It is true that Satan attacks us at our weakest point. But it is even more true that he attacks us at our strongest point. How did he cause Peter to fall? By striking him where the disciple thought he was strong – his ability to command leadership, to do the heroic, to be a “star.” “I will lay down my life for You” (John 13:37). But as with Samson, his strength was his weakness, and Satan knew it. Peter not only had depths of which he was unaware, there were also heights; and it was on the heights that Satan caught him.
Have I not felt the same thing? In the place where I felt strong and bulwarked, Satan tripped me up. Where I felt secure, he stripped me naked.
I think of Job. Satan trapped him in his integrity, his strongest spiritual asset. Perhaps Job thought too highly of his integrity, perhaps it became his pride; and where pride entered, he developed a blind spot.
I think of Jesus. It was in His very sonship that Satan tried to dislodge Him. “If [since] You are the Son of God, command that these stones” (Matthew 4:3). Satan knew Jesus was God’s Son; acting on the knowledge, he tried to shrewdly twist Jesus’ strongest element into something devious. He attached the strongest part of the citadel.
I must not think of Satan as only a wily serpent who sneaks around nibbling at my exposed weak parts. I must see him as a frontal foe who hammers hard at my very strengths. That means I must be careful to let my strengths simply be my strengths, but never my boasts. I am assured that because Christ is in me, I can be just as frontal with Satan as he is with me: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Then my strengths can remain my strengths through the victorious One.
“You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down” (Psalm 91:13).
Daily with the King 