One winter Grandpa and I had the joy of living near our granddaughters in California, far away from our home. The Lord miraculously provided a nice little cottage in that busy state for us to live in. This cottage had a locked gate on its property. Every time I went somewhere I had to unlock and open the gate, drive my car out and then close and lock the gate behind me. One day as I left, I was in more of a hurry than usual and was not paying close attention to what I was doing. That day I was walking in front of the gate, pulling it closed behind me. All of a sudden, the bottom bar of the big, heavy, iron gate bit the back of my heel, really hard! Ouch! Did that hurt! It hurt for days!
I learned right then that never again should I walk in front of that heavy gate, and I learned the lesson well. I never pulled the gate behind me again. From then on, I always pushed the gate in front of me to stay out of harm’s way.
As I drove away in pain, I got thinking about my life as a follower of the Lord Jesus, and I learned an important lesson from the gate incident. We all have enemies that want to ruin our lives if we're not depending on the Lord Jesus to help us and if we’re not watching out for them. One of those enemies is the world, which tempts us with things that seem very desirable and beautiful, but instead are very dangerous. Another enemy is found right inside our own bodies, which the Bible calls the flesh. It has desires that can be very strong, including hatred, lying and anger, which, if we give in to them, will harm our lives. The last enemy is the devil. He is always looking for someone to tempt who isn’t watchful, to make him or her fall into sin. The Word of God warns us to live every moment of every day with a serious and watchful mind, because if we're not careful, these enemies will steal our joy, kill our testimony for Jesus and destroy any fruit we could produce for God's glory. As the Bible tells us about one of those enemies, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:88Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Peter 5:8)).
Messages of God’s Love 11/22/2020