• Thought on Today's Verse:

Job’s wife is a familiar character in Job’s story. When Job was in trial, his wife asked him to forsake God. What she did had played the role of Satan, because Satan wanted Job to betray God. Due to his faith in God, Job severely reprimanded his wife and overcame the temptation of Satan.

In fact, in our daily lives, we are usually faced with the temptations of money, status, reputation, eroticism, and so on. So what should we do to overcome the temptation of Satan and break free from sin?

1. When Encountering Satan’s Temptation, We Should See Clearly the Battle in the Spiritual Realm. Only by Accepting It From God Can We Defeat the Temptation of Satan.

When Satan’s temptation comes upon us, externally it appears that the people, matters, and things come upon us, but behind the scenes, everything that happens is a wager made by Satan before God. Only when we see clearly this point can we stand on the side of God and defeat Satan. God’s words say, “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men and the interference of men. Behind every step of work that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle. … Thus, in everything you encounter there is a battle, and when there is a battle within you, thanks to your actual cooperation and actual suffering, God works within you. Ultimately, you are able to put the matter aside inside of you and the anger is naturally extinguished. Such is the effect of your cooperation with God. Everything people do requires them to pay a certain price in their efforts. Without actual hardship, they cannot satisfy God; they do not even come close to satisfying God, and they are just spouting empty slogans! Can these empty slogans satisfy God? When God and Satan do battle in the spiritual realm, how should you satisfy God, and how should you stand firm in your testimony to Him? You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear testimony. Though they may seem unimportant from the outside, when these things happen they show whether or not you love God. If you do, you will be able to stand firm in your testimony to Him, and if you have not put the love of Him into practice, this shows you are not someone who puts the truth into practice, that you are without the truth, and without life, that you are chaff! Everything that happens to people happens when God needs them to stand firm in their testimony to Him. Though nothing major is happening to you at the moment and you do not bear great testimony, every detail of your daily life is a matter of testimony to God. If you can win the admiration of your brothers and sisters, your family members, and everyone around you; if, one day, the unbelievers come, and admire all that you do, and see that all that God does is wonderful, then you will have borne testimony.”

2. Facing Satan’s Temptations, Only by Praying to God, and Seeking and Grasping His Will Can We Penetrate Satan’s Plots.

The Lord Jesus said, “And all things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive” (Mat 21:22). God is almighty. When we call out to Him, He will reveal His intentions to us so that we can discover accurate paths of implementation in all things that we face.

3. Facing Satan’s Temptations, We Must Firmly Obey the Truth and Be Loyal to God. Only thus can we Leave Satan Humiliated and Defeated.

For example, when we are determined to serve the Lord for a lifetime, there’s someone who introduces to us a very good job—then this is Satan’s temptation coming upon us. In such a situation, we generally desire to get this job. But the Lord said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4). When we act according to God’s words, God’s words are our weapons to fight back against Satan’s deceitful schemes. If we want to overcome Satan’s temptation, we need to practice God’s words in everything, and so there will be no longer any opportunities for Satan to exploit.

Let us practice according to these three ways, which are of great help to our overcoming Satan’s temptation and the growth of our lives.