1 Peter 5:6-11(NLT)
6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God,
and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and
cares to God, for he cares about you. 8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great
enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to
devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that
your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of
suffering you are. 10 In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal
glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he
will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm
foundation. 11 All power to him forever! Amen.
In 1Peter 5:6, we
have God’s assurance that if and when we humble ourselves under His mighty
power, He will lift us up in honor. Heavenly Father makes a connection between
humility and honor, and we cannot afford to forget it. Many of us tend to take
matters into our own hands, especially when we are under attack by the enemy,
but we should never do this, because it wastes our resources of time, energy,
and effort. The way to handle any problem is to humble ourselves before God and
have faith in His power and willingness to rescue us.
Instead of worrying
about all the problems and issues that come with life on earth, we are to give
everything over to the Lord. We must also be aware that the devil will try to
convince us not to do this. “God doesn’t really care about me. He has bigger
problems than mine to think about.” This is just one of the many thoughts
the enemy whispers in our ears, trying to persuade us not to have faith in God.
It’s how the devil gets us to give our power over to him, because he knows that
our faith in Jesus Christ is the key to our victory.
This is one of the
reasons why God tells us through the Apostle Peter in 1Peter 5:8 to stay alert,
and to watch out for the devil, because he’s walking around the earth looking
for someone that has refused to have faith in God. We have a destiny in the
Will of God. He has plans for us. These are good plans that will give us
fulfillment and purpose. Fear will keep us in doubt about this. It squashes our
faith. When we’re attacked by the enemy through domestic violence and abuse, we
are attacked at the very core of our being. And the enemy is using our abuser
to instill terror and layer it so thick that our self- worth is
suffocated.
We shouldn’t be
surprised that there are tribulations and struggles. They come with the
territory of being a believer in Christ, but God tells us in 1Peter 5:9 to
stand firm in faith. Maybe you’ve been in some tight spaces, you didn’t’ feel
like you could make it through another day or that you could overcome the
darkness, but trust that the hand of God is on your life. Trust His plan for
you. When you feel like you want to sink and give up, have faith in God
instead.
1Peter 5:10 tells
us that suffering exists, but it also assures us that suffering doesn’t last.
Our faith in Jesus Christ means that we can count on God to restore, support,
and strengthen us. Only Heavenly Father can put us on a firm foundation. When
we’re facing the most challenging situations we’ve ever faced, and the devil is
attacking us through another person, it may not seem as though we have a choice,
but we do. We can trust in God, cast our every care on Him and know that if we
humble ourselves under His mighty power, He will lift us up and restore honor
to our lives.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
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