Be Still And Know

James 4:7–8 Life can often feel like a battleground. There is great evil in the world – any newspaper will illustrate that in agonising detail. But there is also immense kindness and goodness all around, if we have the eyes to see it. Daily life can often feel like a pitched battle between good and evil. James is concerned that his readers should make good decisions as they live on this battleground and that they should give undivided loyalty to God. It is true that the devil is active and that his entire mission is to destroy. He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for people to devour (1 Peter 5:8). But the good news is that God is stronger and so we don’t need to live in fear of the devil. If we resist him then he will flee from us. When Jesus died on the cross he won the ultimate victory over the power of evil, and so our task is simply to claim that victory. Clearly evil didn’t come to an end on the cross. The world is still full of evil. What happened on the cross was like D Day. Once that