Police Devotion 8-15-2016

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8, 9a).

One day in a police academy, an instructor confronted a recruit about some unsatisfactory paperwork.  The instructor yelled at him in front of the other recruits, threw the paperwork and made the recruit pick it up. Did the instructor unfairly put the recruit into a stressful situation? Yes, but he had an important reason. He was actually training the recruit to keep his cool when an unfair stress load is dumped on him.

As a cop, it’s not fair if you get into a fistfight against someone larger and younger than you. If a criminal attacks first or you’re in a gunfight against multiple assailants, that’s not fair either. Yet, that’s how police work can be—it’s often not fair. It’s not a game; there are no referees. Your opponent is often sneaky and vicious and plays for keeps. When you stop a traffic violator and he starts to whine about you harassing him, he may at the same time be reaching for a gun, so you’d better be watching his hands.

When you’re on duty as a cop, you need to be sober and vigilant. Being sober here doesn’t mean that you’re not drunk (obviously, you shouldn’t be), but rather that you’re paying attention to what’s going on around you. Criminals can be defeated. Good guys have defeated bad guys in the past, and they’ll do the same in the future. However, the good guys must be alert.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith.” The struggle of law and order versus crime and evil is, in a way, like the Christian’s “good fight of faith.” In 1 Peter 1:2, Peter says that the readers are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Peter is talking to saved people. He gives various instructions, and toward the end, he gives the warning in our verse: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”

When you’ve received the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, you no longer have to wonder if you’ll get to heaven. The Lord Jesus promised (and He’d never lie)—“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:28). So the devil has lost your soul. Yet he can still “devour” Christians, which is why God had Peter put this warning in his epistle.

You probably know cops who, quite honestly, don’t do the cause of police work much good. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences (who hasn’t?), or maybe they’ve just become lazy and uncaring. In a sense, they’ve been “devoured.” Other cops, though, may have many years on and still love the job. One way to stay enthusiastic for the job is to be sober and vigilant. Take it seriously. Another way is to steadfastly resist the urge to be lazy. Stay in shape. Keep your shooting and tactics sharp. Learn how to do your job better.

In order to avoid being devoured in your Christian life, you need to be sober and vigilant, too. Be alert for temptation, as well as for times when you can share your faith in Christ. Resist the devil “stedfast in the faith,” too: resist the urge to neglect your Bible, skip church, put off prayer, or let sin get a hold in your life. The devil, like criminals, is sneaky and vicious, but by the Lord’s grace, you can live a Christian life that pleases God and that He uses to draw others to Him.

If you want to see how to receive Jesus as Saviour, please click “Helpful Links” on the top menu and then “How Do I Go to Heaven?” on the dropdown menu.

Brian Miller 8/15/2016

Cleveland Baptist Church | 4431 Tiedeman Road, Brooklyn, Ohio 44144 | 216.671.2822