I had to laugh at a little video I saw, probably shared by someone on Facebook. It was titled, “The difference between men and women when shopping.” A lioness was featured in the first 95% of the video, pictured crouching just feet away from a herd of hundreds of wildebeests running past her, unable to decide where to pounce with so many choices. And suddenly a male lion comes rushing in from out of sight, instantly grabs a beast and drags it away.
In today’s passage we read about a lion, speaking of course of the Devil. We should see this lion as sort of in between the two pictured above. This is a lion that crouches and watches for vulnerability, not so much to just randomly strike out. But he is going to strike wherever possible. Peter says …
5:8 – Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
5:10 – And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.
Let me speak about three ways that you are not alone as a Christian.
First, you are not alone without an enemy that lurks nearby. Though we will see this is not something to be paranoid or terrified about, it is something about which to be alert and sober-minded. Christians tend to underestimate the hatred of the Evil One for those who are a part of God’s family. He is not ambivalent; he despises God’s people … like you and me. He longs for our destruction as an effective witness for the cause of Christ. With his opportunist character, we need to be aware of his techniques to disqualify us wherever possible.
Secondly, you are not alone in any unique way when facing this challenge. Peter told these early Christians that others in God’s family around the world were facing the same difficulties. It doesn’t make it actually easier in terms of the problems being faced personally, but there is some comforting perspective to know that the challenges are par for the course and not something unique or unexpected.
Thirdly, and most importantly, you are not without resources and hope for success. The problem is not endless, and our guarantee of calling to eternal salvation is not at stake. Of course, the need is to trust in and access this resource that makes one strong, firm and steadfast.
Don’t be alone the first way, understand you’re not alone in the second way, and in the third way don’t become estranged from the resources you have in God. That is indeed the way you absolutely don’t want to be alone.
Seriously 
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
(Eph. 6:18-20 NIV)
This would be great, really, if we regularly pray for each other. Even all the saints. How much I fail at that! May God grant me the grace to better use the time I am on the computer and allocate more of it to prayer!
It is perhaps sad that you even have to write what you wrote today. We fail so much, I suppose, at doing the loving things you just wrote about the other day.
May the Lord lead me into his love and perseverance to care for the church, the body of Christ. I think I’ll get off the computer and confess my sins of ommision in this regard.
How can I build up the body of Christ? How can I glorify him? I think thoughts throughout the day or while working at night about glorifying God sometimes. I need to make it more of an unbreakable habit. And since you Randy are probably the only one who will read this comment that I’m writing, I hope to make prayer as much a habit as I have now made my efforts in book writing. There is as Paul wrote in Galatians (see the passage above) “all kinds of prayer and requests” that we can “pray in the Spirit.” Paul’s prayers for the church focused on them developing knowledge of God and increasing in love, strength or perseverance. Those kind of things. Listening to the radio and hearing the Christian prayer requests there and during some announcements, it almost appears we rarely get beyond praying for the physical things in life, like jobs, success in this or that, an operation or some sort of things.
The spiritual needs are also what God desires. That the church grows in love for each other and that sort of thing. I know how God wants us to pray. I am just out of the habit of praying in this way. I had the habit before, but sometimes it seemed like prayers for the Christians around the world, seem to go into a black hole. [But God really hears everything.] Yet despite the immense problems to be tackled in the worldwide church we need to pray for “all the Lord’s people” NIV.
That includes for wisdom for them to spread the message that God wants them to spread. And maybe though we can pray for Christians around the world, it occurred to me that John referred to showing love to our brothers and sisters “who we can see.” That may mean more importance to pray for local believers than others … or rather they are both important and we just need to “pray in the spirit on all occasions” and I’ll leave it at that since there is no end to what I could theoretically write about. If I keep writing long-winded posts I might even lose my one reader! (LOL) Randy, are you there? Ha ha.