Fight like the devil....

I’ve used that phrase.  It’s not a good phrase.  I need to take it out of my vocabulary.

The devil does fight.  He has been fighting for a very long time.  “And there was war in heaven…” (Revelation 12:7 NIV)

 Fighting like the devil… yes, he most certainly is.  But he is a defeated foe.



I think of a scene in  the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou, where two of the characters discuss the devil.

Pete: I've always wondered, what's the devil look like?
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, there are all manner of lesser imps and demons, Pete, but the great Satan hisself is red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork.

I am certain the devil doesn’t look anything like that, and I am even more certain that the battle between God’s holiness and the devil’s fight is decided.


The more I study John’s revelation, the more I realize I can’t grasp it all.  But I am blessed in the effort.

Sweet and sour.....

In the revelation given to John, there is a scene where John is instructed to take a little book from a certain angel and eat it.  He was warned that it would taste sweet but would be sour in his stomach.

"Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: "Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land." So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but 'in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.'"   I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.” (Revelation 10:8-10 NIV)

It reminds me of  when I was pregnant  and I got up at 2 a.m. every single morning for weeks and weeks, made myself  pancakes with lots of butter and syrup, ate them, and went back to bed to suffer horrible heartburn the rest of the night.

Every time I would promise myself that I would NOT do that again.  Then I’d wake up the next night at 2 a.m. and do it all again. The sweet midnight snack was something I craved uncontrollably for some reason.  But when it hit my stomach is was not so sweet.

Digesting what God says in His book can sure be the same way.  God’s Word is life giving, freedom bringing, peace making, and it is absolute truth.  Being instructed by God thru His Word and thru the power of the Holy Spirit is a sweet sweet thing.  We bear the fruits of His Spirit, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

But the conviction of the Holy Spirit is often like the heartburn after my 2 a.m. pancakes.

 There is such sweetness in the grace and mercy of God.  Yet as I measure the truths of scripture against the sin it reveals in my life there is a sourness in the pit of my heart.  Heart burn.

Jesus left His glory to get us out of the sin-mess we are all in.  What a sweet and precious thing He has done for us.

God has always loved us enough to not allow us to remain in a wrong condition.  It will never be His fault if we stay that way.  He will lavish us with His love and mercy as He pricks our hearts to make us aware of the sourness within us and around us.

Like the 2 a.m. pancakes, I want to always crave His teachings…even though it often brings some discomfort with it.