The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Rom. 16:20
Dear Heavenly Father, this promise of ultimate victory holds so much hope and timely encouragement for your people. Even as Satan was crushed—dethroned, defeated and demoralized, by Calvary’s cross, so we will live to see the day of Jesus’ triumph played out under our very feet! What a remarkable image, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Hallelujah, for this assurance!
In the present kingdom reign of Jesus, things are not always as they appear. At times it feels like we are the ones being walked on by a gloating devil; yet it is he who is actually getting ready to know our dancing feet on his head. And according to your Word, this will happen “soon”! Lord, our weary yet joyful cry is, “Make soon, real soon!”
We especially pray for your persecuted church, Lord Jesus, and for those who are laboring in the arena of overt spiritual warfare. Encourage our friends who are fighting the good fight against all forms of human slavery and trafficking. Refresh those who are planting churches in the hard soil places of graceless secularization, demonic strongholds and Pharisaic moralism. We also pray for the overt and covert attack of Satan on so many marriages in our midst. O, how Satan hates the story of your passionate love for such an ill-deserving bride, as us.
Jesus, here’s why our hope is so great. The reason you came into this world was to destroy him who holds the power of death (that is, the devil) and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:14). Indeed, you have come to destroy the devil and all his works (1 Jn. 3:8).
You’ve already fulfilled the first gospel promise; indeed, your “bruised heel” secured the “crushed head” of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). Our foe is defeated and waiting to be utterly destroyed. His present flurry of fury is actually a sign he knows his time is short (Rev. 12:12). Lord, our weary yet joyful cry is, “Make short, real short!”
O God of peace, grant us your peace that passes all understanding when the battle rages most fiercely and the schemes of Satan seem to be winning the day. O triumphant Lord Jesus, we boldly ask not just for surviving grace but for thriving grace, until the day you return to finish making all things new. O, God the Holy Spirit, grant us all the strength we need to be a people to the praise of grace and the glory of Jesus. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ triumphant name.
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