Daily Devotional for Tuesday, July 18

Jonhathan's Courage and Victory

“And his armourbearer said unto him, Do all that is in thine heart: turn thee; behold, I am with thee according to thy heart.” 1 Samuel 14:7.

God is not constrained by anything.  God doesn’t care how many dollars are available or how many pews are empty.  God can do much with basically nothing at all.  The case study for this is creation.  “In the beginning God created” something out of nothing at all. Like most faith, Jonathan’s belief is built on the foundations of experience.  He had not seen God bring victory in this situation, but he had seen God work great victories in other times.

As much as I admire Jonathan’s faith in the Almighty, I desire the attitude of his servant.  I want the attitude of his servant to be my attitude toward God.  Was it a small thing for that young man to have seen the might of the garrison of the Philistines and still be attached to Jonathan such that he would say, “I am with thee according to thy heart.”?  It takes much courage to follow another’s heart, even God’s.

Jonathan doesn’t seem to have a plan in this passage except go in whatever path God opened for him.  They idea seems to be to engage the enemy and if the Philistines wanted to come out in assault then the two men would take a stand.  If the enemy took a defensive posture, then they would assume that God would give them victory as they made foray into the enemy’s positions. 

There is a lesson here as we would also engage the enemies of God.  The wiles of the devil are hard to resist although in resisting, he will flee from you (James 4:7). Paul encouraged the believers at Ephesus to stand fully clothed in the armor of God. Just like Jonathan’s battle, God will give the victory.

THOUGHT: God has a heart for the world.  Will you have the faith to follow him with all your heart?

David Thompson