Met with a buddy for lunch yesterday. Main topic of discussion? Being lion’s food. Well, not quite phrased that way . . . but reading 1Peter this morning, I’m kind of thinking that’s what we were talking about.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, . . .
(1Peter 5:6-9a ESV)

At lunch we traded stories of times we sensed we were under spiritual attack. Not the suffering and overt persecution that the brothers and sisters Peter wrote to were enduring . . . but the in your head . . . when you’re all alone . . . beating up you can take. Those times when you’re dressed down by some drill sergeant in your imagination . . . your failures highlighted . . . your performance evaluated and deemed as coming up short. And, you feel like a loser . . . a joke . . . wondering that, if you really believed what you said you believed, you’d do better . . . know more power . . . hear His voice more audibly. But the question has to be, where’s that voice coming from?

Is it the voice of conviction . . . dealing with true sin . . . leading to godly sorrow . . . heartfelt repentance . . . and blood-bought restoration? Or is it the voice of accusation . . . dealing with apparent levels of performance . . . comparing ourselves to others who seem to have it all together . . . leading to depression . . . hopeless brokenness . . . and a sense of separation? I’m thinking, if it’s the latter, then we’re being lion’s food.

Our adversary, the devil, is on the prowl . . . stealthily moving about . . . looking for believers to swallow. In the case of Peter’s audience, it was through overt attack and physical oppression. Sometimes, he’s more subtle . . . it being the battleground of the mind and thoughts where he seeks to take down his prey. The battle can take the form of drawing the mind into a world the Christian mind has no place being and, choking out the life of the Spirit through temptation to sensuality (anything which appeals to any one of our senses) and a spurring on towards the pursuit of pleasure. Or, the skirmish can be taking the mind to a place of self doubt . . . not purifying self reflection, led by the inner probing of the Spirit . . . but a doubt concerning your ability to perform as you should as a Christian. This is the voice of the accuser (Rev. 12:10) . . . this is being gnawed on, if not devoured by, the lion . . . lion’s food.

By abiding in Christ . . . that is: faithfully feeding on His Word; continually communing with Him in prayer; frequently participating in His Body through fellowship with other believers . . . by abiding in Christ, through the inner presence of the Spirit, and by the grace of God, we can recognize the source of the voice . . . discern between conviction of the Spirit and accusation by the enemy . . . knowing when we’re being lion’s food . . . and then, resist him by standing firm in our faith.

While there certainly should be fruit evidencing the reality of God’s sanctifying work in our lives, we don’t stand on the basis of our fruit, but we stand by faith in the power of His finished work and eternal call on our lives. We stand firm in our faith, believing that He who began a good work in us will complete it (Php. 1:6) . . . knowing that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5) . . . confessing our sin, knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin because of the shed blood of the Lamb of God (1John 1:9) . . . and, by His Spirit in us, we take our heads out of the lion’s mouth . . . knowing that greater is He who lives in us than he who stalks us in world (1John 1:4).

It was a good lunch . . . a bit of iron sharpening iron (Prov. 27:17) . . . and we weren’t the food.

By God’s grace . . . for God’s glory . . .