You will help me, Lord God, and keep me from falling;
5 you will punish my enemies for their evil deeds.
Be my faithful friend and destroy them.
6 I will bring a gift and offer a sacrifice to you, Lord.
I will praise your name because you are good.
7 You have rescued me from all of my troubles,
and my own eyes have seen my enemies fall. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Psalm 56:4-7 (CEV)
There is evil in this world. I have made a choice to be a disciple, a follower, of Jesus Christ. So what leads me away from Jesus is my enemy. Do I have eyes to see who and what that is?
Myself. I have to take some ownership here of poor decisions that I make without any help from Satan or anyone else in my life. There are times that I just plain “want what I want†and refuse to listen to wisdom. I surely can be “my own worse enemy.â€
How do I combat that? Grow up! Learn from my mistakes. Realize that I always have a choice. Hoping for a different outcome in a situation that I have been in before and yet make the same choices is just – dumb! I will make mistakes but how about some new mistakes?! I will fall into sin but let me not keep repeating and repeating the same sin!
Satan and his buddies. This life, this world, is Satan’s playground and he just loves to wind me up and drag me into his pot holes. He likes getting me off away from the influence of other Believers and distract me from spending time with my Heavenly Father. He wants to drown out the voice of God with his many and varied voices. He will take a truth and just twist it a bit to deceive me. Remember how he went after Jesus in the desert? He quoted Scripture to Jesus! He took a passage and just twisted it a bit to make it wrong and he does the same to me! He tries to distract and get me to swerve off God’s path.
It is so important that I heed the warnings to stay with the fellowship of Believers in Jesus Christ and not try to navigate my life like a Lone Ranger. Every day I must put on my armor of God and enter into my day prepared to recognize and defeat the enemy at his games.
As I spend time with Jesus I see the faithfulness and power of God. Like David against Goliath, the victory comes because I know and believe in the power of God; I’ve seen it in my own life.
I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.19 I have given you the power to trample on snakes and scorpions and to defeat the power of your enemy Satan. Nothing can harm you.20 But don’t be happy because evil spirits obey you. Be happy that your names are written in heaven!              Luke 10:18-20 (CEV)
And so I will walk each day with confidence because of Who is my LORD, my loving Father. I choose this day to serve Him (Joshua 24:15). Satan is defeated before he even begins because of who I pledge my allegiance to. My flesh has no power because in the weakness of my flesh, I ask Jesus to be my strength. My enemies are defeated because greater is He that is in me, than he that is in this world.
I am a Friend of God written and sung by Israel Houghton
