Discourage The Devil
Do you want to know how to discourage the devil? When persecution comes, such as friends or family criticizing us because we lay hands on the sick and believe in healing and coworkers call us a fanatic because we love Jesus and are not afraid to say so, rejoice. Shout hallelujah and leap for joy! In other words, we just need to play by the Book.
22Blessed (happy–with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, apart from your outward condition–and to be envied) are you when people despise (hate) you, and when they exclude and excommunicate you [as disreputable] and revile and denounce you and defame and cast out and spurn your name as evil (wicked) on account of the Son of Man.
23Rejoice and be glad at such a time and exult and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is rich and great and strong and intense and abundant in heaven; for even so their forefathers treated the prophets.
Doing so will discourage the devil to no end because he is expecting that persecution to hurt us. He is expecting it to damage our faith, to wipe us out and to leave us in dismay. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying we should enjoy the persecution itself. However, we can learn to overlook the discomfort of those things by focusing our attention on the reward that is coming and the fact that Jesus said we are blessed.
The Apostle Paul certainly knew how to do that. He was an expert on rejoicing in the midst of persecution because the devil was constantly stirring up trouble for him. Nonetheless, do you know what he said about all that persecution? He said it was not even worth considering compared to the glory that was about to be revealed.
18[But what of that?] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and for us and conferred on us!
If Paul could rejoice in the midst of beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, imprisonment and almost every other kind of persecution, we can too. We just need to do what he did. When he was told by the Holy Ghost that bonds and afflictions awaited him, he was unmoved and continued on with the calling he received from Jesus to spread the good news of the Gospel of God’s grace.
24But none of these things move me; neither do I esteem my life dear to myself, if only I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have obtained from [which was entrusted to me by] the Lord Jesus, faithfully to attest to the good news (Gospel) of God’s grace (His unmerited favor, spiritual blessing, and mercy).
In summary, we cannot allow ourselves to get all caught up in what people think and say down here on earth. Instead, we must discourage the devil by getting caught up in pleasing the Lord. Get caught up in finishing our course with joy and the glorious hope that is ahead. That hope is enough to make all of us, under any circumstances, leap for joy.
God Bless!
“Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible”
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