Can we ever overcome the devil and the world?

VaZe received Christ since August 26th 2005 and my initial mindset abt the devil and God is that God had not planned for the creation of the devil to torment the people... the devil is a backslided angel because of greed and pride.

As started my journey with God, it was the toughest thing, cos' there are so many things in my life that wasn't right with God, and i hesitiate to give it up... Such as to lust at girls, to watch pornography, to masturbate, say vulgarities etc... When i finally got spiritually sick and tired of my sinful nature, i decided to commit to the Lord and to start afresh my journey with Him... Then to my horror, i realized that its so difficult to give up the sinful nature, cos I'm so deeply rooted into it...

When i tried to put up a fight against the temptations, the challenges come... The devil come with everything to bring me down, stumbling remarks from friends, scoldings from parents, lousy academic results, lack of finances... And being pressurized from all sides, I gave up my fight most of the time and went back to where God first found me - the sinful nature... I faced hopelessness + disappointments (why i did all that i can but still cannot???) and sometimes i really feel like throwing the vulgarities at the devil who made my life so difficult to live...

I lamented to God and asked why on earth He created the devil to torment us, to make us so tired and weary, to tear us down since He desire all of us to be saved and to do well... I thought all my sorrows and problems can be solved if the devil is thrown into hell... God explained to me in Isaiah 54 that HE created the devil, and the devil forges a weapon for his work to torment us, yet his weapons will not prevail against us, this is a vindication from God signed by God's very name...

I realized a few truths as i meditiated...
1. God made the devil, and the devil torments us so that God can sift out those who stand firm to the end.. (Matthew 10:22 says that he who stands firm to the end will be saved). You see that God knows that we have flaws and weaknesses, and He is not looking for a perfect man such as Jesus. But God looks for a man with weaknesses but yet says I don't care and will fight all the way for a righteous life to the very end. God wants to sift out people with character to enter His kingdom....

2. God wants to mould us... Imagine life with no devil, torment and sorrows, we will all be stuck in our character growth as everything is so perfect... (Judges 3:2 says that God left some enemies of Israel intact to teach future generations about warfare). God wants to cultivate in us a spirit of warfare (pray like Moses, war like Joshua) so that we can be people of strong character for God...

3. God wants to see our hearts aligned to Him... (1 Sam 16:7: But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.") God wants to see the moulding and growth of our hearts....

To end off... I'll share with you one of my favourite biblical movies... The Lord of the Ring...
From the movie, you can see 3 distinct warfronts: Frodo + Sam trying to get the ring to the volcano, Aragorn + Gimli + Legolas trying to fight off the invading armies, Merry + Pippin trying to get more people to fight in the war against the evil... Each front is fought on different territories, yet all for the same goal to kill evil... Each front has its own challenges as well, Frodo has to learn to mental strength to suppress the evil from the ring, Aragorn has to be physically strong and fit to fight the armies...

What caught me in the movie is when the fairy-like elf female appeared to Frodo and told him a truth: If you do not find a way to destroy the ring, nobody else would. This is very biblical and real. As people from different backgrounds, we fight on different fronts.. like Frans is facing physical challenges to stay afloat in SISPEC jus like aragorn, me myself training my mental strength to fight the temptations from the devil.. Yet all of us push for the same goal to lead a Godly life.

Each brother ultimately is responsible for his life and we cannot run the race of life for each other... (thats the rule) This means that if I dun find a way to complete the race of life, nobody else will ever complete this particular race simply because God designed this race solely for me to go thru... Applying to church context, if a brother dun wheel himself to rise up and bring down the stronghold of porn in his life, nobody else would be able to do that for him... Thats why EJ and Alvin say "you can talk to us all you want, we can give all the advice, but its all up to you and i solve ur problems for u"

I pray that the spirit of God reveal to you the conditions of ur heart and give you the strength and conviction to run finish ur race... I'll see u at the finish line...