Choosing the Battle

There are many enemies around us. There is the enemy of homelessness. There is the enemy of child abuse. There is the enemy of addiction, fornication, and other sins. We as individuals can never battle every enemy. But we must do something. What?

In I Chronicles 14, after Saul’s death and David was anointed King, the Philistines came near and taunted David. There were challenging his reign. Testing him to see how strong his kingdom was.

Isn’t that just like the devil? He flaunts the hurting and the abused in our face and taunts, “Help them if you can?”

David, wise king that he was, inquired of the Lord. Notice that he didn’t rely on someone else to speak to God, but David knew how to contact God directly. We need that kind of relationship with our Savior. With God’s approval, David whipped the Philistines. He didn’t just win the battle. He won big. As a victory celebration, he burnt their gods with fire.

Yet the Philistines returned to taunt him again. Now a lot of us—myself included—would recognized the enemy, remembered our previous victory, and stormed into battle. But David knew that just because the enemy is raging doesn’t mean he should engage him.

Sometimes, God doesn’t want us to fight.

Sometimes, He fights for us.

And sometimes He has a specific battle plan He wants us to carry out.

Such as in this case. Upon inquiring of the Lord the second time, David followed God’s instructions, and waited by the Mulberry Trees—until God gave the signal. David showed trust in God by obeying His command. As a result, he won not only the battle, but the won the war against the enemy.

To many times, we rush into battle without waiting for God’s signal. We don’t give Him a chance to put His battle plan into motion. And when we lose, we think God failed us.

Not so! If we are going to be victorious against the enemy, we must fight only the battles God allows us, and we must follow His battle plan.

Is the enemy taunting you?

If so, inquire of the Lord, and follow his instructions. Invite me to your victory celebration by commenting below.

Man's Word or God's Truth?

There are godly men and women in this world. Unfortunately, there are some evil men and women as well. Many souls have been scarred by evil actions. As with most cases, God gets the blame.

God’s word and man’s word are different. God isn’t a human. He isn’t accountable for mankind’s actions or neglect.

However, God is aware of our hurts, and He has made provision to heal us completely.

The book of Genesis tells us of creation. It also tells that after God created man, He gave man a commandment.

God told Adam that if he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil then Adam would die. (Genesis 2:17) But Eve thought that God said you can’t eat of it, nor touch it or she would die. (Genesis 3:2-3) At this time, Adam stood with her, and didn’t bother to correct her thinking. Perhaps, he was the one who added to God’s word and told Eve that they couldn’t touch the fruit.

Because of this, a lot of people (and I was once one of them) blame Adam for Eve’s sin. However, upon closer look we see that after the deed was done, God spoke directly to Eve in verse 13 and 16. This tells me that the communication line between God and Eve was already open.

Eve didn’t have to go through Adam to have access to God. She could have clarified the commandment with one question. But instead of depended on God and God’s word. She depended on man and man’s word.

Man’s word fails. God’s word never fails.

Today, people are wrongly judging God’s faithfulness by a man’s or another woman’s word. We are deceived into thinking that God is a liar, God is abusive, God is unfaithful, and God doesn’t care because of human action or inaction. But thankfully, God is not a man that He should lie.

Another fact to consider is that prior to their sin, God told both Adam and Eve that they may eat of every fruit tree that had seeds. (Genesis 1:28-29) Since God doesn’t lie, and His word never changes, we can conclude that the fruit from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was seedless. (The first seedless fruit was created not by man’s ingenuity but by God in the Garden of Eden.)

Think of a wild plum tree. Think of all the little sprouts around it. That’s probably why God created the tree seedless. He wanted only one of this type of tree. This also distinguished the tree from the other edible fruits. 

Adam and Eve knew which fruit was forbidden.

Men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers have a distinctive purpose and a specific role to play in our life, but none of these are gods. None of these are Saviors. All of these are human. And all of these make mistakes. Every life has been touched by evil in some way. Yes, it hurts, and yes it affects us. But we can’t judge God’s love and compassion by human failure. And, it’s time to stop blaming our own failures on the inadequacies of others.

Instead, let’s use the communication lines that were opened on Calvary. Talk to God. Tell Him your hurts. Let Him heal you.

Remember that your heavenly Father loves you unconditionally. He sent Jesus to save you from the evils of sin. The Holy Ghost was sent with comfort and strength to help us not only survive this world, but to live victoriously.

Have you talked to your Savior today?