In Elder Meeting last night our pastor started of, as usual, with a devotional. Last night was from 1 Peter 5 and it was one of those times when something just sticks with you. As we read and discussed the passage this stood out for me:

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil.
He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.
1 Peter 5:8-9, NLT

If you have a been a Christ follower for more than…oh….say…10 seconds, you know the truth behind this passage. We are all targets. Satan has it in for us. He is our enemy and wants nothing more than to see us fail and suffer. But that wasn’t what really stuck with me. What stuck with me…and is still with me this morning…is how God tells us to handle the fact that we are targets:

1. Stay alert!
2. Stand firm
3. Be strong

Not what I would have expected. I would have expected something along the lines of: “ask God to protect you, trust God to take care of the problem, let God handle this…” But that’s not what we get here (and that’s not to say we shouldn’t do those other things)…in this case God tells us to take some action…to have a Spiritual Backbone and stand up to the enemy who is bent on destroying us. To be sure, we need to do that with God’s power and strength…but we are called to take a stand and be strong in our faith. We need to lean on God, but we need to stand our ground too. Something to ponder…