LET'S Kill Some Giants

What monopolizes your attention and minimizes your hope? Do you contemplate the endless what if's or cower to the hopeless whatever's? What dominates your waking thoughts, delineating your joy? Is their a giant in your backdrop, bombarding you with affronting accusations as Goliath did the Israelites? 

Believe it or not my greatest giant is "Service to God". How does "Service to God" become a giant?--The same way any giant is formed--when "IT" becomes our focus rather than God.

In Max Lucado's book, FACING YOUR GIANTS, he writes,

"Focus on giants--you stumble."

"Focus on God--your giants tumble." (pg. 166)

Giants come in a variety of forms...habits...addictions...failing finances...struggling marriages...but perhaps the most dangerous giants aren't easily recognized. They lurk behind good intentions, wear the face of propriety, and stoop behind moral obligation. These kind of giants are religious by nature or at least bear a form of religiosity.

Religious giants are dangerouse; they are harder to identify; they don't stand out like Goliath did against Israel's backdrop; they blend in with our landscape...but like any other giant, religious giants intend to steal, to kill, and to destroy our life.

Religious giants twist God's design for our life with debilitating lies, weighted in self-reliant thoughts of "I must...I need to...or...I want to..."

Religious giants masquerade behind a myriad of false appearance--
"God bless you sister/brother.  How are you today?"... "I'm great...highly favored...blessed of the Lord...or any other unassuming answer we can quickly think of, in an effort to avoid attention to our private agony."  And in our contrite response we feed our growing giant under a pretense of having to appear joyful.

Religious giants hurl weight of obligations, heaped in "I must"...
"I must do my devotions." "I must go to church." "I must spend time in prayer"... Giants of religious obligation steal our joy from daily devotion, minimize friendship to formal procedure, reduce intimacy to institution, and relationship to ritual.

My religious giant of "Service to God" hurls accusations of NOT doing enough, NOT being good enough, NOT knowing enough. It attempts to discourage me with feelings of uselessness, taunts me with accusations of "I must be doing something wrong, otherwise X,Y, or Z would have happened already." And as I contemplate what I'm not doing right...how I am not worthy...how I must have misunderstood God...and question the validity of the assignment or my ability...I inadvertently feed my giant and he grows.

BUT...NOT ANYMORE...I'M LEARNING HOW TO KILL MY GIANT...how about you? Wanna know how?

1. Recognize Our Enemy--We recognize our enemy not by studying their character but by studying GOD's. Asking questions like: Would God want me feel this way? What does God say about me in His Word? What is the character of my God? It is paramount to immerse our minds in Scripture; the word of God accurately reveals WHO GOD IS and reminds us of the Truth. Recognizing the enemy is only one part of our battle, our second step is to...

2. Remember WHO We Serve. All of Israel recognized Goliath. He towered over them on the hillside. His brute strength intimidated the greatest of warriors. But when David looked at the landscape He simply saw an uncircumcised Philistine who defied the LIVING GOD. What gave David the different perspective? David recalled WHO he served. Getting a clear vision of Who God is minimizes our giants, diminishes our fears, builds our confidence, and maximizes our faith, giving us the strength to do step three, which is to...

3. Retaliate. When David went out against Goliath, he didn't battle in his strength. David came against Goliath in the Name of the LORD. Scripture is clear; we overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word or our testimony. When we retaliate against our giant, we need to hold fast to our hope in Jesus, remembering it is through him that we can do all things. Which helps us to do step number four...


4. Remove our Giants head. The final blow to Goliath came by his own sword. As the enemy of our soul accuses us that we cant, we aren't good enough, or we will never be able to...we can simply respond with "that's true...I can't...I'm not...and in my own power I never will...BUT GOD CAN...IS...and WILL. His word says...

Friends, never doubt that the enemy of your soul is raging a war against you:

Eph 6:12-13 says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (NIV)

BUT DON'T worry. "You, dear children, are from God and (WILL) overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." (1 John 4:4-5, NIV)
 
Let's go kill some giants today by recognizing them, remembering WHO we serve, retaliating against the devil's lies, and removing their head with the truth of WHO GOD says we are.
 
PRAYER: Father, reveal any religious giants from our life. Give us discernment. Empower us to enter into deeper relationship with You. Remove anything and everything that is not pleasing to You. Protect us. Provide for us. We put our hope in You. In Jesus name, amen.