THE LION CUB AND THE HUNTER

A musician once shared a story that best reveals the wiles of the devil in limiting the manifestations of the sons of God. He said, “There was a hunter who went out to hunt, as usual. To his surprise, he found a stray lion cub and he brought it home to domesticate it.  When he invited people to see the lion cub and shared with them his intentions to domesticate it, they warned him that Lions are wild by nature and cannot be domesticated. He was advised to take the lion cub to the zoo and be rewarded for it, but he was defiant to their suggestions and advise. So, the hunter began to feed the lion cub alongside his puppies, For quite a while this seemed to be working; the lion cub became accustomed to eating dog food and playing with puppies as though it was one of them. The cub, together with the puppies started growing, and the hunter was very excited. His dream of domesticating the lion cub looked like a reality, though the lion had started developing fangs.

Many of his elderly friends warned him, drawing attention to the fangs the cub had started to develop, yet he would not listen to them.

 One day, while he was away, his little son was playing soccer when he was bruised, he bled and there were drops of blood on the floor. The lion cub went to the blood and tasted it; it seemed to enjoy the taste. The lion cub continued to lick up the drops of blood on the floor, until there was none left. Then, it found the source of the blood, the boy’s bruised skin, it went up to the boy and began to tear up the skin to get more blood and soon, it began to enjoy the flesh of the boy too. The boy cried and shouted for help, but neighbors could only watch from afar as the lion cub killed the boy. When the dogs tried to attack it, it killed them all too. By the time the hunter got home, his little boy, and his dogs were all dead, killed by the lion cub. The hunter could not dare to go close to the lion as he abandoned his house, fleeing for his life.” The hunter in the story above represents the devil, the dogs are the natural man and the born again Christian is the lion. The devil wants to domesticate believers to live in the flesh like unbelievers so, that he can have control over them. He wants to control what they see, what they eat and how they respond to issues.

Many believers today compare themselves to unbelievers, they fear what the unbelievers fear, they limit themselves with the limits of the unbeliever, they reason in the same way as the unbeliever, and they think they are normal humans like the unbelievers.

“Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.”

Isaiah 8:12

Though the bible clearly warns the believer against seeing things the way unbelievers do, the devil has tamed many into such behavior. Some unbelievers today eat what the unbeliever eats, think like the unbeliever, talk like the unbeliever, harbor fear with the unbeliever and limit themselves with the limitations accepted by the unbelievers. They live as Human-Beings instead of Faith-Beings

The hunter applied the following steps in trying to tame the lion:

The hunter chose a lion cub to tame: Because the lion cub was yet to discover its potentials, the hunter tried to hide it from them forever. The devil is after new converts; if he could not stop you from surrendering your life to Christ and becoming born again, he wants to stop you from discovering and functioning in your faith-nature in Christ. It is most important that we do not neglect the new convert, because he is the devil’s primary target. The devil aims at making him live like the carnal-man, though he is not. 

The hunter fed the lion with dog food: When you feed on the unbeliever’s food, you will not function any better than them. Those who engage in athletic activities do not eat like regular people who do not. They are choosy with what they eat, and they follow strict dietary rules. They understand that it is not everything that is tasty for the mouth that is good for the body. When the devil wants you to live like the unbeliever, he first tells you that it is alright to eat what they eat. The devil makes you to be drunk with wine, eat an excess of food and be wary of fasting. When you feed your body excessively, your body will underperform. The bodies of saints are the temple of the Holy Spirit, if the temple is defiled and rendered less effective, it has placed a limit on the move of God through that body.

The hunter spoke to the lion cub as he spoke to his puppies: The devil wants to control what the believer hears and what he entertains himself with, so that the believer will not hear words that will stir up his superman nature. He makes the believer comfortable listening to news that causes fear and discouragement, and as the believer keeps feeding on such news, he feels it is alright to live in fear, to manage life and experience defeats. Soon, the believer would start to say things like “such is life, life is made up of ups and downs, this is impossible, I can’t do this, sickness is normal, diseases is natural, life is hard, and things cannot always be ok etc.”

The hunter surrounded the lion cub with puppies: You are no better than your association; iron sharpens iron (Prov. 27:17). The hunter had hoped the lion would live with the puppies and behave like them so that its potentials would not manifest. When the devil makes the new convert comfortable keeping his unbelieving friends, or marrying an unbeliever, he hopes to place permanent limits to the manifestations of the superman nature of the believer in Christ.

The hunter confined the lion to a house: Domestic animals live in the house while wild animals like the lion live in the wild. The hunter knew that keeping the wild cat in a house would greatly limit its potentials. This is what the devil does, he tries to keep the believer in the wrong places; he goes to church when the bible study is over, he never joins street evangelism and he spends his time watching movies when he should be praying in the Holy ghost et cetera. When the devil succeeds in keeping a believer in the wrong place, he has succeeded in hindering the believer from manifesting the superman nature of faith he has in Christ Jesus.

The hunter made the cub believe it was a dog and hindered the cub from discovering himself because he was surrounded him with false realities. If the believer wants to manifest as the superman that he is, he must be willing and ready to break out of the holds of the devil like the lion in our story, and break forth into the reality of God’s grace for him.

The Holy Spirit is working in every believer to bring him to the awareness of who he is in Christ Jesus and to the reality that nothing is impossible for him because of his faith in Christ Jesus. If the believer should let the Holy Spirit lead him, he will, soon enough, enter into the realm where everything is literally possible.