Date: May 23, 2021 | Number: Vol. 10, No. 3
Beloved: grace and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Welcome to the last week of the month of May 2021. My prayer is that you will continue to be shielded by God from every form of evil, regardless of where it is coming from, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now I offered that prayer for you because it is in keeping with the word of God to us. And what does His word say? First, His word says, “If you make the Most High your dwelling — even the LORD, who is my refuge — then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Ps 91:9-12NIV) Did you see that? As long as we are living in God through Christ Jesus, no harm will befall us and no disaster will come near our dwelling places. Why? It is because He will see to it that we have His Holy angels all around us to protect us in all our ways.
But do you know that you have God’s angels all around you to protect you? The bible tells us that those of us who have come to God through Jesus Christ have come to an innumerable company of angels in a joyful assembly. Then it also tells us that all these angels are receiving instructions from God everyday to serve us. Can we see them with our natural eyes? No! But they are all around us, working hard to see to it that we are safe to experience a total fulfilment of the will of God in our lives. (Cf. Heb 1:14&12:22)
You can now see why the consistent position of the Scriptures is that disasters, terrors and oppression will be far from us (Is 54:14-15). And don’t miss the point being made here. It is not that bad thing will not want to happen to us. As long as we are in this world, Satan will always labour to see that bad things happen to us, whether we are God’s children or not. But because we are God’s children, we always have His protection through His mighty angels. And they will always see to it that regardless of what Satan does, the disasters he has plotted to bring upon us never come near us.
Remember what happened when the children of Israel just came out of Egypt. No sooner than they left that Pharoah gathered his army and pursued them. But the bible says, “Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.” (Ex 14:19-20NIV) My! Think about that! The angel of the Lord that was watching the nation of Israel saw to it that the Egyptian army could not come close to them. And He made sure this was the case until the entire army of Egypt that was pursuing them perished in the Red Sea.
In like manner, there are angels appointed to watch over you too. And they will always see to it that regardless of how close or hard the disasters or calamities or plagues or sicknesses sent by the devil come towards you, they will never touch or harm you. So, get rid of all your fears and walk all the time with the consciousness that you have your own personal guards sent by God to keep you. Otherwise, through fear, you may use your own mouth to bring trouble on yourself (Prov 18:21).
Then you also need to be devoted to staying in the will of God and walking only on the basis of His righteousness and not yours. Otherwise, you may just expose yourself to satanic afflictions. Why did Jonah end up in the belly of a fish? It was because he disobeyed clear instructions from God. Why did Lot lose his wealth in one day? It was because he pitched his tents with people who were living contrary to the will of God? And why did God permit Job to experience all the terrible things he experienced at some point in his life? One of the reasons was to show him that he had been walking in self-righteousness all along, thinking that his good works qualified him to earn God’s protection.
So, if we don’t want to expose ourselves to disasters, we need to take all of God’s instructions very seriously and also rely on Him solely for our protection and not on our good works. As long as we are functioning like this, even if certain people’s misbehaviour, disobedience or evil schemes should bring some calamities or disasters our way, God will always ensure that His angels are there to preserve us by shutting the mouths of the lions that are sent to devour us. (Cf. Dan 6; Acts 27)
Do have a lovely week.