Do Your Own Fighting

“David sent Joab” – 2 Samuel 11:1

The Bible says in the 11^th chapter of 2 Samuel that it was time for kings to go to war. David was a king. David had been a king leading his own battles for a while now. For some reason, at this particular time, he sent another person off to take his place in leading the battle.

One of the worst things that Christians do today is let others fight for them. Very few Christians read and study the Bible. They are very content to allow the preachers to do all of the Bible studying. They figure they will just get the 30-minute version of the hours and hours of studying the preacher has done that week.

When it comes to prayer, people are quick to throw out a “pray for me,” over Facebook. I’m certainly not against this . . . unless the person asking for prayer refuses to get alone with God and petition Him for himself or herself. Prayer is not only for preachers and the “super spiritual,” it is for each individual who claims to be followers of Christ.

I have read the prayers in the Bible. I think (and I could be wrong) the longest one is in the book of Nehemiah (Chapter 9). It took me 7 minutes to read. Surely, each of us as individuals can get alone with God for 7 minutes to really focus on Him. He invites us to cast our cares, worries and needs upon Him.   We serve a God who actually desires to be the dumping ground for all of our sin, and all of our problems.

Never, ever depend on someone else to fight your spiritual battles. You must study the Word for yourself. You must practice the Presence of God. You are responsible for your own spiritual life. Not the preachers, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles . . . you!

If you don’t have a plan for reading the Word, here is a good starter plan: Read a chapter a day, nice and slowly, asking God to give you wisdom and understanding and asking for Him to help you begin to grow spiritually. If you stick to it, you will have read the entire Bible in 3 years and 3 months. That sounds like a long time, but it isn’t. Best of all, you will be so different. God will have changed you over that 3-year period like you would not believe. I read the entire thing in 15 months. By the end of Revelation, all the preaching I had heard up until that time did very little compared to what reading it for myself did.

This is very important! You may think your preacher is the greatest Bible teacher in the world, and he may be. However, if you get ALL of your Bible knowledge from another human and never receive revelation and understanding from your alone time with God, you are doing exactly as David did in our verse this morning.

You absolutely must win in the private place of devotion. You must learn to lead the charge in fighting your own battles and developing your own power and presence of the Living God. Church on Sunday can be absolutely wonderful, but alone time with God is essential if you are going to grow in the Lord.

The bottom line is this: As soon as David used a substitute to fight for him, he almost immediately fell to temptation. Had he been focused on the battle, he would never have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Are you right now engaged in the spiritual battle of knowing, loving, and honoring God?

Later

Adam