"A Prayer for Protection"

[To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, Maschil.] Psalms 44 - Whether we know it or not, there is an enemy out there that wants to destroy us; more importantly, that enemy wants to prevent our lives from being a testimony to the love of God, and more urgently, to the power of the cross. Satan tried to prevent Jesus from going to the cross more than once; there were at least three times that I recall, right off the bat; and he tried to do so because he knew what Jesus would be doing, and how that the cross would bring our broken lives back to God. Paul states in Romans 5:8, "But God commandeth His love toward us, in that, while we yet sinners, Christ died for us." It is the fact that God has loved us then, while we were sinners, and now that we have been reconciled by the blood of His Son, we have received atonement (Romans 5:11). The word "atonement" speaks of more than reconciliation, it speaks of friendship, meaning that we are now made friends with God, and the wrath of God has ceased from being over our lives. That is the power of the cross that the enemy would love to dampen and take us out from under; whether he does it through shame, or he does it through the destruction of a life, his intent is to get either the believer or those around the believer, to doubt God's love, and to be ashamed of the power of the cross. I know that might not sound possible, as if we could doubt God's love for us, after having experienced His life saving power in our lives, and having been given peace that surpasses all understanding; but the point about being ashamed of the power of the cross, that is what makes it happen; where we slip back into our old lives, and we more or less denounce the life changing power that saved us, thereby taking that victory from the testimony of our lives, and making us ashamed of the power thereof. I have seen too many people taken out by this tactic from the enemy, all because they buy into that notion that God does not love them anymore; as if God could love them less for falling, than He did before they were reconciled, and became His friend... "Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest by the appearing our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." (2 Timothy 1:8-12)