A Daily Devotional with David Olatona — GOD DEFENDS HIS PEOPLE
Main Text
Job 5:8-16
Watchword
He frustrates the devices of the crafty So that their hands cannot carry out their plans.
Job 5:12 (NKJV)
This text presents a balanced view of God’s relationship to humankind because He controls our lives. To be crafty means being skillful at achieving one’s aims by indirect or deceitful methods through manipulation or deception. Craftiness is when you are not trustworthy or truthful in your dealing with people. There is a supreme power that manages and overrules men who think themselves free and absolute, and fulfils His own purposes in spite of their projects.
Those that walk contrary to God and the interests of His kingdom, are often very crafty (they are the seed of the old serpent that was noted for its subtlety) and they have their devices, their enterprises, and their counsels (Psalms 2:1-6). They are restless and unwearied in their designs, close in their deliberations, high in their hopes, deep in their diplomacy, and fast-linked in their confederacies. They always think themselves wise, but, at the end, God always expose and defeat their foolishness.
God can easily and will certainly blast and defeat all the designs of His and your enemies as far as it is for His glory. How were the plots of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:14), Sanballat (Nehemiah 6:14-16), and Haman (Esther 7:9-10) baffled! It takes grace of God and the spirit of discernment in you to discover the crafty ones around you.
Confession
Everlasting Father, by your unfailing power and mercy, let every counsel against me come to nothing
Prayer
Oh Lord, expose and disgrace every deceitful people around you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Additional Reading
Isaiah 8:10
Psalms 33:10-11