"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." (NKJV)
I had my outside fence painted gray last year to match the house. Oh, I could have left it the original redwood color, but it just didn’t seem to go. So, I had it painted gray. If it had been red, I might have missed what happened yesterday.
I was in the house, talking on the phone to a friend, and looking outside at the yard. I enjoy looking at the yard this time of year. The few flowers I’ve planted are trying to bloom, the multitude of birds that I feed are busily scooping up as much seed as they can eat, and there are often fluffy white clouds over the mountains to the south. It’s a beautiful view.
So, here I was talking on the phone when I noticed a copper ribbon had gotten caught on the top of the fence. Finding things in my yard isn’t unusual because I live in the high desert and we get a lot of wind. I never really know what might show up. But here was this shiny, bright copper ribbon. "What in the world is that?" I thought.
And then . . . I saw it move. It was a snake! Now I’m all for live and let live with the creatures around me, but I have to admit. I’m just not a fan of snakes. I have no idea which are "good" snakes and which are "bad" snakes, so having them in my yard makes me very uneasy. But here I found myself on a phone call that I didn’t want to terminate "just because of a snake" and there’s this snake on my fence. A conundrum. The call was one of ministry. The snake was a possible threat. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just kept talking and watched.
After a few minutes, the snake dropped down into my yard. (Why couldn’t he have dropped down into the vacant lot behind me??) So, still on the phone, still listening and talking, I walked outside—not too close, mind you—to watch where this snake was going to decide to go in my yard! Amazingly enough, this is what happened.
The snake dropped to the ground and raised his head. He didn’t pan his head around, as if looking. He simply raised his head, as if smelling. (I’ve since found out from the Internet that most snakes have a good sense of smell.) It didn’t take long, perhaps a minute, and the snake headed for the bottom of the fence (that makes sense since now he’s on the ground) and began slithering, rather hurriedly along the bottom, looking for a space between the fence boards large enough for him to pass through. After a few tries, he found such a space and was gone, back into the other lot, before I knew it.
I didn’t have to fight the "evil" after all. The environment which I had created within my backyard was so uninviting to him—regardless of the flowers, plants, and water—that he wanted nothing better than to leave as quickly as possible.
Then the Lord spoke to me. "I sent the snake to teach you a lesson. Satan and sin will try to come into your life. They may even drop over the edge and look to see if the environment is inviting. But if your life is permeated with my Spirit, they will want to leave as quickly as possible. They can’t exist where I AM."
We never have to focus on evil. We never have to focus on the wiles of the devil (more than to know that he is crafty and will do whatever he can to deceive us). What we need to do is to focus totally on the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father’s love for us. We resist the devil just by being in the presence of the Lord and doing His will!
Look at the passage in James. James gives us the secret to overcoming any scheme of evil: submit to God – resist the devil. What’s interesting is that we don’t actually have to resist the devil. What we have to do is submit to God. By submitting to God, we resist the devil. When we are doing God’s will, the Holy Spirit so permeates our lives and hearts that the devil flees. He cannot exist in that environment.
So what’s involved in submitting to God, in doing His will? How do we do that? I believe there are three rather simple things: (1) Living humbly (v. 10); (2) living the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23); and (3) being content where God has put us (Philippians 4:11).
Living humbly
Humility is something that isn’t easily embraced in America. We are, as a country, arrogant. We believe we are important. We believe our opinions are right. We believe that we have rights that should not and cannot be violated.
Humility says that the other person is more important that I am, that I should spend my time and resources ministering to those around me (and trust God to take care of me). "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3 NKJV).
When we are humble, we put aside our "rights" and look to the needs and concerns of those around us. We drop into prayer at a moment’s notice when we see a need. If we have the resources (regardless whether we think we need them or not), we meet the needs of those around us, trusting God to take care of us. When we are humble, everyone comes first. We are willing to take the last place in line because we know that God is with us there.
Living the fruit of the Spirit
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another." (Galatians 5:22-25 NKJV).
Again, in this passage, we see the idea of conceit, of arrogance, placed against or in opposite to how the Christian should live. Paul tells us that our former life and its desires is crucified, dead. We stop living for ourselves and live for those around us, for those for whom our Lord Jesus died. We do that by being loving, joyful, at peace with God, patient (longsuffering), kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.
The "list" of the fruit of the Spirit isn’t a list of separate characteristics, but rather interwoven and interrelated characteristics that cannot exist apart from each other. We can’t live out one or two of the fruit, but must live out all of the fruit. Love cannot live without peace. Faithfulness cannot exist without self-control. Kindness cannot be evidenced without goodness. And all of these exist upon a foundation of humility.
Living contented
"I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11b-13 NKJV).
If we have learned to be humble, if we have learned to live out the fruit of the Spirit, then we will have learned to be content because the stuff around us—even the bare needs of life like housing and food—won’t matter because we will have learned to trust God in all things. We will have learned that Christ Himself is our housing and food, Christ Himself is the Supplier of our needs, Christ Himself is enough! And if we are living humbly, if we are living the fruit of the Spirit, if we are content in Christ, evil and temptation will flee! Just like that snake who couldn’t get out of my yard fast enough, Satan will drop in our lives, look around, and scurry away as quickly as he can because he will discover that we are living in the presence of the Almighty King of the universe and evil just isn’t welcome where He is!
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.
For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
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