ICS Daily Devotions
See Victory with the Eyes of Faith
1 Samuel 17:45-46 (NKJV) Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.”
When David took up the fight against Goliath, not only did he decline to wear the armour that King Saul gave him, but he also chose not to use the army’s weaponry. In pure faith, he entered the fight using his sling and five stones, which can hardly be considered weapons. Yet his faith in God enabled him to use the little that he had to create maximum impact. While skills, knowledge and experience do add to our ability to handle tough situations, there are times when we will need to exercise our faith in God to be victorious. Faith is like a muscle that needs to be exercised to become strong. Faith comes through hearing, reading, and meditating on the Word, and through receiving a personal Rhema Word from God regarding our situation. David exercised his faith daily while he was tending and protecting his father’s sheep.
The word “testament” comes from the Latin word “testamentum”, which means covenant. So essentially, the Bible is the story of an old and a new covenant. If David had faith in the covenant established between God and Abraham, we as believers should also have faith in the whole counsel of the Bible, the “testamentum”, which includes both the Old and the New Testaments.
In the above passage, David spoke out of faith and with conviction from his heart, and not merely with mental assent regarding the ability and dependability of God. Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”. A faith proclamation came forth from David’s heart that the same God who enabled him to kill the lion and the bear would also deliver Goliath to him in this battle.
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
David’s faith was not foolish or presumptuous because it was based on his covenant relationship with God. Goliath’s stature didn’t matter to David because his faith wasn’t built on what his senses were feeding him, but rather, by his conviction of what God can do. David hadn’t yet seen the victory when Goliath was breathing out threats towards him, but he was already convinced that Goliath would be delivered to him because he had sought God’s help. He saw his victory through eyes of faith.
Sermon Series: Trailblazer
