Tag Archive | good morning girls

1 Samuel 14: The battle is the Lord’s 

Jan26

​Good evening y’all. We are continuing our study of the first Book of Samuel with the Good Morning Girls and will be looking at chapter 14 today

I pray you are blessed as you read 🙂

As I read through the chapter, I fell in love with verse 6. The verse gave me a renewed hope: just what I needed to start my day.

“Let’s go across to the outpost of those pagans,” Jonathan said to his armor bearer. “Perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord . He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!”(v6 NLT)

Jonathan said to his armor bearer, “Come on now, let’s go across to these uncircumcised pagans. Maybe God will work for us. There’s no rule that says God can only deliver by using a big army. No one can stop God from saving when he sets his mind to it.”(v6 MSG)

I absolutely love how Jonathan trusted God to deliver them from the Philistines. He understood that God can win a battle irrespective of the number of warriors available. He understood that their victory was solely dependent on God and not on human strength i.e the number of soldiers you have or weapons of war.

David Guzik in his commentary on verse 6 said: 

“What wise courage in God! Many in Israel probably believed this as a theological truth. But few believed it enough to do something. Jonathan’s faith was demonstrated by his works.

i. Nothing restrains the LORD! Do we really believe it? Or does the title of J.B. Phillips’ book describe us: Your God is Too Small. We often feel that God is restrained in one way or another. In reality, the only thing that could be said to restrain God is our unbelief. In Matthew 13:58, it says of one time in Jesus’ ministry, He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. God’s power is never restrained, but His will may be restrained by our unbelief. He may choose not to act until we partner with Him in trust. God had a trusting partner in Jonathan!

ii. By many or few: What did it matter? Who cares about the odds or the point spread when God is on your side? The odds were already against Israel. Did it matter if it was a million-to-one or a thousand-to-one? Numbers or odds did not restrain God, but unbelief could. Jonathan never read the New Testament, but he had a Romans 8:31heart: If God be for us, who can be against us?

iii. Notice where Jonathan had the emphasis. He had little faith in himself, but great faith in God. It wasn’t “I can win a great victory with God’s help.” It was “God can win a great victory through even me.” As Meyer says, “He had the smallest possible faith in himself, and the greatest faith in God. His soul waited for the Lord; in Him was centred all his hope, and from his gracious help he expected great things. All he aspired to was to be humble vehicle through which the delivering grace of God might work.”(David Guzik, blueletterbible.org)

I want to encourage someone today. God knows your struggles, so rather than trying to fix them yourself why not give them over to Him. Let God fight your battles for you. No matter how big the battle may be, God is more than able to give you victory. Don’t rely on your own strength or the strength of man.  Put your hope and trust in God completely like Jonathan did.

Psalms tells us that those who put their trust in God will not be put to shame. Luke 1:37 tells us that with God all things are possible.

Today why not put your trust in GOD and see Him fight your battles for you and give you victory.

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to leave your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed evening

1 Samuel 12- A call to repentance 

Jan24

​Good evening y’all. We are continuing our study of the first Book of Samuel with the Good Morning Girls and will be looking at chapter 12 today.

I pray you are blessed as you read 🙂

Samuel reminds the Israelites of all that God has done for them. In his account of Israel’s history, we can see a trend that Israel had a habit of turning away from God once things got rosy and when trouble comes they come back begging, and God always answered them by sending a deliverer.

“Then they cried to the Lord again and confessed, ‘We have sinned by turning away from the Lord and worshiping the images of Baal and Ashtoreth. But we will worship you and you alone if you will rescue us from our enemies.’ Then the Lord sent Gideon, Bedan,Jephthah, and Samuel to save you, and you lived in safety. “But when you were afraid of Nahash, the king of Ammon, you came to me and said that you wanted a king to reign over you, even though the Lord your God was already your king”.(v11-13 NLT)

How often do we tun our backs from God when things are good and only run to Him when in trouble? Our lives should not be like that…God desires us to be totally committed to Him both in the good and bad times.

Israel had God as their King but when Nahash started threatening them, they somehow forgot about all the times God had rescued them. Instead of them to cry out to God for help like they did in the time past, they decided to request for an earthly King. Perhaps they assumed the earthly king could deliver them from Nahash. Where was their trust in God?

Are we quick to forget all that God has done for us? Do we run to man for help at the first sign of trouble or do we turn to God? God is our ultimate source of help. Man’s help is vain and limited. Psalms 46:1 says

“God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble”. (Psalms 46:1 NLT)

Even though Saul did conquer Nahash in chapter 11, he did it with the help of God. We can’t rule God out. We need His help. Scripture tells us that vain is the help of man…

As I read through the chapter the Israelites response on verse 19 amazed me. They said to Samuel, “… please pray to your God…” That makes me believe these people didn’t have a relationship with God. They didn’t see God as their God rather they saw Him as Samuel’s God only.

Do we see God as our God or someone else’s God? We now have free access to God. That’s what Jesus came to do. We no longer need a go between. Jesus is our HIGH Priest. He is forever interceeeding on our behalf.  He understandsand knows our frailty.  Hebrews 4:16 says : “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Hebrews 4:16 NLT)

Samuel urged them to follow God only and leave their false gods, who are useless and couldn’t do anything for them.

“Don’t be afraid,” Samuel reassured them. “You have certainly done wrong, but make sure now that you worship the Lord with all your heart, and don’t turn your back on him. Don’t go back to worshiping worthless idols that cannot help or rescue you—they are totally useless! The Lord will not abandon his people, because that would dishonor his great name. For it has pleased the Lord to make you his very own people.(1 Samuel 12:20‭-‬22 NLT)

I pray we will listen and heed to Samuel’s advice to the Israelites in the verses above; that we will serve God wholeheartedly and learn to trust in HIM alone.

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to leave your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed evening