We Can Defeat Evil
Today’s Scripture: 1 John 5:1-11
Key Verse: 1 John 5:4
For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.
This world has a lot of evil things with which the enemy of our souls loves to tempt us. Though we certainly do not have to cave into these temptations, most of us have given in at one time or another.
The good news is that we will win the war even though occasionally we lose a battle. We Christ-followers are soldiers and when we get wounded, even when it is self-inflicted, we have a medic that comes running to help us get back in the battle. Jesus is our advocate, sitting at the right hand of the Father, who pleads our case and obtains forgiveness and mercy for us.
We cannot see it and may not feel it, but our Key Verse tells us that we are victors over the evil in this world. God knows how to grow us into the soldiers that He wants us to be.
Jesus told Peter that his faith was the rock that would “build God’s church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:17-19).
Can you imagine how Peter felt at that moment? Yet the Bible describes Peter’s failures as well. Peter denied Jesus with curses, swearing that he didn’t know Jesus. Later, after Jesus went back to heaven, Peter’s courage to stand up to the prejudice of some Jewish leaders lead him to another failure (Galatians 2:11-13).
Peter lost some battles with the evil one, but in the end, Peter died for his faith in Jesus.
Did Jesus know that Peter would fail in these areas when He said that Peter was a rock upon which He would build His church against which the gates of Hell would not prevail?
Of course. Jesus knows about all our failures long before we do. The Bible says we are like plants in a garden and God is the Gardner (John 15:1). God knows us better than we know ourselves and He makes us victors over the evil in this world.
Look at 1 John 4:5: “And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God”.
The world’s evils will overcome those who try to be good but do not believe in Jesus. Some unbelievers may appear to live life better than Christ-followers, but that is because we cannot see their hearts.
The Bible reminds us that “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah17:9).
Only God can understand our hearts. Without God’s Son in us, we have no chance to be “pure in heart”.
Father, grant me strength to be a strong soldier in your service. Thank you for the victory over the evil of this world. In Jesus’s Name I pray, amen.