A Tiny Message #9

But mark this: There will be terrible times 
in the last days. People will be lovers of 
themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, 
abusive, disobedient to their parents, 
ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, 
slanderous, without self-control, brutal, 
not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, 
conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than 
lovers of God— having a form of godliness 
but denying its power. Have nothing to do 
with such people. 
2 Timothy 3:1-5

So often when we turn to God for help we look for comforting words. I’ve heard it said many times recently that our churches have mostly eliminated the “difficult” messages in the Bible. And while Jesus’ messages to love one another are powerful tools in our battle against the devil He never asked us to turn a blind eye to sin and lies.

Satan is constantly at work trying to turn us away from the entire message of God. In fact, when I went back to edit my post titled, “Identify the Enemy,” I ran into a number of technical glitches. You see, my original post didn’t include the name Satan. After praying about what I had written I received a clear message to highlight how Satan is the Great Liar. I first couldn’t access the document. Then my computer kept saying I was off-line. Then the document wouldn’t save. I closed my eyes and said, “I know this is you at work, Satan. I’ve got all day and God on my side.” And lo and behold everything started working!

Satan is in our midst. He uses the greedy, the boastful, the abusive, the deceitful and lovers of pleasure to try and destroy our faith. And if we choose to turn a blind eye to his ways then we become his instruments. When we face the enemy head on, with our God-given armor, we step on to the battlefield. Our weapons against these “terrible times” are the truth of scripture, prayer, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and our God All Mighty.

Here’s a prayer I read that we should all speak each day:

Lord, help me stand my ground and defend what I have gained, no matter how difficult it might be to do this. I know that with Your supernatural help, I can outlive and outlast the resistance. With Your Spirit’s power working inside me, I know I can indefinitely and definitely stick it out until the enemy realizes he cannot beat me and decides to retreat! I pray this in Jesus’ name!