To Encourage You

Ephesians 2:2 “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

Romans 6:16 “you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Who’s the highest authority in your life, your “big boss”?  The Bible makes clear that it’s the one you typically obey.  In the work place we are paid to do what the boss tells us to do.  We take our direction from whoever is in authority over us.  The same is true in all other areas of life, including the spiritual realm. 

So, from whom do you take your direction spiritually?  The Bible says we are all “slaves” in a sense, to that individual.  It doesn’t matter whether we think we are or not.  We may think we do as we please, that we aren’t slaves to anyone.  The Jews of Jesus’ day were like this. They claimed that they weren’t slaves of anyone. To this Jesus replied “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). 

If we obey God as the rule of our life, we are showing that He is the greatest authority in our life.  If we want to know what His will is, if we are reading His Word, if we want to please Him and we find no pleasure in living in sinful ways, then we are demonstrating that we are under His authority. If on the other hand we aren’t interested in such things – we have no interest in reading His Word, don’t know what it says and don’t really care because we have no intention of obeying it, if thoughts of God’s will don’t enter our mind, then we are being ruled by “the prince of this world.”  It doesn’t matter if we think we are ruled by him or not, for if we are obeying him, in our “independence” then he is the ruler in our life. 

Jesus dealt the prince of this world a death blow on the cross.  He is ultimately destined for the lake of fire as are all those who are under his rule.  Jesus urges us to “flee the wrath to come (Matthew 3:7)” against him and his followers.  The question is this: will we obey him?