God wants His people to walk in victory in Christ throughout their lives.
     To do so, we need to know what is going on around us, spiritually. We
     need to have an in depth spiritual keenness and awareness. (Developing
     this keenness and awareness requires speaking in tongues much in our
     private prayer times.)

     We live in a dark and perverse world. The thief comes to steal and to kill
     and to destroy. [John 10:10] As a roaring lion, he walks about, seeking
     whom he may devour. [I Peter 5:8] Are we well aware of this? Are we
     as sharp-eyed, quick-witted and cunning as a snake to escape from danger
     and avoid evil? Yet, are we as simple, innocent and harmless as a dove,
     concerning it?

     God wants His kids to stay harmless, unmixed concerning evil but, on the
     other hand, He wants us to be as wise as serpents, so we are neither
     overcome by the world nor deceived by it.

          " Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst
          of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents,
          and harmless as doves."

     Barne's Commentary says this about Matthew 10:16:

     sheep in the midst of wolves - "That is, I send you, inoffensive and harmless,
     into a cold, unfriendly, and cruel world. Your innocence will not be a protection."

     wise as serpents- "Probably the thing in which Christ directed his followers
     here to imitate the serpent was in its caution in avoiding danger. No animal
     equals them in the rapidity and skill which they evince in escaping danger.
     So said Christ to his disciples, You need caution and wisdom, in the midst of
     a world that will seek your lives. He directs them also to be harmless, not to
     provoke danger, not to do injury, and thus make their fellow-men justly
     enraged against them."

          For your obedience is come abroad unto all men.
          I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I
          would have you wise unto that which is good,
          and simple concerning evil.

     Philippians 2:14, 15

          Do all things without murmurings and disputings:

          That ye may be blameless and harmless, the
          sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a
          crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye
          shine as lights in the world.

     May we be wise as serpents yet harmless as doves. Amen.

     -Carol Kenreigh