LUKE 22:31-32

It is my strong belief that the enemy of our souls is not after the cold, lukewarm, half-dead believers. He is vehemently after the consecrated, committed, sold-out Christians, the real disciples of Christ who have made up their minds to absolutely follow Jesus all the way. With them there is no turning back. They say like the Psalmist David and mean every single word, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise” (Psalm 57:7). These are the ones the vicious enemy of our souls is after.

He is after the remnant, those who refuse to defile and contaminate their garments with sin and vain worldliness, those who radically love Jesus and are seriously willing to give even their own lives for Him. They have counted the cost. The enemy is not after the self-righteous Christians who think they have arrived and look down on everybody else. To the contrary, Satan viciously pursues those with a burning passion for God and righteousness, those with potential and whose supreme desire it is to follow Jesus like Peter and the other ten disciples, who messed up occasionally, but refused to stop following the Lamb.

Peter in all of his inconsistencies and mis-steps, posed such a persistent threat to Satan’s Kingdom that Jesus had to forewarn him about Satan’s plans and intentions. He said “. . . Simon, Simon, behold, Satan had desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:31, 32). Like Satan entered Judas, in verse 3 of this same chapter, so He desired to enter Peter and all whose desire it is to fully follow Jesus. We are Satan’s perpetual targets.

The evil One was proactively after Peter’s life-force, energy, passion and vitality. He was after his zeal, his passion, his intestinal fortitude. He was after his potential and possibility. He was out to zap Peter for good, to cut him down to size, to stop him before he began, to disqualify him, to so trip him up, that he couldn’t show his face again. However, the captain of Peter’s salvation, the shepherd of his soul, the author and finisher of Peter’s destiny and calling, intervened and thoroughly circumvented every evil design effected to bring about Peter’s demise. Jesus prayed so powerfully for Peter that all the forces of darkness had to desist and relinquish. The fight for Peter’s soul was real but the biblical testimony remains, his faith failed not. He became a most powerful source of strength for the brethren of all ages. We are strengthened to strengthen the brethren!

May I remind you, as I remind myself that the enemy of our souls still desires to have us that he may grind us to powder and sift us as wheat, but our unchangeable conviction is, he cannot have us. We stand in covenant declaring, now is no time to wilt or weaken. Know who you are and whose you are! Stubbornly resist the evil One and all his evil forces. Know what you have and refuse to back up. If you fall, get back up, repent and move on! Love Jesus fiercely and passionately. Targeted by the evil One, we remain forever sold out to Jesus!