“And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to what you say, I am yours, and all that I have.” 1 Kings 20:4
In 1939, when the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepped off the plane on his return from meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, he waved a piece of paper and triumphantly proclaimed “Peace in our time”. Many people heaved a sigh of relief in the hope that they would avoid going to war against Nazi Germany. History has since proven their assumption wrong as the British quickly realised that you can never pacify an enemy who desires your ruin. The more ground you give in your attempt to reason with an implacable enemy, the more he demands of you until you reach the point where you either fight or lie down and die.
Israel’s beleaguered King Ahab found himself in a similar dilemma and promptly took Chamberlain’s pacific approach, but like the British, he soon realised that this kind of peace came at too high a price and promptly declared war on the enemy. The tragedy of our time is the fact that many Christians are daily doing their best to placate and avoid conflict with an enemy who would stop at nothing to ruin them. They do their best to keep a low spiritual profile in order not to attract enemy fire and when cornered try to negotiate terms of settlement so that the enemy would leave them alone. The truth that still eludes them is that Satan is happy to dismantle God’s blessings from their lives and carry everything away piecemeal until only an empty shell is left behind and he will certainly achieve his aim unless someone stops him. The reality is that only you can stop the devil from denuding you.
Some people expect that God should do the resisting for them, after all He is God. But God will not lift a finger to help us until we set the ball rolling by first resisting the devil in line with His word. This is because He has already provided all that we need to achieve victory over the enemy and expects us to use it. So, whatever the difficulty of your situation, instead of crying foul, God expects you to proclaim victory by faith and promptly start resisting the devil. Rather than acquiesce to Satan’s demands, God expects you to call his bluff, defy him and run him and his baggage out of your life using the provision He has made available to you. God expects you to forcefully lay down the law to the lawless one and force him to toe the line until he finally realises that he will never make headway in your life.
So, if the devil has stormed into your life with the demand for your spouse, child, job, marriage, health or anything that constitutes God’s blessings, give him the treatment he deserves by ramming God’s living word down his throat. It will be only a matter of time before the coward flees Gods flaming sword of the Spirit that is emanating from your mouth. Don’t make an uneasy peace with the devil. Rather, run him out of town. If you don’t, you might live to regret it.
Prayer:
Lord, your word assures me that you have come to give me abundance. I declare your abundance – physical, spiritual, financial, relational, generational and in every aspect of my life. I resist the devil and in your name rebuke the devourer over my life. I declare that my life shall henceforth be a hallowed turf where the devil will not dare to tread and decree that I shall fulfil my days in Jesus’ name. Amen.