“But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” 1 Timothy 6:11

Scattered all of the earth’s continents (except Antarctica) are 3,000 species of wolf spiders!  They are especially common in grasslands and meadows, but they also live in mountains, deserts, rain forests, and wetlands. Instead of spinning webs, they live in holes in the ground over which they build trap doors, and there they wait for prey to come close.  Their speed and hunting methods have earned them the names “cheetah of spiders” and “trap-door spiders.”  They run to an amazing speed of up to two feet per second.  Most of them hunt alone at night and pounce on their prey.  Few insects are perceptive enough to escape the venomous fangs of the wolf spider.

Isaiah 59 speaks of people with the nature of wolf spiders. “Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.” Isaiah 59:7-9.    One of the things that God hates are human feet that are quick to rush into evil (Proverbs 6:18).

Satan also lurks under intricately woven trap doors of temptations to lust, bitterness and pride. The Scriptures tells us to “Flee the evil desires of youth” (1 Timothy 2:22). Other translations say the ‘youthful passions’ or the ‘youthful lusts.’  We, on our own, find it hard to be aware of some of those traps.  They can be very subtle and sneak up on you.  Other times, we tend to try to get as close to the traps as possible without getting caught up in it, but before we realize what’s happening, we’re caught, and we fall.  

Keeping our relationship strong in the Lord and staying in His word is what is going to give us eyes that see and give us strength to avoid the traps that the enemy sets for us. Paul continues telling Timothy that we need to be “instructed in the knowledge of the truth” and that’s when we “will come to our senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken us captive to do his will.”  1 Timothy 2:26.

As men and women of God, according to 1 Timothy 6:11 above, we are to “flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” That’s the only way to walk in victory day after day.