Daily Devotions
This Is War!
Reading for December 21st: James 1-5
Weekly reading for December 20-26: Revelation 12-16
Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Revelation 12:17
I remember the first summer I asked Joshua what book of the Bible he would like to study with me. He suggested we study Revelation, which kind of surprised me, but he was nine years old and said he wanted to study that book because there was a dragon in it! (It was my all time favorite study of Revelation, by the way!)
The book of Revelation is a book with fantastic imagery: a Lion, a Lamb, four living creatures, four horsemen, angels blowing trumpets, a land beast, a sea beast, a 200 million man army, a false prophet, a harlot, and, of course, a dragon.
The danger is for us to confuse these fantastic images for fantasy. This is not Star Wars or a Marvel comic book. This war is real. Revelation describes a cosmic spiritual conflict between good and evil that ravaged the early church and continues down to this day.
This dragon is real, and he is relentless in his attacks against the saints. This is why the Bible constantly encourages us to vigilance (Mt 26:41; Acts 20:31; 1 Cor 16:13; Col 4:2; 1 Pet 5:8; Rev 3:2). We must arm ourselves for battle every day (Eph 6:10-19).
Father, be our fortress and shield against the spiritual hosts of wickedness! Give us strength and courage to battle the evil one!
