“And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so, shall I escape out of his hand.” (1Samuel 27:1)
David was desperate and spoke without remembering God’s promise and God’s anointing. That's how the devil works in our minds. When we are weak, ill or perplexed, he plants seeds of doubt in our minds, and we begin to lean on our understanding more than on the Lord. Our minds quickly turn to the limited and fallible schemes for the outcome we want. But that is not God. That is the way of a hopeless person who has no God, no help and no wisdom.
God tells us “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalms 46:10) We are God’s ambassadors here on earth to exalt Him among the heathen and to exalt Him on this earth. Yes, our situation may be desperate. We’re only human and we do panic. But if we could only remember God’s command. It’s in these pressured times that we need the Lord more. And it’s precisely in these times, we must be still and seek the Lord, seek His presence and seek His face. Any frantic attempt to remedy the situation will never suffice from our feeble wisdom. We need godly wisdom and knowledge. We need supernatural wisdom and knowledge. And this only comes from the Lord. We could never manufacture anything that will help.
David had been anointed to be king. God had made promises to him. Yet now he forgets all of this and speaks words of death, “I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.” The devil may plant death in our minds, but he doesn’t know we’ve accepted his lies until we speak. I cannot stress enough how important it is to go to the Lord. If there is trouble, run to the Lord. When there is difficulty and hardship, fall at His feet. If you don’t know what to ask for and what words to pray, just speak one word, “help.” God knows the cry of your heart. But when you come to Him, you show He is your source of life and hope. He holds all things in His hands. Remember His promises to you. When those lies come flying at you, you can say, “It is written...”
“It is written...” is powerful. That means it’s a done deal and there is no power on earth that can undo it. Not only has God spoken it, but He has written it down. It is sealed and delivered...to us! It’s sealed by the blood of the Lamb. It can’t be unbroken. God has promised and never goes back on His promises. But this brings us to another point. How faithful have we been on our part? We are the faithless ones. We have wallowed in the flesh and have done what we want. When we reap the harvest of consequences, we have no holy strength nor power. We’ve forgotten our Lord. We’ve made ourselves god over our lives. And now we are desperate. We make poor gods. We have no knowledge of tomorrow. We have no power beyond our strength. And that is weak.
Faithfulness is not an easy thing, but it’s an effort worth pursuing. “A faithful man shall abound with blessings...” (Proverbs 28:20) It takes discipline to be faithful. It’s work and effort. It’s a sacrifice for the flesh. Let’s take a simple example. The flesh wants to relax and watch TV, but you haven’t read the Bible this morning. Faithfulness is making the sacrifice to get up early enough to read the Bible and spend time with the Lord daily and without fail. Discipline yourself by making little sacrifices. Decided to read the Bible for five minutes every morning. Decide to spend five minutes praising and thanking the Lord daily. Decide to spend five minutes praying for someone else. These are little sacrifices that build discipline into our lives. At the beginning, you might even put a timer on these times. But soon, your spiritual strength will be built enough to do away with the timer. Building faithfulness begins with these little sacrifices daily. But don’t think we can do it on our own. We can only do it with the help of the Lord.
Man is such an egotistical creation. We always think that things revolve around us. But they don’t. It’s all about the Lord. And without Him, we can do nothing. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) Let’s give the Lord access to our souls to give us the desire to be obedient and to give us the fortitude to follow through. We can be honest with Him about our laziness, our unfaithfulness and our selfishness, because He already knows it. We can confess it and repent of it, even if we have to do that a hundred times a day, because we are weak. Soon we will see God’s hand at work in us. And soon we won’t be speaking words of defeat and death, but of life, of hope and of peace.
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