2 Chronicles 20:15b

Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.

Jehoshaphat was being attacked by several surrounding armies, including nations God had not allowed Israel to pursue. In response to their grace, these nations rose up against Judah and Jerusalem because they saw them as a threat. The target of the attack was not just Judah but Judah’s God. These enemy nations were afraid because of how they saw God had blessed Judah and Jerusalem, and they sought to destroy the work of God. The battle was not Judah’s to fight; God, Himself, would intervene.

Our attacks often have nothing to do with our past, such as our failures, mistakes, or sin. We must remember that God is faithful to forgive our sins when we confess them. He judged our sin on the cross, but Satan often tries to convince our emotions we are being punished. On the contrary, most enemy attacks wage against us because of our future and the work God is doing in us and through us. The enemy wants to stop the work of God, and he attacks us since he cannot attack God directly. Such battles are not ours to fight. God intervenes to fight them for us when we face them in His armor.

Verse 21:b gives us the key to overcoming when the battle is the LORD’s:

Give thanks to the LORD, for His faithful love endures forever.

When Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah and Jerusalem began thanking and praising God as they walked into battle, the enemy armies became confused and started destroying each other. Judah never had to fight, just as God had promised. When they reached the multitude of troops that had come against them, they were already defeated, and it took three days for Judah to gather all the plunder from their bodies! God not only gives us victory; He gives us back all the valuable things the enemy has stolen from us and multiplies it!

If you feel discouraged today, simply begin to thank God and praise Him for His faithful love, which endures forever. Psalm 138:8 assures us that God will fulfill His purpose for us and that His love is eternal. He will not abandon the work of His hands. Hallelujah! God dwells in the praises of His people, and His presence is more than enough to conquer the enemies that threaten His work in us.

Have a blessed day!

Zechariah 2:8

For the LORD of Hosts says this: “He has sent Me for His glory against the nations who are plundering you, for anyone who touches you touches the pupil of His eye.”

Some translations refer to the pupil of His eye as the apple of His eye. Indeed, when the enemy attacks us and tries to steal what God has given us, God feels like someone is poking Him in the eye. He will immediately begin to protect His people, who are the apple of His eye.

If something irritates your eye, you are distracted. You begin to try to brush that thing away. It has your immediate attention. The same is true for God when something attacks us. While it may seem to us as if God doesn’t care or is not interested, He is actually brushing that thing out of the way because it is offensive to Him. We always have His full attention as the apple or pupil of His eye.

If something is hurting you today, it is hurting God, too. He does care, He hears your cry, and He is working on your behalf. Nothing – absolutely nothing – is going to destroy God’s eye or His vision for you. You are protected as the apple of His eye, and He is already battling for you.

Have a blessed day!

Exodus 17:8-9

At Rephidim, Amalek came and fought against Israel. Moses said to Joshua, “Select some men for us, and go fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the hilltop with God’s staff in my hand.”

God had just provided water from the rock to ease the thirst of the children of Israel in their journey through the wilderness. As soon as they were refreshed, they had a battle to face. God will quench your thirst before you head into war so you will be able to fight. By the same token, the enemy will attack after a longing has just been satisfied by appealing to another longing. Having just tasted the satisfaction, you will be prone to grab for satisfaction again.

Rephidim means baluster or railing. Think of it as a means of support from one level to the next, much like a stair railing. You use it for support. The enemy will attack your support systems, causing you to stumble and fall and preventing you from moving from one level to the next.

Amalek was the enemy who attacked at Rephidim. Amalek was a descendant of Esau, who allowed his cravings to get the best of him. Esau chose his cravings over his birthright, and he lost his inheritance. Your enemy wants your inheritance, and he will attack whatever personal support systems you have in place with your own cravings. He will use your desires – including God-given desires – against you to try to prevent you from moving from one spiritual level to the next and gain further ground.

Moses instructed Joshua to select men to fight, and he would intercede. You cannot muster enough self-discipline or strength on your own to stand up to your personal cravings or desires when you are moving from one level to the next. You need a support system that will not fall apart to carry you forward. You need able men to fight with you, which is accountability, and you need intercessors to pray for you. You cannot move past Rephidim by yourself. 

Something at the next level is so valuable that the enemy is using your own desires against you. Don’t give up, and don’t give in. Call on those you need to help you, have strong prayer warriors praying for you, and God will give you the victory. Wherever there is a Rephidim, there is also another blessing close at hand. Don’t allow your cravings to get the best of you, and don’t look to them for support. Be willing to fight and intercede to overcome the urge to settle for less than the very best God has for you. The next level is only a Rephidim – a baluster – away.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 18:36

You widen a place beneath me for my steps, and my ankles do not give way.

God clears a path for us to walk where He has called us to walk. The Devil will certainly try to restrict us, confine us, and isolate us, but he can do only what God allows him to do. Should the enemy block what we know to be the natural path, God may open an obscure way that provides an extra advantage for you.

On whatever path God may send you, know for certain that He is with you on that path. He has already gone before you and cleared the ground for you so your steps will be secure. Don’t be afraid if the new path is unfamiliar; your dependence and trust in God is key to your arrival. Let the words of Proverbs 16:9 encourage you today:

A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD determines his steps.

Have a blessed day!

2 Chronicles 20:20b

Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.

God keeps urging me to just believe Him. If He has given us a promise in His word, He will do it. If He has given you a desire in your heart that aligns with His word and you have submitted it to Him, He will do it. God responds to our faith, and when we take Him at His word, we fuel the flame for fulfillment of the promise.

If you think you can’t, you won’t. If you dwell on the negative, then negative is what you will get. We must learn to focus our faith on God’s promises and His power to deliver them and not on our own abilities. When we do, we get immeasurably more than we could ask or think, according to Ephesians 3:20.

Make a determination to focus on the positive promises of God’s word today, and don’t allow circumstances to deter you. Speak forth God’s word over your negative situations, and call them as though they were not negative. He has promised that His word will not return to Him void but will do all it was sent forth to do, so speak it out and believe it. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Make Him greater, stronger, and more powerful in your belief, and you will witness His power in your reality.

Have a blessed day!

Job 16:21-22

I wish that someone might arbitrate between a man and God just as a man pleads for his friend. For only a few years will pass before I go the way of no return.

Job felt the bitter taste of loss of family, wealth, and health. His friends accused him falsely and gave him no comfort. He truly felt as if God’s hand was against him. In his suffering, he wished he had an arbitrator between man and God to plead his case that he might find mercy in God’s eyes and be relieved of his misery.

We have an arbitrator before God in Jesus Christ. In the midst of our pain and suffering, we can cry out to Him, and He stands before the Father on our behalf. When we hear the voice of the accuser against us, we can turn to our arbitrator, knowing He is pleading our case to the Father. Even if we know we have failed God in something, we still have an arbitrator before Him in Jesus Christ who has already paid the penalty of our sin so we might rise from our ashes and follow Him. While we are in the process of being transformed from the nature of sinful man to the Christ-like appearance of God’s saints, Jesus stands as our arbitrator to keep us qualified for the race set before us.

God restored Job, who had no arbitrator to plead his case. God afflicted him to prove a point to the devil that Job was a righteous man. We have been given the righteousness of Jesus Christ. How much more will God restore us after allowing us to suffer the attacks of the enemy while Jesus stands at His right side interceding on our behalf!

Place your faith fully in your arbitrator today. Job longed for such an advocate before the Father. Rest in the full assurance that Jesus is interceding for you today, and He wants you free from your enemies and fully functioning in all that He died for you to have. God will take the word of His Son for you over the word of your enemy against you! God restored Job, and He can restore you, too. Your arbitrator stands before Him for you. Hallelujah!

Have a blessed day!

John 16:27

For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God.

If you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, the Father Himself loves you. Because you have received the gift of His precious Son, God loves you. You have not rejected Him but have accepted the sacrifice God provided for you, and God loves you. He judged your sin on the cross, and He is not mad at you. He longs to have fellowship with you and to accept you as His child. He loves those who love His Son.

Jesus taught this verse to assure the disciples that they had a relationship with the Father through Him. He would no longer ask the Father anything on their behalf because they would be able to go to Him directly and ask in His name. Now that Jesus has returned to the Father in heaven, we can go directly to God and ask anything in the name of Jesus.

When we ask in Jesus’s name, we are asking God to do something that would align with His character. Jesus was not selfish, so asking for something selfish is not asking in Jesus’s name. Jesus was totally surrendered to the will of God, and when we ask something in Jesus’s name, we are asking in submission to God’s will. When we submit anything to Him in full surrender, He hears our prayer. We must then trust Him for the answer.

Know for certain today that God loves you, and He hears your prayers. Because of your love for Christ, God loves you and has already judged your sin. You may now come boldly before the throne of grace and ask for whatever you need. As you pray, listen for God to speak to you. If you are not in line with the character of Jesus, He will direct you and bring your heart in line with His will if you are submitted to Him. If you are in line with the character of Christ in your asking, you can trust Him to grant your request. You can always trust the Father to do the right thing because He loves you Himself.

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 25:1

LORD, I turn my hope to You.

Have you ever been disappointed in someone or feel as if someone or something trusted had failed you? Apparently, David did, too. As he expressed in this verse, he had learned to turn his hope to God.

If you turn something, it must first be in a different position. If I’m driving down the road and want to go left, I must turn my wheels in that direction. While it can be very easy to misplace our hope in things that will not satisfy or leave us in lack, we have the ability to turn our hope in a different direction. Like David, we can turn our steering wheel of hope toward God, who never disappoints us or leaves us. He has called us according to His purpose, and we are wise to place our hope firmly in Him and in nothing else.

If someone has hurt you, disappointed you, or failed to deliver on a promise or obligation, turn your hope to God. Your success and well-being are rooted in Him. He has called you, and He will complete the good work He has started in you. There is nothing He cannot do, and He can do more that you can imagine! Turn your hope to God and be blessed beyond your imagination.

Have a blessed day!

Isaiah 42:21-22

The LORD was pleased, because of His righteousness, to magnify His instruction and make it glorious. But this is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in holes or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot, with no one saying, “Give it back!”

God magnified His law and made it the standard by which His people should live. By His law, the Israelites were blessed and judged. His people, however, fell into sin and did not regard His law. Therefore, they were robbed and plundered with no one to come to their rescue or to defend them. Instead of turning from their ways, they saw themselves as victims and remained imprisoned, plundered, and looted. Eventually, God showed them the error of their way, and they turned back to Him. When they did, He restored them.

As long as we see ourselves as victims, we will remain a victim. The only way to overcome and become a victor is to assume responsibility for your own sin, repent, and turn to God. At that point, His grace abounds to you! Grace is not for the victim; grace is for the repentant.

The victim admits no wrong and wants to keep his sin. The sin will keep him imprisoned, and no one can help him. The repentant, however, changes his thinking and his actions to align with God, and God sets him on the right path to restoration. For the repentant, God will gather together all the broken pieces of a life torn apart by sin and create a new being with a new purpose full of vitality and expectancy. God goes to work on behalf of the repentant and makes him a victor.

Determine to be a victor and not a victim today. Even if your circumstances are the result of someone else’s wrongdoing, you don’t have to keep a victim mentality. Turn to God and trust Him to restore whatever the enemy has stolen from you, whether it be by sin or by attack. God no longer exalts His law, but He exalts His Son. In Him, we have grace, hope, and the promise of new life. In Him, we are more than conquerors and no longer have to live as a victim. Rejoice in His victory and be blessed!

Have a blessed day!

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence indeed is the LORD. He will be like a tree planted by water; it sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.

To know if we are truly blessed, we need to take a close look at our past to see how we have come through difficult situations. This passage does not promise that adverse times will not come to the blessed person; on the contrary, it includes such times. The blessed person, however, will not be overcome by trying times and circumstances. The blessed continue to produce fruit and remain a life-giving source and a shelter from the heat because they are firmly rooted in God.

The word, “blessed,” here represents the benefits that accrue to the person who is devoted to the LORD and His word. We should all pray to be blessed! Committing ourselves to God, studying His word, and applying the truths of His word to our lives will automatically bring blessing. His word will establish us and ground us – just like the tree that is planted by the water and receiving continual nourishment. We will continue to grow and flourish, even when hard times befall us.

We fail to recognize that we are blessed when we start comparing ourselves to others. We must remember that whenever we see a blessing someone else has, we cannot see what that person endured to receive it. Comparing what we have to what others have is a false comparison of blessing. God promises to make us fruitful, so we simply need to trust that word and remain devoted to Him. Those who have less or nothing at all can see how we are blessed.

 Let us never take our blessings for granted. Today we remember those who lost their lives for our country so we can enjoy freedom and the blessings God has so graciously given us. Take some time to reflect upon the history of this country and how God has brought us through many threats of evil to deny us our freedom. Liberty is won through hard battles, but it can be lost easily if we become distracted and lose the will to fight by failing to appreciate what we have. Thank God for your many blessings today, and know that He will bless you if you remain in Him.

Have a blessed day!