops. So when we humble ourselves beneath God’s hand, our pride no longer in the picture, we see how powerful and protecting God’s hand really is. And as we do so more and more, our faith is at its best because it is relies on God’s mighty hand instead of our own frail fists.

The second way to firm up our footing is to “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (v.7). Worry, anxiety, concern over the day-to-day or the long-term unknowns – when we insist on carrying these things around with us everywhere, it’s like we’re walking around in lead boots, dragging our feet one sloooooow step at a time. Could you imagine fighting an enemy if you had heavy feet? How could you ever expect to have a chance while insisting on being weighed down by worries? Your enemy would cut you down immediately. That’s what Satan would do. 

So get rid of them. Gather up all of that anxiety and drape it over Jesus. He can carry it. And, when you see him do just that, you are reminded about how much he cares for you. And when you are reminded about how much he cares for you, you are rejuvenated. You are refreshed. You are strengthened. You are standing firmly on the right footing – the footing of faith. Depend on his deliverance in the time of temptation, and you will not be disappointed. For he has already delivered you, and will do it again as many times as it takes until he can deliver you home.