January 28, 2022-The Lord Fights Our Battles for Us. All He Ask of Us Is to Be Like Little Children.

As little children, we are so trusting and believing in our parents to provide and protect us. But as we grow older, we begin to lose that innocence of trust. We begin to think we can do things by ourselves. We say to ourselves: "I can take care of myself now". There lies the problem as we become "children of God". God wants us to have that "child-like" trust in Him as we did as little children to our parents.

Matthew 18: 3 (NIV)

And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus was telling His disciples, in the Book of Matthew, after his disciples had asked Him a question: “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matt. 18: 1). I like what Jesus said in verse 3: "unless you change and become like little children". Jesus knows that as we grow older and move into adulthood, we become more independent and less dependent on anyone. We have such a strong drive to try to do everything on our own initiative, "on our own self-will".

As Christians, and now as God's children, God must begin the "breaking down" of the layers of adulthood that have built up over the years before our "salvation", before accepting Jesus into our hearts. As a loving Father, God now must move through our lives and start breaking down the walls of "mistrust, anger, and bitterness" that have built up over the years.

God has to move us into complete and "absolute surrender" of everything to Him. He must break down those walls of "mistrust, anger, and bitterness" and move us from having any dependence on "anyone or anything", other than Himself. That can take a lifetime for some of us, for others not so long. It took the Lord 35 years of my Christian life to move me to complete and "absolute surrender" to Him. I thank God that He never gave up on me.

But here is the whole point of our total dependence on our God. Not until we can come to complete and total dependence on Him, can He ever fully fight our battles for us. Why? Because we are still trying to fight the battles by our own "self-will". I love what God tells the people of Israel in the Book of Exodus as they are running from Pharaoh Egyptian army: "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exodus: 14: 14).

The Lord, our God, will fight our battles for us, but we "need only to be still", and let Him be God in our lives. (Read chapter 14 of Exodus and read how God won the battle for the people of Israel).

PERSONNAL COMMENT:

Let us begin to learn to fully trust in our God in our lives and learn to "be still". Let us come to complete and "absolute surrender" of all to Him and begin to see God win the battle for you as well.