When the devil cannot devour

Believers, have you ever wondered about 1 Peter 5:8- "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour?"

Here we see that Satan cannot just pounce on anybody anyhow. He has to seek out and select his prey. In doing this, he walks about "like a roaring lion." But what does the bible say is "like a roaring lion?" We see this in Proverbs 20:2 (NKJV) -

"The wrath of a king is like the roaring of a lion; Whoever provokes him to anger sins against his own life."

See the NIRV- "A king’s anger brings terror like a lion’s roar. Anyone who makes him angry may lose their life."

Now who is this "king?" Hear it from His own mouth in His response to Samuel when the people of Israel demanded a king for themselves thus rejecting Him as king:

"6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king."

The Lord our God, He is King.

Remember "The wrath of a king is like the roaring of a lion; Whoever provokes him to anger sins against his own life." God's wrath is like the roaring of a lion. Anyone who makes Him angry may lose their life. Glory be to God that as believers in Christ, we are saved from God's wrath ONLY through Christ and not by our puny efforts at trying to save ourselves. See Romans 5:9-

"Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

See the TPT: "And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."

The wrath of God the King is like a roaring lion and we are saved from His wrath through Christ. In Christ, we can NEVER experience the wrath of God. Christ took it all for our sake.

But what does all of this have to do "your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."?

Believers, Satan through his agents on many pulpits, goes about impersonating God the king whose wrath is like a roaring lion by trying to make you believe that God is angry with you, especially when you have sinned or messed things up.

Through his agents on many pulpits who claim to represent God but do not, even though they seem pious, he pushes the agenda that a believer in Christ can still expect the bad things that Christ died to save us from (guilt, condemnation and death, including symptoms of death e.g. fear, worry, generational and other curses, anxiety, silly mistakes at work, depression, oppression, lack, barrenness, poverty, sickness, fast-tracked ageing, physical death and the second death) to happen to him because he sinned or messed things up.

Such condemn you for your sins when John 3:17 tells us that Christ did not come to condemn but to save. Such say you are to save yourself from your sins or expect punishment when Matt. 1:21 says of Christ "...for He will save His people from their sins." So much more.

For example, my mom told me of an experience where a preacher called on believers who were looking to God for children to come out for special prayers. The preacher's question to one of these beloved of God was "Have you been paying your tithes regularly?" The sufferer's response was "no." The preacher proceeded to attribute the woman's barrenness to "not paying tithes" and said that her past prayers were like heaping curses on one's head because she had not been paying her tithe! Believers, this is the antithesis of Christ! Christ never asked the woman caught in adultery if she had been paying her tithes before He saved her from certain death. Christ never asked ANY of those that He healed, saved and delivered if they had obeyed the law or paid their tithes before showing them His salvation. He FREELY gave and they FREELY received. The same yesterday, today and forever still FREELY gives to all who come to Him today to FREELY receive.

The reason why many are not freely receiving is because many have been deceived into thinking that God is not freely giving. Many think that to receive, one has to fast, sow seed, be a certain way and keep the Ten Commandments first. But what qualifies us for God's Grace is our imperfections. He blesses the undeserving and transforms us to live right.

Believers, beware of such "roaring lion" impersonators. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." His agents are on pulpits trying to make you believe that the wrath of God the king which is like a roaring lion can fall on you His beloved child in Christ, but we are saved from His wrath through Christ. Romans 5:9.

See what Paul says of these agents of Satan in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15-

"13 These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve."

These ministers of Satan are pastoring churches and preaching their brand of righteousness straight from the pulpit. They sound and act extremely moral and righteous, preach strongly against sin and always act like they just finished having lunch with God. They preach a lot about righteousness and living a godly life but herein lies what exposes them as agents of Satan (some unwittingly:) their own method of attaining righteousness (becoming godly) in the sight of God is never through what CHRIST has done to make us righteous but on what YOU must do by yourself; we who can do nothing without Christ.

They preach righteousness according to works (of the law) and not the righteousness (by faith) that is freely given as a gift to all who believe in Christ and through the obedience of Christ, as it is written in Romans 5:19- “By one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous."

Such tell you to rely on your own effort at obeying the law in a bid to be godly (be like God) but we see what happened to Eve when she thought she could "be like God" by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The law, which gives the knowledge of good and evil, is a picture of this tree. See this in Romans 7:

"8-12 Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me."

Satan is still deploying the same strategy of using the law (human effort at attaining godliness) to seduce people as he did with Eve, because the result is the curse and death. But no matter how well one keeps the law, it cannot make anybody righteous (godly) in God's sight. See Romans 3:20-

"For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are."

Law-keeping (human effort at being godly aka be like God) cannot cover anyone with a robe of righteousness. It only exposes one's nakedness, just as eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to be like God exposed Adam an Eve's nakedness. It only causes one to be cut off from Christ the Tree of Life, just as Adam and Eve lost access to the tree when they were driven from the garden. See Galatians 5:4-

"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace."

But Satan goes about like a roaring lion: through his agents pretending to be ministers of Christ from many pulpits and making you think that God is angry with you and will punish you because you sinned or are not doing enough Ten Commandments to be godly. But no one can ever do enough, "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands."

Believers, by Grace, let's not fall for this seduction that is prevalent on many pulpits today. When one is trying to obey the law to get inside God's good books, sin has dominion- "For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under Grace." Romans 6:14.

When one is trying to obey the law to get inside God's good books, the curse reigns: "But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under His curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.”" Galatians 3:10.

No one can obey all the commands. God saw how hopeless our case was and sent His own Son to make us right with Him, because He loved us so. Romans 5:19 puts it clearly:

"By one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous."

Romans 3:25 says of Christ: "Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous."

To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to believe that in Him, all of our sins have been forgiven and that in Him, we have everlasting righteousness not because we obeyed the law or did good things but because of His sacrifice. His resurrection is the divine receipt that we have been declared righteous apart from works.

The one who is trying to obey the law to get righteous in God's sight and enjoy the blessing of Abraham rejects God's gift of righteousness to us in Christ. He is saying that he does not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

Believers, in Christ, God is neither angry with you nor does He want to punish you or leave you to roast in your problems until you pay for your sins with fasts and seeds and trips to mountains as these "roaring lion" impersonators on the pulpit who are agents of Satan make you believe. In Christ, we are His children! He helps us out of the messes we create by ourselves, not so that we should continue sinning as many believe, but because His goodness leads to repentance.

In Christ, God disciplines us, but never with any of the things that Christ was punished and died to save us from.

According to Hebrews 12:10, He corrects us so that we can live forever, for our profit and so that we can be partakers of His holiness. Notice not our own holiness but His. We have none. And His correction yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. His correction does not yield stress, lack, sickness, death and all the horrid things that Jesus' sacrifice has paid for in our lives. It yields life.

Believe Right and you will Live Right.