Friday, February 12, 2010
4 "And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. 5 And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.
6 And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders.
7 And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him.
8 And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.
9 If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us.
10 And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together."

1 Samuel 17:4-10
"Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. "
1 Samuel 17:45
It seems I've heard one the first steps in successfully defeating an enemy, is to learn all you can about him. How he works and what makes him tick. With this scripture, we our given some details describing Goliath. He is a huge man and heavily armed. He seems to be cocky and challenges the "armies of Israel" to choose a man to fight with Him. We, as Christians, those are willing to fight him, are that man, "little David" and we too, are armed with much prayer and the power of God, if we claim it.
Most people probably consider our giant to be sin. In a way it is. But, sin is everywhere and too many don't care. Therefore the real sin, is 'indifference'.
"We Need A Greater Consciousness of Our Responsibility" Our greatest sin as a nation is the sin of complacency. Smugness is the forerunner of indifference, and indifference is the predecessor of national deterioration. As the old saying goes, "A chain is no stronger than it's weakest link." It can be truthfully stated that America is no stronger than her weakest citizen. This truth puts a tremendous responsibility upon everyone of of us, especially "Christian" Americans.
excerpt from "America's Greatest Need", by B.R. Lakin

Our giant is, "indifference'. What is sad is this is our giant among Christians and non Christians alike. I have been hearing a tremendous amount of talk about prayer and the power behind it. I encourage you, along with myself, let's go to our prayer closets, and with our humble, broken and burdened hearts, lets ask God for our first stone, that He might speak to our hearts first for the times we should have been a witness or a better witness for Him. Then let us ask Him to speak to the many hearts of those we live near, shop with, our children go to school with, and last, the one's we go to church with. There was a time, the church was the place a Christian could always go, to get filled up so we could go again. Not necessarily so anymore. This is where a lot of the attitude of indifference has developed. Now, if someone stands for what is right in their own place of worship, they are often laughed at by fellow church members. We must pray for our churches, the members, and the spiritual leaders, that their hearts will be burdened again for what is right and what is wrong.
We must go to our prayer closets, meet with God in a powerful way, then go out into the world
armed with His Spirit and a power only He can provide. We may still lose a battle or two, but with
God on our side, what progress we make, will make a difference somewhere with someone............
AND THAT'S REALLY WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY

In Christ,
Stephanie