The body is stronger than the arm

1 Samuel 17:8-11 (the message)
8-10 Goliath stood there and called out to the Israelite troops, "Why bother using your whole army? Am I not Philistine enough for you? And you're all committed to Saul, aren't you? So pick your best fighter and pit him against me. If he gets the upper hand and kills me, the Philistines will all become your slaves. But if I get the upper hand and kill him, you'll all become our slaves and serve us. I challenge the troops of Israel this day. Give me a man. Let us fight it out together!" 11 When Saul and his troops heard the Philistine's challenge, they were terrified and lost all hope.
I have been on a study of David. God has shown me some incredible things: • The real definition of effectiveness is how closely we obey God. • God is the only one who can reveal what HE CREATED YOU TO BE. • When we make mistakes, or others wrong us, we need to pick ourselves back up, forgive them and move on. When we don’t forgive, we give those wrong us power over us. Today, as I continued my look at David, I wanted to share with you what God is showing me in this scripture. You ever notice that when you are in a trial how alone you feel? One of the core tactics of the enemy is to isolate you emotionally, feed you lies, and keep you down. If he can tell you that no one notices, no one cares. What we see in the verse in 1 Samuel Goliath go straight after the men “What’s the matter? Afraid? Not tough enough to handle a real man?” Here he is goading their pride as men. Then he goes on to challenge their commitment another tough area: “And you're all committed to Saul, aren't you?” (v. 8). The unfortunate thing is that this 1-2 punch is all too often followed by an open challenge. “Face me one on one.” Too often, we get the idea that we HAVE to deal with this issue, this challenge, this sin alone. We hide it. We don’t tell very many, if any, people. This is a MISTAKE! It is important to note that when we try to face trials alone, we play right into the enemy’s hands. Make no mistake, God has seen the outcomes, you may lose some battles, but ultimately we win. By facing trials and temptations alone, we attempt to circumvent a huge part of the way we gain control over it. Community. God designed HIS church to be a family, a body, a solid unit. Lifting each other up in love, encouraging and supporting each other; however, human nature most often takes that and twists it into guilt trips and no grace at all. To understand how to take dominion of sin, we need to keep and be kept in accountability, seasoned with grace. 1 Corinthians 12: 14-18 (the message)
14-18I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

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