Get Real November 22 Devotional

1 PETER 5:8-9 | ⁸ Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. ⁹ Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

Humility is also rooted in our understanding of the spiritual battle we are engaged in with the Evil One. When we begin to be effective as a disciple, we will come under attack. Peter describes the devil as a roaring lion looking to devour and destroy God’s children. This destruction can happen, and our witness be destroyed, by moral indiscretion, through unrestrained ambition, as a result of stress and depression, or via a loss of faith in God or confidence in our calling. These malign tactics are a feature of evil’s activity against believers all over the world. Part of the answer is self-discipline and alertness, a vigilance that puts on the “whole armor of God,” which Paul describes in Ephesians.

Read Ephesians 6 as the “whole armor” is described. Have you ever felt besieged, spiritually or emotionally?

Gracious God,

Help me maintain a healthy, fearless realism about the battles You have called me to fight. Let me use every tool in Your arsenal to overcome.

Amen.