Day 2 - Issue 27
Deuteronomy 33:27 NLT
He drives out the enemy before you; he cries out, “Destroy them!”
Refuge provides a place of temporary safety at the very least. One reason Jesus tells us that each day has sufficient troubles of its own (Matthew 6:34) is so that we look to the moment and not the unrealised moments of our future. It’s all very well seeking to make provision for tomorrow, yet none of us knows what tomorrow might bring.
So the enemy is whatever is present to us and from which we need a way of escape. That way is in sheltering within God’s love, for such love dispels all fear (1 John 4:18). Faced with danger or other difficulties, we might assume that we cannot overcome and so fall prey to momentary temptation, going against God’s counsel.
Temptation is a form of early-warning system. God does not judge temptation. We are warned, however, that temptation, if it isn’t nipped in the bud, will lead us into conduct we may later be ashamed of, behaviour that is ungodly and unholy. Indeed some early Christian writers saw temptation as a sign of close proximity to God, for the enemy needed to distract the disciple from their godly pursuit. I take temptation in this way today. Not as something to get anxious about, rather something to confront and defeat. I alone have the ability to resist in cooperation with God’s Spirit. My decisions in such moments are critical. Most often I change my context as a physical indication to my mind that I am choosing to walk away. So I may stop work and take a walk, change my situation, while quietly praying under my breath. I find the Jesus Prayer so helpful here.
So the enemy, in the form of temptation, is destroyed. It evaporates and I am restored to my refuge in God. I need to be active in my resistance so that together with God, temptation is defeated and the enemy put to flight.
QUESTION: What is your action strategy to resist temptation?
PRAYER: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
