Jerusalem had fallen into hard times - ‘she who once was great among the nations... has now become a slave’ (Lamentations 1:1). Lord, we wonder why this happened. The explanation for this sad situation was not hard to find - ‘Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean...’ (Lamentations 8-9). We wonder, "Could things be turned around? Could there once again be blessing?" We thank You, Lord, that there was a way back to You - the way of being honest before You. They needed to look seriously at their way of life and think seriously about their attitude towards You, Lord. They were not to adopt an arrogant attitude - ‘There’s really nothing wrong with us. We’re doing all right.’ They were to come to You with a real confession of sin: ‘The Lord is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command... O Lord,... I have been most rebellious’ (Lamentations 1:18,20). We thank You, Lord, that Your blessing will begin again when we confess our sin.
We thank You, Lord, that our determined enemy - Satan - is Your defeated enemy. To us, the devil seems so powerful. In Your eyes, He is defeated - defeated by Jesus, our crucified Saviour and risen Lord. Jesus has triumphed over Satan. He has won the victory for us (1 John 3:8; Hebrews 2:14-15). Lord, Your Word says, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 5:7). Will he really flee from us? He flees from Jesus - but, surely, not from us? Have we not forgotten something? - Jesus won the victory for us. He gives His victory to us. Help us to resist the devil - in the victorious Name of Jesus. He will flee from us. Why? Because Jesus is Lord over Satan. It's not us he's fleeing from. It's Jesus. When the devil comes 'knocking on our door', help us to send Jesus to the door - and send him packing!
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