July 31
The guy next door whose dog has claimed your yard as his personal ‘relief station’ isn’t your enemy. The spouse who no longer remembers his promise to cherish you as Christ loves the Church isn’t your enemy. The bellicose heads of state who rattle their sabers to the dread of ordinary citizens aren’t the enemy either.
It’s easy to identify the above mentioned people as our adversaries and to strive to devise a retaliatory strategy for the threat they pose to us. But, in so doing, we are tantamount to flailing against the wind, for even if we succeed in besting them, we have not quelled the power of the one who is our true, ultimate enemy.
That enemy, that adversary who is the puppet-master who pulls the strings of all the wicked ones who endeavor to create mischief and mayhem by their actions is satan himself. To him, the scoundrels, the murderers, the thieves, the terrorists, the ruthless heads-of-state are nothing but dupes. They are minions in his evil hand. The enemy of God uses their disillusioned, diabolical proclivities to destroy them and to aggrandize himself.
But, Paul tells us in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush satan under your feet…” The rantings of the dark angel will ultimately come to nothing because he is already a defeated foe. Genesis 3:15 tells us that satan will be crushed under the heel of the coming Savior and that’s exactly what happened at Calvary. Until Jesus returns, however, Paul tells us at the conclusion of verse 20, “…The grace of our Lord Jesus is with you.”
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