Text: 1 Peter 5:8 (KVJ)
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour’
Devotion : We are indeed living in an untoward generation backed up with iniquities manifested through agents if satan. From the text, we understand that the adversary is referred to as the devil.
An adversary is someone who always takes the opposing position, in other words, an opponent or an enemy. The devil is described as an opposition, opponent, and an enemy. He has nothing good in him and will never do good. He seeks people who are vulnerable to destroy them through hypocrisy and deception.
As Christians, we must understand that the devil is a spirit and can only manifest in his enslaved agents. A lot of people have yielded to become agents of Satan knowing and unknowingly. A person become an agent of satan if he or she exhibit the works of flesh as recorded in Galatians 5:19-21. Anyone that exhibit any of these have no place in the kingdom of God.
The only way a believer in Christ Jesus can outwit satan is to be sober and vigilant. Soberness and vigilance must go together to identify the operations of the devil and his cohorts of darkness.
According to the advanced learners dictionary, vigilant simply means wakeful, watchful, carefully observant or attentive; on the lookout for possible danger.
A Christian should understand that the world is full of evil. No wonder Apostle Paul warned in Ephesians 6:12 saying ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’.
Also Ephesians 5:15-16 admonished ‘Walk in Wisdom
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil’. The days are indeed evil based on daily happenings we see and hear from both the print and electronic media. We hear of killings all over the place by those who are anointed by principalities, powers, rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places.
It is also glaring that the youths have derailed from the path of righteousness towards the kingdom of darkness. People are pursuing wealth without wanting to do genuine work for a living.
Salvation preaching is fast fading from the churches and the devil has taking the mind of genuine Christians. Oh what an untoward generation. Parents are now borrowing money to buy android phones for their children to enter yahoo schools. The youth are now going extra miles in getting involved in money rituals by killing their fellow humans. Oh what a perverse generation.
Churches are now turned to business centres with continuous measures of seeking for money instead of fulfilling the evangelistic mandate given by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In Mark 16:15 Jesus said to them, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He never said go ye and preach the nonsense we are seeing these days.
Christians need to be vigilant because our saviour forewarned in St. Matthew 24:24 saying ‘For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect’.
Christians must therefore shun sleepiness, dull-mindedness, drunkenness, ignorance, and prayerlessness to overcome the adversary.
Let us therefore Put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Prayer
Almighty and everlasting Father, we thank you because you are omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God. We request you cloth us with your whole armour and endow us with the spirit of discernment to identify the activities of the agents of satan. In Jesus Mighty Name Amen.