Tuesday, November 12th, 2024
Over the last couple of months God has really been stirring up the heart of a warrior within me. For too long I have lived as a puppet to the enemy allowing him to shake me and move me into whatever position he wanted. As I grew more and more frustrated with my lack of abundant life, I knew something had to change. The enemy was controlling my mood and my day with any number of lies and external circumstances that he could manipulate. He had taken away my future, my hope and my will to fight.
Recently, I read an example of this in the Bible, and I felt Holy Spirit say, “This is the same way your enemy works.” Let’s look at 1 Samuel 13:19-20:
19 Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make swords or spears.” 20 But all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen each man’s plowshare, his mattock, his ax, and his sickle;
So, let’s remember where we are at in history. The Israelites are in their promised land. God told the Israelites that if they followed Him, they would receive blessing after blessing in this land and be able to send all their enemies fleeing. Unfortunately, over the prior book of the Bible (Judges) the Israelites became more and more unrighteous as they were led by more and more unrighteous judges. Where our scripture picks up, they are now under the kingship of Saul, who is their first king. In 1 Samuel 12, Saul had just offered an unlawful sacrifice, and Samuel told him that the kingdom was removed from his hands because of his disobedience.
The Philistines are one of those enemies that the Israelites should have authority over, but it looks like the Philistines are actually controlling the Israelites. They have discovered that if they prevent the Israelites from becoming blacksmiths then they won’t make swords and spears with which to fight, and they will be dependent on and paying them for all of their metal working needs.
How many of us let our enemies handle us the way the Philistines controlled the Israelites? The enemy tells us we can’t have that thing, or we are not smart enough or old enough or gifted enough to do that thing and we say, “Yea, you are right.” Or the enemy tells us God has forgotten about us or that we didn’t really hear that promise right and we say, “Yea, you are right.” Then just as the Philistines took away the Israelites ability to fight and take the land that God gave them, the enemy takes away our will to fight for what God has in store for us.
Final Thoughts…
One of the simplest questions we can ask ourselves is, “Am I living the life that Jesus died to give me?” Jesus has already defeated hell, death and every single enemy we will ever battle with. But we usually have a little work to do in order to walk in that victory. If we let our enemies tell us what we can and cannot do, then we are not living the life that Jesus died to give us. When we instead put on our warrior boots, use the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God and speak truth to conquer every lie from the enemy, then we will experience the abundant life that cost Jesus His.