★ Thought for the Day - The Holy Spirit is Our Spider Sense ★
Since 2002, Hollywood has given us several variations of the comic book classic Spiderman. First portrayed by Tobey Maguire and more recently by Andrew Garfield, the silver screen offerings of the Superhero Spiderman, have been saturated with high tech special effects bringing Stan Lee's creation to life. Long before these movie adaptations, I was a fan of the Spiderman comic books growing up. If you are not familiar with the story line...Peter Parker, a nerdy, shy, and awkward high school student gains spider-like abilities after being bitten by a genetically modified spider. He eventually uses these abilities to fight evil as a superhero after tragedy befalls his family. One of the side effects of the spider bite was a "Spider Sense" that would be activated whenever danger was near. One of the classic phrases that Spiderman would think was..."My Spider Sense is tingling!" (Personally I think the movies fell short of really capturing that part of his abilities as pictured here, but I digress). Have you ever had a "feeling" that something bad was going to happen, or that something was not right about a person, only to have those concerns confirmed? I think we all have a "Spider Sense" of sorts, which came to me as I was reading 1 Peter, Chapter 5. I thought about how when I have had these feelings, it was the result of the Holy Spirit working within me to be an "early warning system" about the activities of the enemy. If you will pardon the parallel, The Holy Spirit is Our Spider Sense. Spiderman had many enemies, and so that early warning detection was critical. As a follower of Jesus, we too have have many enemies...the chief enemy being the Devil, but he also has many servants that war against as well. In Peter 5:8-9 (NLT) it says. "Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are." "Stay alert!!" That alertness is what will protect us from the attack of our enemies; and that happens when we partner with God and listen for His still, small voice. It is reading the Bible, memorizing God's Word, and listening to that "feeling," or as some would call it a "sixth sense" or "intuition". All of which, if you are a a believer in the Trinity, the Father (God), Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit, know is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit at work within us. And boy do we need it! The sobering part of these verses to me is the, "looking for someone to devour" part. Our enemy does not care who it is, so long as he can destroy you! But before despair sets in, re-read verse 9...all we need to do is "Stand firm" and "be strong" in our faith, and "remember" that other believers around the world are facing the same kind of struggles we
