I am encouraged this morning by the words of a young man who lived more than 3,000 years ago.
His determination to do something bold to help his fellow Hebrews was impressive.
More than that, though, it was expressive of his faith in God.
We should all seek the same confidence in the Lord as displayed by Jonathan, the son of King Saul.
“Perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!”
These words of I Samuel 14:6 remove the flawed presumption of so many in ministry that you’ve got to have a large core group of dedicated church volunteers before you can impact the community where you live.
It’s all about the size of your heart and the size of your faith rather than the size of your team.
Yes, there’s no mistaking that having dozens or even hundreds of faithful servants can make it easier to make a big splash that douses large numbers of people with Living Water.
But the empowerment that really determines the influence of the splash — and not just the size — is from the Lord’s hand.
My friends, we are in a battle against spiritual darkness, against spiritual apathy of those in the churches, against spiritual despair in the hearts of people at our jobs, our schools, in our neighborhoods, in our churches and even in our own homes.
Without the promise of God’s help, we’re outgunned at every turn.
With God’s help, though, our Bible-guided efforts and Spirit-guided attitudes can combine to influence lives in direction and scale beyond what we otherwise would believe is possible.
Because of Jonathan’s faith, a massive army dedicated to destroying God’s people was itself decimated.
And as you read the story found at this link — “Never outgunned” — you’ll see how it was made possible because of God’s intervention.
I need to remember this story when discouragement seeks to move into my heart because of the challenges of ministry. Particularly when once-active volunteers become entangled in worldly pursuits and their pursuit of Kingdom growth is displaced at the top by pursuit of earthly endeavors.
We have battles to win, my friend. We have the Lord.
Rejoice for whatever team of warriors you have and press forward toward victory for God’s sake!
As always, I love you
Martin
Thank you for this lesson on attacks. Thank you for reminding me that I am never going to be outgunned by the enemy of our Lord. If He is on our side, we have already won:- through His
grace sending His our begotten Son to defeat the enemy , Death . Thank you for the encouragement for me to move forward with no fear. Please continue to pray for me for God’s compassion, mercy, gentleness and kindness, filled with unfailing love to all, especially the ones that seem to be unkind to me. Have an awesome and Godly day, my friend, and my mentor.