Slaying Giants!

Slaying giants was not an easy task for the commoner; it took a highly skilled man of faith to accomplish victory. Most men shy away from such challenges but not kinsmen like David. Why? He believed God for the victory, he was obviously well trained with his slingshot and his experience in the wilderness had taught him the value of trusting God; he had obviously learnt that it was by one stone at a time and for us one obstacle at a time. Goliath wasn’t his fist victory, from an early age he understood what it was to walk by faith, trusting God. He killed lions and bears tending his father’s sheep prior to his encounter with Goliath.  

How is it that we will slay the giants in our lives? In exactly the same way, faith towards God and repentance when we fall short, confessing our sin; we must acknowledge our need for God in our lives and then honour Him once aid arrives. A lifetime of learning to depend upon His provision and not our own independence; it is only the trial of our faith that will teach us these very valuable lessons and it will soon become evident who the giant slayers are and those who are not; who are men of faith and those who walk in unbelief.

Faith overcomes the hurdles of life believing God for rescue; however we must never confuse our wants with our needs. God provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness but they soon demanded meat and we see the end of that type of mind-set. It leads to an ungrateful type of mentality which if left to run riot will end in ruin. How many of the original expatriates from the land of slavery and Egypt entered the Promised Land? Two! Only Joshua and Caleb received their inheritance, the rest fell in the Wilderness; “And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” (Hebrews 3:17-19) – What drove them to unbelief? Was it not their murmurings? They begun to hanker after the leeks and the garlic that they left behind whilst under their bondage; they wanted their old lifestyles back; God forbid we enter into that type of mind-set. That is a land filled with giants and bondage to sin.

To be skilled in spiritual warfare we must be trained up in righteousness and the only way we can be educated appropriately is through suffering; “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5) - Life itself teaches us this principle; an athlete cannot win a medal in the Olympics unless they have trained their bodies with vigorous commitment through sweat and tears. The trial of our faith prepares us for combat. There are no short cuts; or rather those who choose the easy out expose their hearts; revealing their actual claim to Christianity, a separation of the wheat from the tares and the goats from the sheep. This is what differentiates the true Christian from the false. We must all realise that God is shaping us up into vessels of honour and it is how we handle the trials of life and our sufferings where this becomes apparent in a believers life.

Signing off

Tyrone