“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…” (1 Peter 5:8-9, NIV).

He had lived an amazing life with metastatic prostate cancer for many years. He loves the Lord deeply and prays for me every office visit. “I need to tell you about this weekend, Doc. Saturday night I had to fight off the devil all night long. He kept attacking me, and I just held on, praying and quoting Scripture until 7 o’clock Sunday morning. I was too weak to go to church, but I’m much better now. I had to ‘stand against the wiles of the devil,’ but God is faithful and He gave me the victory.”

Is there really a Devil in this world?

Sometimes we depersonalize him and call him Evil or think of him as an allegory because we are so intellectually embarrassed to admit he is real. But we must not water down Satan into an allegory. According to Scripture, he is a person who is intent on relating to us and tearing us away from God, exploiting our weaknesses, destroying our joy. As a person, he thinks, he knows, he plans—and we are naïve to ignore him. He is more than just bad circumstances and more than just evil. He is the one within bad circumstances who produces evil and wants to destroy our love for the Creator.

What’s more, he is just as likely to use good circumstances to pull us away from the Father and into ourselves, where he is especially strong. He is smart enough to take good things like love and destroy them by removing boundaries or good opportunities like wealth to weaken our trust in the Father.

If we are to become effective followers of Christ, we must oppose him with God’s help and His full armor:

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions…” (Ephesians 6:13-18, NIV).

How well am I prepared for Satan? My patient was ready with prayer and Scripture—am I?

Dear God,

Let me watch closely for the “roaring lion,” especially when things are going well. Help me keep each piece of your armor polished and ready.

Amen