Shadowboxing: Winning the Battle Within Sample

BECOME BIG-SPIRITED

When I was still a youth pastor, I would pose the following question at youth meetings: What is the greatest weapon you have at your disposal in ministry? People would answer: the Word of God; the Holy Spirit; the good news of Jesus. And these are all great answers. But, ultimately, it’s your spirit, or inner person, that is your greatest weapon in all spheres of life. Your inner being is the conduit for God’s work in your life and will determine whether you’re impacted by any of the above. The Word of God is only powerful in your life if you’re reading and applying it. In the same way, you have to give the Holy Spirit room to move.

Charles Spurgeon writes: ‘It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organize societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war.’

In the Bible, Caleb is a prime example of someone who is big-spirited. Most of you will know him as one of the twelves scouts sent out by Moses to survey Canaan. By occupation, Caleb is a shepherd and soldier. There’s no mention of him having superior skills in battle or leadership or possessing great wealth or influence. As far as we’re aware, Caleb is just an ordinary guy, yet he has this extraordinary spirit. When he and the other scouts return from their expedition, ten of the scouts reckon it would be madness to invade Canaan because the inhabitants are too powerful. Yet Caleb is ready to take possession of Canaan because the Lord has promised it to them. In Numbers 13:30 (NIV), he says: ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’ (Also see Numbers 14:6–9.)

Is it any wonder then that God says of Caleb, ‘But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.’ (Numbers 14:24 NIV). It takes decades before this promise is fulfilled, yet Caleb sticks with God and tends to his spirit (or the culture of himself that Spurgeon talks about).

We know this from the kind of man Caleb becomes. Four and a half decades after they scouted Canaan together, Caleb tells Joshua: ‘Now, as you can see, the LORD has kept me alive and well as He promised for all these forty-five years … Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then.’ (Joshua 14:10–11 NLT). What a legend!

Our inner being is our greatest asset, yet we often neglect it in pursuit of external goals. Caleb follows God wholeheartedly and maintains a healthy, strong, faithful, visionary, pure, big spirit. And that’s really the best way to live. Stick with the Lord wholeheartedly and live out what it says in Proverbs 4:23 (NIV): ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.’