Skip to main content

An Easy Win



It is good to work hard and achieve our goals. In fact, there are few things that compare to the joy we feel when all our hard work pays off. During this time, however, we should always be mindful of overconfidence. The mindset of overconfidence can fill our heart with pride and blind our eyes to the next battle we face.

In competition, we see this folly often. A well-trained athlete will look at his next opponent with contempt and quickly underestimate him. He enters competition thinking it will be an easy win only to find that his competitor was fiercer that he originally anticipated.

We see examples of this in Scripture. We remember men such as Goliath who thought the battle against David was going to be an easy win. Goliath looked at David and said, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!” (1 Samuel 17:43-44)

The battle against David was not as easy as Goliath thought that it would be. He lost his life because he was overconfident, he was arrogant, and he did not respect the God of heaven and earth who granted to David the victory.

Earlier in Scripture we see that Joshua’s men were also overconfident against the city of Ai (Joshua 7). When they returned from spying out the land, they told Joshua, “Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few.” (Joshua 7:3).

The men attacked Ai and were overcome. They turn the backs to their enemies and about thirty-six men lost their lives in the battle. The city of Ai was supposed to be an easy win. However, they had sin in the camp. It was for this reason God would not grant them victory any longer until the sin was identified and resolved.

Today, if we are not careful, we can think of our own spiritual battles as an easy win. However, we must never underestimate our opponent. Peter warns us, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

As we journey through life, we are going to be faced with temptation, we will endure tribulation, and we will face many allurements trying to draw us off the straight and narrow path. Through it all, we must keep our focus on God and the prize of heaven that is ahead. We will win in the end, if we are faithful unto God (Revelation 2:10).

God Bless each of you,

Eric Hicks

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Taking Time to Pray

  We have all had those busy mornings where we rush around trying to get out the door. We scrabble frantically trying to gather everything we know we are going to need for the day. We fly out the door only to remember that the cell phone is still on the dresser. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we will turn around, go back inside to retrieve our cell phone no matter how late we may be running. While this is all well and good, the question arises, what if we run out the door and remember we had not yet prayed to our heavenly Father. What would be our response. Would we stop dead in our tracks and offer a prayer before God, or continue in moving toward our daily pursuits with the intention of praying when we have more time? Our great example of a prayer life is Christ. He too had a busy schedule to maintain. Mark records, “And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have
Post a Comment
Read more

Walk Worthy

  The Christian life has been compared to a variety of things. One in particular is that of a walk. A walk in the context of the Christian faith involves the way we live and conduct ourselves throughout our lives. The manor in which we live will either reflect Christ or it will reflect the ways of the world. Paul wrote, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” (Ephesians 4:1). There are a multitude of ways we must walk to be pleasing unto the Lord. We will consider a few. Bearing with one another. Walking worthy before the Lord strongly involves our conduct with one another. Paul continued, “ with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2). Bearing with one another is not possible apart from a humble mindset. It is the humble mindset that keeps us from thinking too highly of ourselves. It also enables us to focus on the needs of others rather than our
Post a Comment
Read more

Take Careful Aim

       In the book of Proverbs, we read that where there is no vision the people perish. Vision is an absolute necessity if one is to accomplish anything worthwhile in life. Without vision, there is no goal. Without a goal, there is no purpose. Having a vision for the future is like having a target you do not intend to miss. Like a marksman taking careful aim at his target, we too must take careful aim if we are to accomplish great things for the Lord. There are various goals we should take careful aim at. One is increasing our relationships with one another. The only way this can be accomplished is through effective communication with each other. We can do this in a variety of ways including phone calls, personal visits, and through the positive side of social media. Equally, we grow in our relationship with one another through worshipping God together. The Hebrew writer stated, “…not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one anoth
Post a Comment
Read more