100 Days of HopeSample

The Battle Isn’t Yours

Most people tell the story of David and Goliath as a lesson on how to have personal victory in spiritual warfare. Identify the giants in your life. Reject Saul’s armor. Take your five smooth stones and run to the battle. In other words, put yourself in the role of David.

There’s only one problem: You’re not David and neither am I. If we’re honest, we see far more of ourselves in Israel’s cowering army than in David’s courageous act. When giants like sickness, grief, or poverty present themselves, we shrink in fear.

But there is one who played David’s role: His true spiritual son. The shoot from the stump of Jesse. The boy from Bethlehem in Judah, Jesus Christ. Like David, He seemed unremarkable and overmatched by the giant. He came in apparent weakness, not with sword, spear, or javelin.

In fact, He died at the hands of the giant. But He did this so that “by His death He might break the power of Him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). In other words, by losing He won. And He continues to win for all of us.

As David himself said, “The battle is the Lord’s.” So today identify the giants in your life and ask Jesus to slay them.

Prayer: Father, I am too weak to win the battles in my life. But you are not. When I am weak, I am strong in you. “Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.” So I thank you and worship you for the victory of the cross. United with Christ, may I experience His victory today.