“…casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith…” ~1 Peter 5:8-9
Continuing our consideration of Satan’s attacks, Peter informs us that Satan is like a vicious lion, seeking someone to devour.
This isn’t a happy picture, is it? If you’ve ever watched a nature documentary and seen a lion attack a gazelle, lions are scary.
Peter’s audience had seen convicts and prisoners of war devoured by lions during the Roman games. This imagery was all too familiar.
Eating faith
Satan, however, doesn’t seek to devour the body. Instead, Peter says that the way to resist him is to stand firm in faith. In other words, Satan wants to make a meal of our faith. And in the verse just before, Peter explains the very thing that Satan wants to tear out of us.
Satan wants us to stop believing that God cares for us!
He wants us to doubt God’s love, to doubt God’s goodness, to doubt God’s presence and care in our lives.
Faith and fear
Satan knows that if we stop trusting that God loves us, we will turn to anxiety, and anxiety is a breeding ground for all kinds of sins. When we are anxious, we take matters into our own hands, act in selfishness, and serve ourselves, rather than others. We stop loving others, and seek to protect ourselves. Anxiety becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of sins!
So how do we battle this fear, and fight off Satan? Simply trust that God cares for us. He loves us. He is for us, and will never leave or forsake us!
And, gloriously, He sent His Son into to the world to demonstrate His love for us by dying in our place while we were yet sinners. If He would do that, He will certainly care for our daily lives!
Faith in the love of God is like a 3 inch thick glass wall. Satan, the hungry, roaring, angry lion, can’t get through, and our souls are safe!
