About protection from evil…
Ephesians 6:16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with
which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. (NIV)
Satan has a will for you. Satan has an agenda for you. Satan has a list of
things for you to do. In our lives, we live in a soup of good and evil where it
is sometimes difficult to discern the will of God. In the mix of this soup of
good and evil, we have our own will that is easily influenced by the flaming
temptations Satan hurls at us. When we lack faith, when we try to do everything
on our own using our own resources, we run out of our own resources and
eventually we get burned. God will help protect us from evil but this does not
mean evil will go away. We live in a constant battle of forces. Our own will
tries to get us to do what we want to do, God tries to get us to do what God
wants us to do, and Satan tries to get us to do what Satan wants us to do. In
the middle of this spiritual war in which we are involuntarily immersed, Satan
is shooting at us. Sometimes Satan wounds us and hurts us. Sometimes Satan makes
us sick, gives us diseases, causes war, famine, and plague. However, as bad as
all this sounds on the surface, the great news is we can all win. We can all
achieve sweet victory. For when we choose to accept Christ into our hearts, His
legions of angels stand next to us, fight with us, intervene for us, shield us,
and protect us. Even when we do not win as the world would want us to win, we
are the victors in Christ Jesus.
