Stop Living Defeated
The enemy should have just left us alone. He has now unleashed the sleeping giant and we are about ready to take some stuff back!
1. Mighty Men of Valor
In 1 Samuel 30, King David is fighting for his people in Israel. He and his 400 men of mighty valor are out fighting the enemy. These men were considered a motley crew of sorts because they were in debt, bitter, and considered bad boys of their time. However, David discipled them, training them to eventually become the greatest leaders and warriors of the land.
They returned from battle, tired and fatigued, to a land called Ziklag where they lived. They found that the enemy had taken all of their stuff: their wives, their children, and all their possessions. David and his men were greatly distressed, all of them facing hard times. His men were even considering stoning and killing David because he was their leader and they were casting blame on him.
2. Overwhelming Victory
David was facing hard times–he lost everything: his wife, his children, his possesions, and now the men he trained were now turning against him wanting to kill him! He found himself in a position of absolute defeat and reached out to his only hope–God! He needed a word from God and direction to navigate out of defeat and into victory. But first, he must walk away from the dark circumstances surrounding him: the angry voices of blame, the angry voices of revenge. David knew his strength came from the Lord his God and that is who he ran to!
This is a powerful principle we need to embrace. If we find ourselves in any kind of challenging circumstance, before we seek God for direction, we need to make sure we are in the right frame of mind. We first need to walk away from those voices of our circumstance whatever they may be. Then we enter into worship and the presence of God where we are reminded of His goodness, and His promises over our life. This is where we feed on the faithfulness of God. This is where we grasp the truth that if He brought us out before, He will bring us out again. He is a faithful, good God and it is only through Him we have overwhelming victory!
3. Guarding Our Heart
We are on a faith journey following God, and His desire is to get us to our promiseland. The enemy knows this and his only desire is to keep us from our promiseland! He will go after our heart, sending anything and anybody to taint that heart by offense which is his strongest weapon in his artillery! When we hold onto offense and start playing the blame game, our hearts will soon become corrupted.
Once our heart is deceived, we will not be able to hear God’s direction to our promise land. If we do hear Him, it will be with a deceptive heart because offense is like poison destroying everything in its path. This is why, when we are faced with difficult circumstances, we have to get our heart right and clear our mind before we go into God’s presence. Clearing our mind and our heart involves the most powerful weapon we use to counterattack our enemy–forgiveness! We forgive and let go and let God direct us to our promise land!
4. God’s Presence
It is in God’s presence where we get washed from the daily filth of the world. Where we fight against being offended, becoming bitter, and fight against the wrong people speaking into our life. It is a fight and once we push past all of the assaults of the enemy, we will be able to clearly hear God’s direction. We can’t hear him through offense, bitterness, and wrong voices of deception.
Just like King David, we must spend time before the Lord to get encouraged so we can hear clearly from Him and receive direction. We can’t do that if we are spending days and weeks depressed, discouraged, and held captive by bitterness or offense. We cannot allow the enemy to rob us of our promise land!
Final Thoughts
Our greatest miracles and breakthroughs sometimes happen when facing the greatest challenges in life.
The fullness of joy is only in God’s presence!
He that began a good work is faithful to finish what He started, trust in God only!
