clcgh.org Building The Capacity Of Christian Leaders, Equipping The Saints For The Work Of Ministry, Redirecting Straying Christians To The Sound Knowledge Of Christ
No Christian is detached from enemies who seek to accuse them before God and men – human authorities. Your enemies plot against you in the hope of destroying you.
As Jesus indicated, a person’s enemies are mostly members of his own household (Matthew 10:36). They are people close to you. They can be your friends, associates, colleagues, mates, family members or spouse. The devil is the one who works through them.
No matter what you do, your enemies will one day rise up against you. And I should be bold to state that we are largely responsible for our defeat or victory. In other words, the probability that your enemies will succeed in destroying you largely depends upon you.
However, there is one important thing we must always do to be in the better position to defeat our enemies when they launch their attacks. Even though prayer with fasting is important, it fails in many situations.
Many of us have been taught to violently clap our hands in prayer against our enemies, bind our enemies, curse our enemies, whip our enemies and stomp on our enemies, but in the end, we are defeated miserably.
A careful study of the Bible reveals that the secret to defeating our enemies is none of the things mentioned above. Rather, it is about character – yes, our character. Understand that Christ-like character is a believer’s guard against the attacks of enemies.
Believers develop Christ-like character by God’s grace as God through His Word and Spirit saves and transforms them (Ephesians 2:8-9). Through God’s discipline, counsel and instructions, believers are helped to be more like Christ Jesus in character (Hebrews 12:5-6). This is a pure act of grace.
In the following chapters, I want us to study what Jesus Christ and Daniel did to be able to win battles against their enemies when they rose against them.
First, let us examine how our Lord, Jesus Christ, defeated His enemies with a specific reference to the devil. In John 14:30-31, we read about Jesus, telling His disciples about the ruler of this world, the devil, coming to attack Him.
However, our Lord was fearless, knowing that the devil stood no chance of defeating Him, because as He put it, “he has no claim on me” (no foothold on me, no toehold on me, no hold over me, no power over me, nothing in me).
This means that Christ Jesus was above reproach or He was blameless and faultless before the Father and men in all His ways, considering the fact that though He was tempted in every way, yet He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
Similarly, in Daniel Chapter 6, we read about Daniel defeating his enemies who tried every possible means to get rid of him while he was in exile at Babylon, serving in King Darius’ kingdom.
I am sure you already know about the story involving Daniel, a Jew, and other officials of the king who schemed to get Daniel thrown in the lions’ den.
The ferocious beasts could not eat Daniel, but broke the bones of Daniel’s haters with their wives and children when they were thrown into the den for their evil actions.
An important question we must ask ourselves is: why could the lions not kill Daniel? This is the same question king Darius asked Daniel to which he responded, “O king, live forever…I was found BLAMELESS before him (God); and also before you, O king” (Daniel 6:22, Emphasis mine).
Do you get it? Daniel was found blameless in the divine court of God when his case was heard. Meanwhile, the king also knew in his heart that Daniel was simply hated.
Even before Daniel was exonerated, he had been found to be a man filled with an excellent spirit, distinguished, faithful, faultless and without error (Daniel 6:3-4).
Simply, Daniel was a man of good character. Thus, he was found blameless before God and the king, something that helped save him from being destroyed, thereby putting his enemies to open shame.
From the discussion, so far, you can agree with me that it is far better for us to pray against our weaknesses than our enemies. Our weaknesses serve as conduits through which our enemies, particularly the devil, tempts us to be defeated.
When we learn to live a life of blamelessness through God’s grace in Christ Jesus, as Paul taught in 1 Timothy 3:2, we shall defeat our enemies when they attack us.
By James Quansah
