This is my 25th blog and I thank Jesus for giving me the wisdom and filling me with his spirit to write through every week. All praise to God and honor to Jesus for his mighty works. I am an average person in academics, my schoolteachers will testify about me. Its Jesus who has used me to write these Blogs. I give all credit to Jesus for changing me and making me who I am. I am a living testimony for God to bring big changes in one’s life. I praise God for using me in his ministry.
Coming to Sedative mind - Sedatives are a type of prescription medication that slows down your brain activity. They’re typically used to make you feel more relaxed. Doctors commonly prescribe sedatives to treat conditions like anxiety and sleep disorders. They also use them as general anaesthetics. Another form of Sedative mind comes when we are intoxicated with alcohol and our Blood alcohol content (BAC) is 0.08%
God gave this message of Sedative Mind - when I was meditating this word
'Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ' 1 Peter 5:8
Alert and Sober Mind
1st Part is “'Be alert and of sober mind”
Definition of Sober Is be serious, sensible, and solemn state of mind. Opposite of Sober is sedative mind.
As a children of God and as Christians, we get Sedative spiritually. This can make us fall of the sober mind to a sedative state, this state of sedateness can happen when we have these four characters in us.
Proud – We feel proud when we accomplish something and feel all that is due to our own strength, Proudness causes us to fall of sober mind. Pride destroys us spiritually.
Anxious – We feel anxious about some things which we imagine and plan for, the state of anxious mind is caused because we feel we can accomplish that by ourselves and not be dependent on God. Anxiousness causes us to fall of sober mind.
Lust – Lust comes from many human desires. Some of these lusts can be love for money / sexual lust / fame and many more. Many times it leads to sin causing us to fall off sober mind.
Unfaithfulness – We depend on our own strength, as we are tricked by Satan to believe God is not there in the work we do, depend on our strength, and changes the faith in God to doubt in God, many times we are double minded leading us to fall of sober mind.
Prowling and Devouring
2nd Part of the verse is “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. '”
“Devil prowls” - Prowling is to operate stealthily, many times we don’t realize many actions come from Satan, he does in a stealthily way. Very slowly and silently he creeps in us without us not recognizing.
“Roaring lion”
· Satan roars through persecution that we go thru in life
· Satan roars through the temptations we have in life, he uses lust to lure us to temptations.
· Satan roars by telling lies as he is the master of deception leading us to bad behaviour
“Someone to devour”
Once we succumb to any of his stealthy work we fall to the trap and get devoured leading to troubles and suffering in life.
Suffering
Many times, we are put up with this Question, why does God allow these sufferings to me alone, we compare others to see, they (others our friends / family) are fine, but it happens only to me.
'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. ' 1 Peter 5:9
The suffering you go thru is not only for you, but all Christians (“Family of Believers”) also go thru this suffering - “because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings”, it’s just that we don’t see the suffering from outside. Your assumption that other Christians don’t go thru suffering is wrong. This is the lie Satan tells us constantly to make us take to Unfaithfulness in Jesus.
'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. ' 1 Peter 5:10
Keep in mind grace of God is there in the suffering we go thru.
As a child of God, God will allow this Suffering is only for a little while. When we take a medication for sleep, it wears out after some time. Likewise, the suffering we have is only for some time (Little while) “after you have suffered a little while”
He will restore you back and give you a way out of this suffering “will himself restore you”
Once he restores, he will make us strong spiritually and make our faith more rooted with him “make you strong, firm and steadfast”
Remember these suffering is to make our spiritual life get stronger and our intimacy with Christ more closer.
How can we be Alert and Sober?
The word says, “Be Alert and Sober”, how can we be alert to know that these actions come from Satan
1. Humility – We must have the humility, like how we wear a garment, we don’t wear cloth only certain part of body it covers full body. Likewise, we must have this humility in all actions of our lives - “clothe yourselves with humility toward one another””
'In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” ' 1 Peter 5:5
2. Humble – Be humble and surrender to God, God will show favor to you Verse 5- “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”, Verse 6 Says “under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” God will lift you up at the due time, not all the time but at the due time
'Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. '1 Peter 5:6
We read humility and humble, what is the difference between them. Humble is a character and behavior to God, once we have that, humility comes as a character of being humble.
3. Resist the devil – He brings temptations to us. temptation itself is not a sin but yielding to temptation is. Temptations is attractive otherwise it wouldn’t be tempting. And it is dangerous because its attractive. But word of God says, just resist and avoid it ahead of time and it will flee away. It’s a character we should ask for God to help, we humans are weak that’s why devil takes advantage of this in us, but with Jesus we can acquire this character “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you “, second 'Resist him, standing firm in the faith”
'Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ' James 4:7
'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. ' 1 Peter 5:9
4. Be Faithful to God – Faith in Jesus and walking with God alone can make us more alert and be sober. “Walking with God” means being intimate with God, walking holding his hands, depending on him for everything, that will increase our faith in God. This can happen if we have fellowship with him by reading the word / meditating and praying and seeking his guidance every single day.
'The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. The Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.' Psalms 34:19-20,22
Remember you may have troubles, but he will protect you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Psalms 34 is a reminder of how he treats us, don’t lose the faith in him.
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