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👉🏼 (Reading: 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20)
📜 ""For we wanted to come to you-certainly I, Paul, did, again and again--but Satan blocked our way.""
1 Thessalonians 2:18 (NIV)
📋 The devil is our adversary who opposes God and his children. Satan has declared war on God's people: "... those who keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus" (Revelation 12:17).
This is why the Apostle Peter alerts us: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8, NKJV). As our enemy, one of the things Satan does is to oppose us.
He tries to prevent us from becoming what God wants us to be, from achieving God's purpose for our lives, from receiving God's blessings, from tackling important assignments, from making progress spiritually, socially, financially, etc.
In today's focus verse, the Apostle Paul testifies about how Satan prevented him from visiting the believers in Thessalonica: "For we wanted to come to you-certainly I, Paul, did, again and again-but Satan blocked our way." Satan is still busy putting barriers in our way to frustrate us.
So we need to be alert to his schemes and attacks and resist him. The Apostle James urges us in James 4:7: "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." When we sense that Satan is opposing us in some way, we need to pray fervently for God's intervention.
Beware of Satan and resist him.
🔑 Key Lesson: Believers need to beware of the devil, our adversary, who opposes us.
🛐 Meditation and Prayer: Lord, give me the power to always resist Satan and defeat him.
📚 Further Reading: 1 Peter 5:8-9.
◼️ The Bible in One Year: Ezekiel 13-15.