1 Peter 5:8-11 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.” This episode talks about how we aren't alone. When we feel we are it is a lie from the enemy to separate us from our loved ones. It also talks about how God will restore us after a short time of suffering. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
He Will Restore You
1 Peter 5:8-11 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
I like this description of the devil. I think it portrays his true nature. Think of how much destruction a lion can do. He could devour a whole person, until there is almost nothing left. This is similar to what the enemy can do if we let him. He can tear us down and make us think we are nothing. He can make us feel all alone and cut off contact from those that actually make us feel better. There was a scene in a movie once where the boy felt all alone. He felt like no one understood him and everyone thought he was a liar. He told this to a friend and she said she didn’t think that was true. Then she said, “although I suppose that is what he wants you to think.” (He meaning the villain of the story) The boy didn’t understand what his friend meant. She went on to explain if he was all alone, he wasn’t that dangerous. It is much easier to defeat one person than it is to defeat a group of people. The boy realized the enemies trick and let his friends in, he opened up about how he was feeling and let them help. Has the enemy been trying this with you lately? Has he been trying to separate you from your pack so he can attack? Don’t let him. Stick with your pack. You are not alone, there are people that care about you. Don’t the the lion find you alone and vulnerable.
The next line tells us to resist him, but then it also tells us how. It says to stand firm in your faith. This is not always easy to do. It is easy to have faith when all is going well. When things are coming up in our favor, and we have no worries and no cares. However, what about when things aren’t coming up in our favor? What about when everything seems to be going wrong and all seems lost. How do we have faith then? This verse says, we can stand firm in our faith because we know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of suffering. I think one of the most important things I ever learned was that everyone is going through something. We can stand firm in our faith because we know we are not alone. There are approximately 2.38 billion Christians in the world. There are people that are going through the same kind of suffering you are going through. I know this doesn’t seem possible. It seems like your situation is unique and no one else would understand. Please hear me when I say this is a lie of the enemy. He wants you to feel alone, he wants you to feel abandoned, he wants you to pull away from the pack. This is when you are most vulnerable.
I have a friend that I met in my mentoring group who was going through something unique. She didn’t think anyone else would understand. Then when we went on a road trip together, she saw how similar our situations were and that even though I wasn’t in her exact situation, I could understand her pain. She no longer felt so alone. Then she found the more she talked about it, the more people were actually experiencing something similar, they just weren’t talking about it. I know I have said this before, and I know it is not easy, however, it is so important that we talk about our struggles. Other people need to hear them. It gives others hope when they hear someone else is also going through a tough time. It gives mothers of young children hope to hear of more experienced mothers who went through similar situations and yet lived through it. I was at a women’s conference and everyone kept saying that our story is our super power. I think this is true. There is so much power in our story. It helps unite people, it gives people hope, and it even gives them the strength to get through their situation because you have shown them that it won’t last forever and that they will make it to the other side. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I feel so strongly that God wants us to share our struggles as well as our victories.
The verse ends with “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.” This is reassuring us that our suffering will not go on forever. Yes, we will all suffer. God never promised us a life without suffering, however, He did promise to never abandon us. God is with us in our suffering. This verse says “after you have suffered a little while” however, we don’t know what a little while is. A day in our life can be a blink of the eye for our heavenly Father. No one knows how long their suffering will go on for. The one thing we do know is that our God is a God that keeps His word. This verse says that after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace will restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.
The God of all grace, the one who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ. All grace comes from the Lord. His grace is required to do all things and He gives it to us freely. It also says, the one who has called us to his eternal glory. Isn’t this amazing. The God that has called us to eternal glory is going to restore us, and make us strong, firm and steadfast. Many times when we are in the middle of a hard time, we feel abandoned. We also feel as though we will never be the same again. We feel as though we are broken into a million pieces and there is no way back to our old selves. When we are struggling and feeling like this we can take out this verse and remind ourselves that we will be whole again. We can read this and know with certainty that our God, the God of all graces, will restore us, and make us strong, firm and steadfast.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we love you and we are grateful that you always restore us. Lord, we don’t understand why we have to suffer and sometimes we feel like it will never end. When we feel like this we ask that you fill us with your love and with the grace of hope that an end is near. We ask that you remind us of this verse and remind us that we are never alone. Remind us that we not only have you but we have the family of believers by our side to help hold us up when we feel we can’t stand. Lord, help us resist the enemy and all his lies. Help us to be bold and share our story so others know they are not alone. Help us stand firm in our faith together against the enemy. Lord you are amazing and we are so grateful you never abandon us and that you restore us and make us strong again. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!