| “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.” |
| —1 Peter 5:8 |
I heard them arguing. This five-year-old and his three-year-old sister had a dust up about something. Giving it all she had, she stretched her little chest out and faced him with the words, “You’re not the boss of me!”
Sometimes we grown-up Christians forget the authority with which God has equipped us in this world, where Satan roams about seeking to devour us. God, by His Holy Spirit, has given us His power through which we can resist evil and stand against the foe.
William Gurnall, the 17th Century theologian, wrote an entire book about the verses in Ephesians 6, which goes into great detail how we should prepare to engage our enemy. Of the phrase in Ephesians 6:10, “in his mighty power,” Gurnall writes:
The apostle’s drift is so to encourage the Christian to make use of God’s almighty power, as freely as if it were his own, whenever assaulted by Satan in any kind. 1
1 John 4:4 reminds us of this power to which we have free access:
Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
God gives us the Holy Spirit, and all the mighty power that belongs to Him. We have no power in ourselves to withstand the awful violence and deceit of the Enemy. But we, through faith, have the power of God on our side.
When we step out in faith, accept the pieces of armor God provides us, and pray for His power to fill us, we have an authority few of us may realize.
The next time you engage in a battle over temptation, or experience the subtle attempts to take you down emotionally, physically, or spiritually, puff your chest out and say with the authority you have been given in Christ, “You’re not the boss of me!”
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| 1 Gurnall, William, The Christian in Complete Armour. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1979 (reprinted). p. 25. |
