By Pastor Don Schatz

Never Alone

You can listen to today’s Devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Ephesians 6:12. New International Version.

Two of my grandsons, brothers, wrestle on their community team.  Full disclosure, I never cared much for the sport.  Interesting how things change with your grandkids!  Their current season ended three weeks ago.  The new sweatshirts they got this year are pretty cool.

With wrestling, the ‘struggles’ are on purpose.  It is not like you are walking past a gym on the way to get some ice cream and someone grabs by the collar, drags you inside, puts on one of those wrestling outfits and throws you onto the mat.  Some of our struggles seem like that.  How did this happen?  What do I do now?  Where’s my ice cream?

The struggle with our own propensity to sin seems to be one of those things that comes with being human.  We didn’t ask to be in this spiritual struggle, but here we are anyway.  In the Scripture, we learn that God joined our struggle in the person of Jesus.  He ‘wrestled’ with temptation and Satan on our behalf.  We are never alone.

And God has equipped us for the struggle.  Read the rest of the story, of which today’s verse is just the opening act.  Read Ephesians 6:13-18.  Discover how God has armed us for the struggle.  Armed us with knowledge of his will, his love, his grace and with a panoply of spiritual techniques and gear with which to do battle on the ‘spiritual wrestling mat’ of our lives.

You are never alone in your struggles.  God in Christ struggled as we do so that when we are in the midst of our own spiritual wrestling matches, he is both coach and our tag-team partner.  Part of Christ’s help is memory.  Our memory that Christ won for us, and now joins us in the spiritual warfare.  Our memory that our victory is secure.  In God’s wondrous grace, our memory now of the future that victory has already made sure.  We live now, and will always do so, in his company.  Because Christ is with us.  Christ is for us.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado