What is it the devil has no power over?

Job and Jesus shared one thing in common, that the devil tried to expose them as frauds. Was Jesus really the “Son of God”? And was Job really as “blameless and upright” as God said he was? 

To expose them as frauds the devil had to get them to sin. In Job’s case the sin would be getting Job to “charge God with wrongdoing” (Job 1:22). In Jesus’ case the sin would be getting him to obey the devil (Matthew 4:3-10). And the devil was sure he could get them to sin too, because he’d easily got Adam and Eve to sin and prove they were frauds unworthy of ruling the world as God intended, because under the devil’s testing they couldn’t even rule their own selfish appetites. 

So Adam and Eve failed where Job and Jesus didn’t. What was it in Job and Jesus, then, that the devil had no power over? And where did Adam and Eve go wrong?

The devil’s testing, or tempting, revealed the answer: under severe testing Jesus obeyed God and trusted him, and so did Job, and that’s what broke the devil’s power over them. 

And that’s crucial for us to know because one day, 1 John 1:17, “The world and its desires pass away, but the person who does the will of God lives forever.” So God intended a period of time for the devil to use “the world and its desires” to test our obedience and trust, because the reward for obeying and trusting God is eternal life. 

Which is why God allows the devil to be very good at what he does, because it’s eternal life that awaits those who overcome him. And God set this in motion back in Genesis 3:15, when he said the devil and humans would be at war. But it’s through that process that we learn what Job and Jesus learnt, that when we obey and trust God the devil has no power over us.

God also assured us in Genesis 3:15 that he won’t let the devil destroy us. As with Job, God told the devil he can do anything to Job but take his life (Job 2:6). And the same with us, because Jesus died to “destroy him who holds the power of death, the devil,” Hebrews 2:14, so that under the devil’s testing we can live free of fear, knowing God will never let the devil’s testing be more than we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). Meaning that we can concentrate on what life as children of God is for now. Which, according to John, is becoming “Purified from every sin”….(next blog)