READING:
One-year plan: Zechariah 7-11, Revelation 20-21
Two-year plan: 2 Chronicles 17:1-18:27, Acts 5:22-42
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NOTE: If you plan to read the Word with me again in 2025, I plan to read straight through the Bible this coming year, and I will particularly watch for prayer in the Scriptures as I write these devotions. I will still include the reading for the two-year plan, too, if you are following that plan.
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Life’s tough some days, particularly because we fight against principalities and powers who want to destroy us (Eph 6:10-17). Frankly, I’m tired of the enemy and his work over the last year. I’m tired of his clawing his way into families and messing with marriages. I’m tired of his capitalizing on sinfulness and fostering great division in local churches. I’m tired of his holding people—even believers sometimes–in bondage to controlling sins. I’m tired of his heightening defeat and despair and discouragement in folks I love.
I’m tired of his blinding non-believers I’m pleading with God to save. I’m tired of his magnifying the temporary pleasure of sin to deepen that blindness. And, I’m tired of his pushing me to give up hope for those for whom I’ve been praying – but who seem even farther away from God.
I’m just tired of the enemy.
But, here’s what I know: despite appearances otherwise, Satan has already been bound, is being bound, and will ultimately be bound. He and his forces will be “thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur” (Rev 20:10). Their victory now is only temporary, but their judgment will be eternal. The one who sometimes seems to be winning today is a defeated foe.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: How is the enemy aiming his arrows at you?
DAILY PRAYER: “God, I praise You that the enemy is already defeated.”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Zechariah 12-14, Malachi 1-4. Revelation 20-22
Two-year plan: 2 Chronicles 18:28-20:19, Acts 6
*portions first published in 2021