Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Because our enemies are implacably wicked (Revelation 9), we need “the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:13) if we are to “withstand” and “stand.” We need protection from “the fiery darts” of Satan (the “wicked” of verse 17). What are some of these “darts”? Probably we all have noticed that we can watch a ballgame or a favorite television program with rapt attention; but sometimes when we read the Bible, our concentration wavers, and we end up asking, “What did I just read?” Similarly, we may begin to pray and soon find ourselves worrying and fretting more than actually praying. Likewise, we may find that our simple and sincere plans to worship are suddenly disrupted by last-second problems, such as someone taking too long in the bathroom, a broken shoestring, or misplaced car keys. It then becomes a temptation just to stay home (and fume a bit). These are some of the fiery arrows of Satan, sent to distract us from what is truly important and what is helpful to us. These attempts to trouble our thinking and confuse us are common to all Christians, but the promise of our Savior is that each of us “shall be able to quench all [not some – all] the fiery darts of the wicked.”