I recently sat in my local church and listened to a story the pastor was telling from his childhood as an illustration for his sermon. He told about how he was smaller than most of the kids in his class. And how he had to deal with the neighborhood bully. The story went something like this…

“There was a bully, named Billy, in his neighborhood that lived about a block away where he grow up and everyday, whether it was raining, snowing, sleeting, hailing, the bully was waiting outside his house the minute he would leave the house there he was. The pastor told how he would take off running to escape this bully. One day when the pastors dad had noticed what was happening he called his son, our pastor, into the front room of the house and his dad said to him “if you don’t fight him, I’m gonna whip you within an inch of your life”. He went on to say that when his dad told him to do something, he know he had to do it, because he would do what he said he would do. And he further said he didn’t sleep much that night knowing and wrestling with the thought that one way or another he was going to take a whipping that next morning. He walked out that next morning knowing that if he ran he was going to get a beating or a whipping on of the two. So he walked out and looked at Billy and said I’m not running today, come on, bring it on. He said that Billy ran like a scalded cat.”

The purpose of the story was to illustrate that the enemy has no control or power over us and we don’t have to be afraid. He spoke about in Psalm 40 how David sang about how God had delivered him.

As I sat in there in the service I felt the Holy Spirt saying when you start caring more about what your Father says, the enemy, the big bully, suddenly doesn’t seem so big and bad. All the sudden the pokes and taunting from the enemy aren’t so scary.

Friend. The enemy is defeated. He has no power. We must die daily to the selfish ways and get a vision of what our Father says to us and about us.

““For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29:10-14‬ ‭ESV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/59/jer.29.10-14.ESV

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭139:1-6, 13-18‬ ‭ESV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.139.1-18.ESV

Your Father sees you and loves and will give you strength to stand up and against the enemy daily. He has already done the work we just have to stand firm on what our Father says.

AP