Friday, January 01, 2010, 7:09 a.m. – I woke with this song in mind:
Just a Closer Walk with Thee / Unknown
I am weak, but Thou art strong,
Jesus, keep me from all wrong,
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.
Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares?
None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.
When my feeble life is o’er,
Time for me will be no more,
Guide me gently, safely o’er
To Thy kingdom, dear Lord, to Thy shore.
Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Acts 28:
My Understanding: The first paragraph of this passage of scripture is what really stood out to me. What the Lord brought to mind is how we, as believers in Jesus Christ, will sometimes suffer the attacks of Satan on our bodies, minds or emotions and how we need to follow Paul’s example in “shaking off” the “viper” as soon as it fastens itself onto us in any way.
Our hands are symbolic of our deeds. Satan loves to attack us in such a way as to try to hinder us from working for the Lord or from walking in obedience to Christ. He will try distractions, fears, doubts, worries, criticism from other people, our own insecurities, etc. to try to get us to back down and to withdraw and to try to keep us from going forward in love in serving God and in ministering to other people. So, when Satan “fastens,” i.e. when he fixes his gaze upon us; when he digs his hooks into our lives in any area, we need to “shake off” his attacks.
James 4:7-10:
I Peter 5:6-11:
In both of these passages of scripture there is a counterpart to resisting the devil. Ephesians 4 speaks much of the need to “put off” and to “put on” in place of what we put off. The same concept holds true here. Paul shook off this viper and then he went about healing the sick and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. So many times we try to shake off the attacks of Satan but then we don’t move forward in any direction and so he comes right back and attacks us again and he is often able to defeat us because we forgot the counterpart to resisting him.
We need to cast our cares on Jesus if we want to be free from fear. We can not merely try to resist Satan’s attacks on our emotions to fear situations in our lives if we do not act proactively in giving over to our Lord our fears and then moving forward against our fears in serving God and loving Him and others. We must stand firm in our faith; we must be self-controlled and alert for these attacks of Satan and we must know how to resist and we must go toward God.
The passage in James states that we must:
Just a Closer Walk with Thee / Unknown
I am weak, but Thou art strong,
Jesus, keep me from all wrong,
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.
Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares?
None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.
When my feeble life is o’er,
Time for me will be no more,
Guide me gently, safely o’er
To Thy kingdom, dear Lord, to Thy shore.
Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Acts 28:
My Understanding: The first paragraph of this passage of scripture is what really stood out to me. What the Lord brought to mind is how we, as believers in Jesus Christ, will sometimes suffer the attacks of Satan on our bodies, minds or emotions and how we need to follow Paul’s example in “shaking off” the “viper” as soon as it fastens itself onto us in any way.
Our hands are symbolic of our deeds. Satan loves to attack us in such a way as to try to hinder us from working for the Lord or from walking in obedience to Christ. He will try distractions, fears, doubts, worries, criticism from other people, our own insecurities, etc. to try to get us to back down and to withdraw and to try to keep us from going forward in love in serving God and in ministering to other people. So, when Satan “fastens,” i.e. when he fixes his gaze upon us; when he digs his hooks into our lives in any area, we need to “shake off” his attacks.
James 4:7-10:
I Peter 5:6-11:
In both of these passages of scripture there is a counterpart to resisting the devil. Ephesians 4 speaks much of the need to “put off” and to “put on” in place of what we put off. The same concept holds true here. Paul shook off this viper and then he went about healing the sick and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. So many times we try to shake off the attacks of Satan but then we don’t move forward in any direction and so he comes right back and attacks us again and he is often able to defeat us because we forgot the counterpart to resisting him.
We need to cast our cares on Jesus if we want to be free from fear. We can not merely try to resist Satan’s attacks on our emotions to fear situations in our lives if we do not act proactively in giving over to our Lord our fears and then moving forward against our fears in serving God and loving Him and others. We must stand firm in our faith; we must be self-controlled and alert for these attacks of Satan and we must know how to resist and we must go toward God.
The passage in James states that we must:
- Submit to God
- Come near to God
- Wash our hands of sin, i.e. to rid our deeds/works of sin
- Purify our hearts and to not be double-minded
- Grieve, mourn and wail over our sin and
- Humble ourselves before the Lord and He will lift us up.