(Luke 22:31 ASV)
I'm not Peter, yet there are times that I feel like I'm being sifted as wheat. Satan doesn't use any one thing to sift us since we are all different. What may tempt one person, may not affect another person at all. Some things that tempt:
- family —"Can a man take fire in his bosom, And his clothes not be burned?" Proverbs 6:27 those who are close to us are the ones that can sway us into doing good things or evil. If Satan wants to work, he often uses those we love and care about. For example a couple had fallen away from church and Bible study attendance. After a time they decided to begin attending again that Sunday morning. Saturday evening cousins showed up unexpected for the weekend. What to do? Entertain their family members, or as they had predetermined, attend Sunday worship? They told their cousins that they were welcomed to attend with them, stay at the house and wait for them to return, but they were going to Church Sunday. From that day forward no one from their family came to visit unannounced on Saturday.
- friends—"wherein they think strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:" 1 Peter 4:4 ASV Some friends are as they say, 'fair weather friends'. They are only there for what they call the good times. Running amuck, basically. Those who come out of the world have those kind of people hanging on them. Or, as in the previous example, have friends who will try to pull you back into the mud with them.
- enemies—"It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household!" Matthew 10:25 ASV If they have hated Jesus they will hate his followers. Our enemies wish to do us harm in one way or another. By throwing stumbling blocks before us, throwing mud in the form of lies or slander at our reputation. Enemies we know are not going to help us on our way.
- time and chance — "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecclesiastes 9:11 Time can be a friend, or an enemy. But with all of life there is the wearing and grinding of happenings which are out of our control. Just as money doesn't make us good or bad people, just more of what we are, Life doesn't make us good or bad people, it just reveals what our character is.
"And Jehovah said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And Jehovah said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and turneth away from evil." Job 1:7-8 ASV
Let us be known as 'one that feareth God, and turneth away from evil.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
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