Protection

If you were to ask people on the street about protection, I would assume that you would hear comments about condoms, birth control pills, or our "war on terror". I would have probably been in the same boat, until today.

Today when I was reading through some small group stuff in preperation for a training session on Saturday, I happened across, 2 Thessalonians 3:3, "But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one." It has really set my mind in motion today. It has always been a pet peeve of mine how people will say, "the devil made me do it" or "Satan is attacking me today". It frustrates me because of the willingness we have to make excuses for why we stumble with things, pushing it to the point of making it acceptable to stumble because "the devil tempted me and I couldn't help it." I think it is a copout.

I believe part of the problem is that we give the evil one, Satan, or whatever you want to call him/it too much credit. In all honesty, I believe the evil we struggle with as humans is more the result of our sin and humanness rather than an evil force that roams the world looking to devour and destroy good. Not to say that there is not an evil presence in the spiritual realm that influences the world. I simply thing that we all to often claim evil and make excuses for not living ethically, holy and pleasing to God.

Until today that was all I really had thought. However, when I came across the 2 Thessalonians passage, all of this was broudht to the front of my mind again. If God, who is faithful, will strengthen and protect us from the evil one, why are we claiming, "the devil made me do it"? With the help of my handy dandy Bibleworks 4 program, I looked up the idea of protect throughout the scriptures. There are over a dozen other places besides 2 Thessalonians where the scriptures talk about God protecting us, especially in the Psalms, which is interesting in itself. The Psalms are considered the hymn book of Israel. In the middle of the worship of Israel, they continually take notice of how God will protect them. I think you could compare it to tying a string around your finger to remind you of something. Jesus prays for our protection in John when he is praying for his followers before the crucifixion.

Stepping outside of spots where the scriptures say that God will protect us, there are many more sciptures where we are encouraged to pray for his protection from the evil one. A main example of this is in the Lord's Prayer--deliver us from the evil one.

So, what is the point? I believe that we put ourselves in dangerous situations where we ourselves become the tempter. We stand too close to the fire, knowing that we will possibly get burned and we are ok with it. I also, after really chewing on these scriptures over the last half hour or so, believe that the triune God is doing what He can to keep us from such problems and temptation. Otherwise, Paul would be lying to us in 2 Thessalonians. Therefore, we really need to guard ourselves and reflect on what situations we are putting ourselves in. Are we sitting too close to the fire when we get on the internet all by ourselves? Are we risking temptation by going places that we shouldn't go, by wathing things we shouldn't be watching?

May we be ethical and holy, setting ourselves aside from the world and living differently because of God's love. May God's love push us in those directions and fill in the gaps where we step too close to the fire.