The Disciples Ambition

“My dear Wormwood, I wonder you should ask me whether it is essential to keep the patient in ignorance of our own existence. That question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been answered for us by the high command. Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves.”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

In the fictional, but very enlightening book, the Screwtape Letters, a more experienced demon is explaining to a younger and less experienced demon named Wormwood, how to best handle certain situations that come up so as to keep the “patient” from finding faith. The quote above is actually a quite startling one when understood in its proper light.

The demon’s policy is to keep themselves concealed. Their goal is to keep themselves hidden from view and to not allow any part of their operation to come to the light… which is exactly how the devil works today against the lives of every believer on the Earth!

That statement may seem like an exaggeration or an overstatement, but look at this passage from 1 Peter 5:

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

1 Peter 5:8

Peter not only admonishes the believers to “be alert”, but he also warns them to watch for the devil who prowls like a lion in search of his prey!

Think of a zebra that is living in the wild. That animal is in constant danger of being killed or eaten by the lions! If you were the zebra, how would you live your life? Would you live in a lazy stupor without a worry in the world, or would you be watching constantly in fear of what could jump out of the grass besides you? You would watch everything!

Unfortunately, a lot of us live like zebras that have been raised in the zoo. Slow, lazy, and unaware, we live lives of insignificance and have no idea of what is going on around us. We must awaken to the fact that the devil is out there prowling around with evil intent and is constantly looking for his next victim!

The devil wants us to be unaware . If we are unaware about what he is doing, then how could we possibly defend ourselves from his attacks?

Unfortunately a perfect example of this unawareness actually comes from my own life over the past few weeks! My last post was on forgiveness. Before writing the post, I would have considered myself fairly decent in the area of forgiving others, but after writing the post I became much more aware of my own sin, and was very concerned at how unforgiving I actually was!

I had no idea how often I had let unforgiveness into my heart. It seemed that every time I turned around I was struck by another wave of it! I was completely unaware of this sin and so there was nothing I could do about it! It is only when our sin becomes aware to us, that we can actually do anything about it.

Conclusion:

Take time to reflect this week and consider how you need to be more aware of the devil and his schemes. What could you do to increase your awareness? Maybe you feel the need to pray about it, maybe you need to just get off your phone long enough to be aware of what’s even going on in the room around you!

Approach your week with a mind fully sober and with an awareness that the devil is constantly on the hunt and if you arent ready, will tear you apart.

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