The Devil Hates Everything Dear to God: by AW Tozer

… because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 1 John 3:8

I have observed among spiritual persons in the Christian fellowship a tendency either to ignore the devil altogether or to make too much of him.

Both attitudes are wrong!

There is in the world an enemy whom we dare not ignore. We see him first in the third chapter of Genesis and last in the twentieth of Revelation, which is to say that he was present at the beginning of human history and will be there at its earthly close.

This enemy is not a creation of religious fancy, not a mere personification of evil for convenience, but a being as real as man himself. The Bible attributes to him qualities of personality too detailed to be figurative, and reveals him speaking and acting in situations hard and practical and far removed from the poetic imagination.

He is said to be a liar, a deceiver and a murderer who achieves his ends by guile and trickery. While he is not omnipresent (omnipresence being an attribute of God alone) he is ubiquitous, which for his purpose amounts to the same thing.

Satan hates God for His own sake, and everything that is dear to God he hates for the very reason that God loves it. Because man was made in God’s image the hatred with which Satan regards him is particularly malevolent, and since the Christian is doubly dear to God he is hated by the powers of darkness with an aggravated fury.

In view of this, it cannot be less than folly for us Christians to disregard the reality and presence of such an enemy.

Know Yourself: by TA Sparks

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? 2 Corinthians 13:5

The sum of everything in the new creation is in Christ, or, to put that in another way, it is outside of man himself. It is apart from man, and it always will be. Although Christ, the sum of the new creation, may be in us, that new creation will remain in Christ, and we are only in it by reason of our union with Him. He becomes the fullness of everything in us, but the practical outworking of that fullness will ever, and always, be purely and solely on a basis of faith. If the thing could be said at any time to have its origin in us, then faith would be dismissed. If we had it in ourselves, if it were our constitution, faith would be dispensed with. That would result in a repetition of us....

The difficulty which we shall be meeting all along the way will be ourselves. We shall find that the main obstacle, the main enemy to our fullness in Christ, to all that the new creation means, will be ourselves in some way. It will either be our self-occupation – which is but a form of trying to be something fine, something in ourselves which will bring satisfaction to God – or it will be our self-effort in service. It will be this natural life of ours cropping up in some direction or another, and as it crops up it will cut clean in between us and the "all things" which are of God, and we shall find that it is ourself which brings us up short, which creates the arrest.... If we look within ourselves to find more good, we are going to look in vain. We shall never find anything in ourselves but corruption. Is that really settled with us? On both sides, the people who have some opinion of themselves had better settle it once and for all that there is nothing in them but corruption, and also those who have settled it, and yet are so occupied with their old man as though it were something really worth being occupied with. Put it where the Lord Jesus has put it, in the grave, and do not walk round it, turning it over, if peradventure you might find something worthwhile. Fix and fasten your faith in God's Son, and leave yourself alone for ever. Only so will you find your emancipation.

The First Stage In Revival: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, you and the people . . . for I will not go up in the midst of you; for you are a stiffnecked people: lest I consume you in the way. Exodus 33:1, 3

God’s reply to Moses is in effect, “I have given this promise to these people, that they shall go to that land of promise, that land of Canaan, which is flowing with milk and honey. And, therefore, I tell you now, you lead them up. You take them to the land of promise. In view of what they have done, I am no longer coming up with you.”

That, then, is the position. And what is of such great interest to us is the reaction of Moses and the Church to this. This is always the first stage in revival. You see the position they were in—their sin, God’s pronouncement, God’s judgment upon it. And the first stage, the first step, in revival is, as we see here, a realization of the position.

These people who had rebelled and turned their backs on God, who had blasphemed His name and had criticized His servant Moses, who had caused Aaron to make the calf and had worshiped it, and who had sinned, suddenly they were stopped short. They realized something, at any rate, of the situation they were in. Now obviously this is a matter of final importance. There is no hope of revival apart from this. It is an awakening to the situation. It is an awareness of the implications of what God has said: “He is going to withdraw His presence from us, and He has done so. The cloud has disappeared. The pillar of fire is no longer in evidence. God said He would withdraw, and God has withdrawn.” There is a consciousness and a realization of His displeasure. I defy you to read the history of the revivals—you will find at once that without a single exception this always happens.

Impossible Debt: by Jerry Bridges

Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. Matthew 18:25

We can't begin to appreciate the good news of the gospel until we see our deep need. Most people, even believers, have never given much thought to how desperate our condition is outside of Christ. Few ever think about the dreadful implications of being under the wrath of God. And none of us even begins to realize how truly sinful we are.

Jesus once told a story (Matthew 18:21-35) about a king's servant who owed his master ten thousand talents. (Just one talent was equal to about twenty years' wages for a working man.) Why would Jesus use such an unrealistically large amount when He knew that in real life it would have been impossible for any servant to accumulate such a debt?

Jesus was fond of using hyperbole to make His point. That immense sum represents a spiritual debt every one of us owes to God. It's the debt of our sins. For each of us, it's a staggering amount. This is what the gospel is all about. Jesus paid our debt to the full. And He did far more. He also purchased for us an eternal inheritance of infinite worth. That's why Paul wrote of the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). And God wants us to enjoy those unsearchable riches in the here and now, even in the midst of difficult and discouraging circumstances.

The King’s Ambassador: by Watchman Nee

“Behold, I have given you authority . . . over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you.” Luke 10:19

Everyone who is called by the name of the Lord is, here on earth, his representative. We are God’s ambassadors. Delivered out of the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son, we carry with us at all times the authority of heaven.

But a serious warning goes with this: that we ourselves must be subject to the authority of God. We know that the creation was originally placed under the control of man. Why, then, does the creation not listen to man’s command today? Because man himself has failed to heed God’s Word. Why did the lion slay the man of God from Judah (1 Kings 13:26)? Because he had disobeyed God’s command. But on the other hand, how was it that the lions did not hurt Daniel? Because he was innocent before God. Or again, in the book of Acts worms consumed proud Herod, whereas a viper could not hurt the hand of Paul. Here at last the creation is once more subject to the ambassador of Christ. It all turns on the ambassador’s own obedience.

Seek Me, The Giver, not my Gifts: from Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Colossians 1:27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

    Be still in My Presence, even though countless tasks clamor for your attention. Nothing is as important as spending time with Me. While you wait in My Presence, I do My best work within you: transforming you by the renewing of your mind. If you skimp on this time with Me, you may plunge headlong into the wrong activities, missing the richness of what I have planned for you.
    Do not seek Me primarily for what I can give you. Remember that I, the Giver, am infinitely greater than any gifts I might impart to you. Though I delight in blessing My children, I am deeply grieved when My blessings become idols in their hearts. Anything can be an idol if it distracts you from Me as your First Love. When I am the ultimate Desire of your heart, you are safe from the danger of idolatry. As you wait in My Presence, enjoy the greatest gift of all: Christ in you, the hope of Glory!

Revelation 2:4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

No Ordinary People: by CS Lewis

Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn: We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.