Be sober, Be vigilant

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour ~ 1 Peter 5:8 NKJV

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV

When God created man, He placed him in the Garden of Eden; a place of delight, fulfillment, satisfaction and unhindered fellowship with Him. This was God’s perfect environment for man to live in, work from and commune with His maker. His plan for man was perfect and in order and He gave him clear instructions on what to do and what not to do. Their fellowship was continuous, flowing and in perfect order and harmony, until the enemy caught up with man and deceived him. Adam must have ignored the fact that his relationship with God could be easily destroyed and even robbed of everything that God had given to him, yet it happened. This simply means that the enemy caught him off guard and he managed to put him on a death sentence.

Joseph, a seventeen year old teenager, found himself in a trap when he revealed to his brothers that he had a dream. He may not have known the dangers of telling anybody and anyone what he was upto until his own flesh and blood tried to kill him, and their reasons;

Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!” ~ Genesis 37:20 NKJV

This alone should tell you that there are dream killers and that you shouldn’t trust anyone. It’s also a warning that we should be careful who we disclose our plans to or tell what we are up to. The devil doesn’t come into your life directly, he uses people and he can use anybody and anyone. We need to understand that we have an enemy and as much as God has great plans for us and for our future, we should be careful of the enemy as well because he also has his own plans for our lives and our future. His work is always contrary to the work of God in our lives, and so are his plans.

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly ~ John 10:10 NKJV

We need to stay on guard because there is an enemy that destroys our dreams and fights our potential and he cannot be underestimated. Moses, for example, was a man of great destiny and potential. He carried a solution for the nation of Israel and the devil began to fight him even before he was born. Thankfully, his mother was so prophetic that she discerned that this child was not just a normal child. She took the risk of hiding him for three months until she couldn’t do it any longer. In her wisdom, she put him in a basket and went and placed it in the tall grass at the edge of the river. He was rescued by the princess. Years passed and Moses found himself on the run because Pharaoh was seeking to kill him. And even after he died, the Devil was still after his body. Why was the enemy so mad with Moses that he set him up severally just to have him killed? This man was a deliverer to a nation that would later become so great that the Savior of the entire humanity would come from it. The enemy was seeing far, really far.

One of the most important things for us to understand is that the devil is not after you really, he is after your potential. This means that what you carry within you is powerful enough to throw the enemy into a rage, and to make him so uncomfortable to want to take you out. He can hinder you from fulfilling your divine purpose and maximizing your potential, but only if you allow him to. King Saul was a man with great destiny and I believe that God had great plans for him as a king and his children and descendants after him, yet he allowed himself to be guided and influenced by men. He chose to listen to men and to follow their instructions and by so doing, he destroyed his own destiny. God took away the kingdom from him and gave it to another.

The voice of the enemy doesn’t really come through any other means, but through men. His strategies are not accomplished through any other means, but through men. One of his strategies is to come in between God and man so that he may hinder man from reaching to his destiny or rather from accessing his promises and blessings in God. If you are not discerning and watchful enough, the enemy can hinder, halt, delay or terminate your destiny without your knowledge. Samson had such mighty power and I believe that if he was discerning and alert spiritually, Delilah would not have deceived and trapped him the way she did. He would have known that she was working for the Philistines, yet he continued to entertain her. You cannot continue to commune with the enemy and expect good results at the end of it all.

You must be vigilant and be aware of the enemy. He tried to use Balaam to curse the children of Israel so as to hinder them from entering the Promised Land and he failed. Immediately after this, he caused these people to sin against God by using the Moabites. They lured them into idol worship and sexual immorality and this kindled the anger of God against them, and many died that day. What you need to understand is that the enemy is not asleep just because you have a great destiny and a mind blowing vision. No. He, in fact, is hunting you day and night just to hinder and deter you from becoming all that God has created you to become.