Satan is working. He’s wielding and manipulating, hurting and destroying, damaging and dancing over his current successes. Look around. Disease, murder, broken relationships, pain, fear, etc. He is accomplishing an evil work that is hurting people.
But, take comfort, his success is limited.
The Bible is clear to tell us that we have an enemy in this life. His name is Satan, the devil. Jesus warned us that He works with an agenda. He wants to destroy and damage, kill and hurt, steal and rip everything from the children of God. He works with malice and speaks in lies.
Does that sound familiar? Or more accurately, does that feel familiar?
We see hate in our world, we see how trivial life is treated, we experience loss in our own families, we get hurt, we hurt each other. We’ve felt this pressure, this “work” of his carried out against us and it stinks!! We have been hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down and given over to death over and over as we walk out this life.
But our enemy is not final. He does not win.
Jesus told us that even in these trials, we are not crushed, not in despair, not abandoned and not destroyed because of HIS WORK. He says that although death is at work in this world, life is at work inside the heart of the believer because His Spirit dwells in us.
Take a moment to ponder this. How do you see “death at work” in this world?
As I look around I see a world stealing the real value of love, cancer killing the people I hold dear, and evil destroying hopes of reconciliation in hurting people. We are to hate what God hates, and God hates this sin caused by the enemy of our souls.
Now take a moment to ponder how “life is at work” in your heart…
As I reflect, I find this undying hope that cannot be snuffed out. Despite the loss I see around me, this hope in the midst of sadness won’t let me mourn with hopelessness; but rather allows me to mourn with a future hope of being reunited with those I love and one day seeing the enemy crushed under my Savior’s foot. The “life” at work within my heart causes me to depend on the final outcome Jesus’ has promised rather than focusing on the current situations.
The Bible tells us that this hope is our anchor, holding us steady when life blows against us.
So, although Satan may be at work right now in this world….God has already DONE the work of victory. As we wait to see all things brought under His reign, we hope, trust and believe that God has the final say- not the enemy.
Read these four Scripture verse to strengthen and gird up your hope that Jesus will one day make everything right.
2 Corinthians 4:8-12 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed- always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Hebrews 6:19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain
1 Thessalonians 4:13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
-Mariah