On Guard!

Reading of the Day: 1 Chronicles 20-22

1 Chronicles 20:5: And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam.

As we talked about last time, battles & warfare were an expected part of life in the days of David...and the attacks did not come from new enemies each time, but enemies they had fought before came up to fight again & again. In this Scripture, one of those mentioned is the Philistines...and these were some of the greatest enemies of Israel & the group that they had to fight off many, many times (not to mention the family of Goliath continuously creeping back into David's life!). Most of the time, Israel won. But other times, the Philistines won. Why could this be? Why do we face some of the same battles in our lives over & over again? We tend to think we've put something to rest in our lives, only to find it one day bothering us again. I think this could be a test of the heart! Do we have our hearts guarded on a daily basis? We must remember that the beauty in the battle is taking what the enemy used for evil & turning our battle scars into gold medals: Genesis 50:20: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." If we are not careful, we could leave our gold medals unguarded for the enemy to meddle with once again, and we could start to go back to the old warped perception that the enemy will defeat us again. We start to look at our medals as scars again. We start to get discouraged & frustrated with life. We start to forget that God once gave us victory, and He will do it again! If we keep our hearts guarded with the armor of God by His Word, we can speak unafraid into the face of those intimidating thoughts, letting the devil know that we will not once again be defeated by the same enemy! It's time to say, "on guard!" against the enemy! It's time to encourage ourselves in The Lord as David did, not allowing defeat or depression to be our master any longer:

1 Samuel 30:6: "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God."

Proverbs 4:23: "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."