Conquering Enemies

Day two hundred thirty-three

I woke up to the song Hero by Abandon this morning.  It is one of my favorite songs about Christ.  I love it because it is so simple, yet so powerful.  As I listened this morning and thought about Christ, I had this thought pop into my mind, "I need to be a hero too."  I don't need to atone for everyone's sins, but I can help the sick or help calm the storms in someone's life.  I can be the person that listens when no one else will.  I can be an example of Christ's love for someone when they feel alone.  I might even be able to share some thoughts that touch someones heart today.  My prayer this morning includes a request that the Lord would be with me today so that I might be the hero He needs me to be in the lives of others.  May I show His power in simple ways today!

1 Samuel 7

As I read chapter 7 this morning I kept coming back to two verses (3 and 4).  These verses talk about conquering your enemies.  In the Israelites case it was the Philistines, but we also face enemies in our own lives.  Things like bad habits, depression, pride, idol worship (glorifying objects), etc.  These are all things that pull us away from God and therefore are our enemy.  They need to be conquered too.

Samuel, directed by the Lord, gives the Israelites a simple plan to help "deliver them out of the hands of the Philistines."  Will this plan work for our enemies too?  Let's take a look:

Turn Unto the Lord With All Your Hearts (v 3)
What exactly does it mean to turn your heart to the Lord?  It means to turn from your sins, earnestly, with all your heart, and trust in the Lord.  It sounds like Samuel is calling the Israelites to repentance.  They needed to recognize that they had a problem and then turn to the Lord to help them through it.  The simple statement is: Turn to the Lord and He will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines.

Does that work for us too?  Turn to the Lord and He will deliver you out of the hands of whatever bad habit you need to get rid of. Or pride. Or idol worship.  Sounds like the statement is true for us too!

Put Away Your Strange Gods (v3) 
The Israelites were having problems staying focused on a God that they could not see.  So they tended to drift towards idol worship with its statues and such.  These were tangible things that they could see and touch and that made them feel better about religion. 

Faith is hard.  Trusting someone that you haven't met (or remember being around) is not easy.  It is so much easier to attach feelings with something or someone you can actually see and touch.  We all have things in our lives that we turn to that bring us comfort.  When we are young children it might be a blanket, a pacifier, or a stuffed animal that we want when we need comforting.  We can hold these things and somehow it makes it all better.  As we get older we are asked to give these things up and to turn to more age appropriate things to comfort us. 

In religious settings it is taught to turn to the Lord for this comfort.  This is a big leap from something you can hold to something that you have to believe is there, but you can't see it or touch it.  Because this is such a large leap not everyone makes it easily.  Some people will turn to other things like possessions, drugs, sex, and alcohol to comfort them.  If Samuel were talking to us today, these are some of the things he would be asking us to give up.

Prepare Your Hearts Unto the Lord (v 3)
Relatively few people are determined to do evil. They don't wake up in the morning seeking ways to transgress. Rather, they fall into sin because they have not prepared their hearts to seek the Lord. 

The word "prepare" means "to establish, fix, prepare, or apply." It conveys the idea of deliberate effort over a prolonged period of time. The same Hebrew word that was translated "prepare" here was also translated "fixed" four times in the Old Testament.  We need to keep our focus on God, we need to "fix" our hearts on the things of the Lord.

Here's the hard part, no one can accomplish preparing their heart on their own. This is not a matter of sheer "will power." God must be involved in preparing our hearts. Psalm 10:17 says, "LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart." Only when we trust in the Lord and depend on Him can we find the strength to make our hearts not subject to change or variation. Humility is an essential ingredient in the preparation of our hearts.  We have to be humble enough to recognize that we can't do it on our own.

Samuel's message of preparing their hearts is a plea for them to focus only on the one true God and to humble themselves before Him.

Serve Him Only (v3)
How do we serve God?  I found an article by Rachel Bruner titled 15 Ways to Serve God. Here are the highlights:

Serve God Through Your Family
Give Tithes and Offerings
Volunteer in Your Community
Home and Visiting Teaching
Donate Clothing and Other Goods
Be a Friend
Serve God by Serving Children
Mourn with Those that Mourn
Follow Inspiration
Share Your Talents
Simple Acts of Service
Serve God Through Missionary Work
Fulfill Your Callings
Use Your Creativity- It Comes from God
Serve God by Humbling Yourself

Can you see how these things would bring you closer to God?  When Samuel tells the Israelites to serve him (the Lord) only, it isn't just about not worshipping other Gods, it is also about learning to love the Lord more through serving Him. 

There is Hope (v 4)
The great thing about verse 4 is that it gives each of us hope that we can become better Christians and conquer our enemies.  If the children of Israel can get their act together, then we certainly can too!  It is important to remember that this isn't something that happened overnight with the Israelites.  They had been suffering for over 20 years because of their actions.  It took them a long time to get to the point where they were ready to change. 

It will take time for us to make the changes that we need in our lives to prepare to conquer our enemies.  It's part of the humbling process and learning to lean on the Lord.  He will not let us down.  In fact He will even fight some of our battles for us if we will let him (v 10-13). 

What an awesome study session this was for me.  I am feeling a little more empowered in my battle against my enemies!  I am ready to face my day with more confidence knowing that the power behind me is greater than the challenges ahead of me!