God GIVES. God TAKES.

Job 1:21,

"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."

Philippians 4: 4,

"Rejoice in the LORD always. I will say it again: REJOICE!"

Spiritual Warfare

This skit depicts for me the struggle between God and Satan. Luke 11: 24-26 explains,

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."

This passage from Luke reminds me of just how persistent Satan (1 Peter 5:8) is to bring us down—when he see’s us chasing after the things of the Lord, he will aggressively wage warfare (Ephesians 6:12) on us.

But our God is all powerful. The victory has already been won with Jesus going to the cross for all our sins—past, present and future. We see this in the skit as it comes to a close—the girl is thrown out of the struggle and the man steps in to deal with the situation. Jesus dying and rising again ultimately throws us out of the struggle and into eternal life with the Father in heaven (Romans 5:8).

When we hand our lives over to Jesus, we are called to lives that shine for Him (Philippians 2:15), lives that are changed because we are ALIVE in Him and DEAD to sin.

Romans 6: 11-14,

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”

Lastly, God gave us weapons and protection to combat the warfare that Satan wages—refer to Ephesians 6: 14-18 and put on the full armor of God!