You don’t just jump into spiritual conflict unprepared. It could be deadly. Preparation and training are necessary.
We’ve been discussing testing of our faith. It comes to all believers in Jesus Christ, but I fear too often we don’t recognize it for what it is. When difficult times come to us—health issues, disease and death, financial crises, and similar trials of life—we often have a knee-jerk response of, “God, what’s going on? Why is this happening to me?” Such trials are not to be taken lightly or downplayed. The suffering is very real. The reality is, God can use these things common to us all to refine our faith and produce good results in us.
In my last post, these trials are what I likened to David’s lions and bears, which he subdued during his everyday shepherd’s life. This was David’s training ground for spiritual attacks, for fighting Goliath. And our health problems, financial troubles, and other challenges in life are our training ground for spiritual attacks, for fighting Goliath on the battlefield of faith in Christ.
In my last blog post, I re-posted the first of two blog posts about this topic. Here is the second.
Goliaths and Greater Things
David was faithful in his everyday life as a shepherd, sometimes at great personal risk fighting lions and bears. It was in his everyday life that he grew strong wielding the weapons of his trade—the staff and sling and stones—and he grew strong in faith in God. He knew God and could confidently say, “the LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear …”
We too face our lions and bears, those trials and difficulties that come into our everyday lives, threatening us in a myriad of ways. These are the enemies that come to destroy us.
Are we being faithful to fight them with the weapons given us—prayer and praise and the Word of God? Are we becoming adept in their use and growing in strength and trust in God? Can we say as David did, “the LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear …”
It is only in our everyday lives as we faithfully face enemies that would destroy us—our lions and bears—that we learn to fight, becoming skilled and strong, where we learn to know and trust the LORD, bringing him glory as we fight our personal enemies. This, too, is where we learn to recognize another kind of enemy: Goliath.
Goliath wasn’t David’s personal enemy, and he isn’t ours. Goliath is a different enemy. He defies the LORD of Hosts, the Lord Almighty.
Goliath is anything that is contrary to the person and purposes of God, and he must be fought with weapons that have “divine power to demolish strongholds … and everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God …” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
Prayer and praise and the Word of God. These are the powerful weapons that we become skilled at using in our everyday lives fighting our lions and bears. Their power is spiritual, not of our flesh or the world, but of God’s Spirit who lives in us.
When Jesus was on earth, he fought many Goliaths. When he was about to leave and return to his Father in heaven he told his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. … And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. … for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:12-17, NIV, emphasis added).
Jesus expected us to fight Goliaths. Else what did he mean by saying, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8, NIV)?
Or “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)?
The Spirit was given for God’s purposes, the “greater works,” to be lived out in our lives. The questions we must ask ourselves are:
- Do I recognize Goliath when I see him?
- When I do see him, do I have the spirit of David that says, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
- Do I have the chuztpah to reply to the naysayers as David did, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I … struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:34-37, NIV, emphasis added).
- Do I have the jealousy for God’s Name that makes me willing to put “skin” in the game, my skin, for his Name and glory?
The greater works we are to do, that Jesus expects us to do, are waiting to be done. They are there waiting for us to step forward, as David did, in the name of the Lord Almighty, that the Father may be glorified in the Son—through us.
“David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down … and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands’” (1 Samuel 17:45-47).
Let us get stronger every day wielding the weapons of our warfare—prayer and praise and the Word of God—fighting our everyday lions and bears so that we may be strong in the Spirit, fit to recognize and fight Goliath—doing greater things—for the sake of his Name, for the glory of the Father.
Let us fear God more than men.
How have you fared with your lions and bears? Have you discerned the Goliath that you should be challenging for his Name’s sake? How is it going? Send me your questions and comments about this post at jacqueline@jacquelinegwallace.com .
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Photo: Repent by jclk8888
“Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!” and “Goliaths and Greater Things” were first posted on Living with Hope and Purpose at JacquelineGWallace.com, blog posts of October 27, 2015, and November 3, 2015, respectively.