Heart Tracks - Giants In The Land

"The land we explored will swallow up any who go to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and that's what we looked like to them." Numbers 13:32-33...."The time for the giant to go down is now....Jesus had already slain all the giants." Louis Giglio

There is something I have learned, and keep learning in my life journey with Him. It's a learning experience that continues no matter how long I've gone on with Him, and no matter how old I get. It's really a two-fold lesson. First, He always seeks to lead me into a "new land." He is always leading us on. Sometimes the pace is slow, at times, almost imperceptible, but He leads us ever onward and upward. Secondly, in every place that He leads me, there are giants of some type waiting. They come in many forms under many names, and not all of them are fearsome, at least in appearance. Yet all of them have as their goal, stopping us dead in our tracks. Whether we fear them, as did the Israelites, or seek to make peace with them, the end result will always be the same; our defeat, and the thwarting of His purposes for us.

When Saul and his army encountered the Philistines and their giant, Goliath, they experienced both. They shook with fear, and Saul would not even leave his tent. Though they came to do battle, they avoided that and were in the moment, trying to co-exist with an enemy dedicated to their destruction. Then David arrived on the scene, and he would have no part in either. His mind and heartset was, as Giglio says, that the time for the giant to fall was now. And in that "now" moment, David slew him. Yet, what we miss is that Goliath was already defeated before David ever came on the scene. When he charged Goliath, David said he came at him in the "Name of the Lord." A Lord and God who had already won the victory. That was the confidence and truth David lived in. To what degree do we live in the same?

There have been, all along my way with Him, giants who have sought to make me see myself as a grasshopper. When this happens, my only recourse is to see not myself, or the giant. I have to see Him. Until then, the only running I will do is away from the giant, not towards him. When that happens, we tend to just keep running. What giants are we, you, running from today? What are their names? Fear? Anxiety? Bitterness? The Unknown? The Uncontrollable? Maybe it's the most fearsome giant of them all, even though he may look the least threatening. That's the giant called "Comfort." He keeps us in places not only of outer comfort, but inner as well. Comfort that keeps us from growing, stretching, gaining more and greater victories in Him. He's a false comfort and he will keep us from ever knowing or experiencing He who is all Comfort. Whatever form he takes, he will try to keep us out of the land the Lord has already given us, and living in the victory that Christ has already won. Where is he doing that to you and me? In what "tents" are we hiding?

On the cross, Christ slew forever every giant that will ever come against us, but we will not know that victory unless we dare to go with Him into the new lands He has both prepared for and given us. Giants of every name await. Giants of every kind who've already been crushed by Christ. Do we step out in the name of the Lord, or flee from the giant? The devil will always tell you that you're just a grasshopper. The Father tells you that you are His. Because of this, all that He has given you is yours, because the giants are already defeated trespassers in a land already owned by Him. Owned by Him, and by you and me...in Christ.

Blessings,
Pastor O