1^st August 2012

Everyone thinks it was the stone from David's sling. But it wasn't one of the five brook pebbles that killed Goliath. Amongst the scores of thousands of fear paralysed Israelite soldiers, were surely some as good as David with a sling. No, it wasn't skill of arm and eye that slew Goliath. It was something deep inside David. Something invisible, born in the solitude and integrity of heart of a young man who waited on God.
It came out when David heard Goliath - when Goliath defied God's presence and power, blasphemed his Name and exalted himself. When he heard that, David burned with passion for the honour of His God. A passion* for wanting "the whole world to know that there is a God in Israel". So, it wasn't the pebble in David's hand that killed Goliath - it was the passion in his heart.
No other Israelite had that. They had it for themselves - for their own honour, for food, for money, for their personal achievements. But David felt it for God and for the great purposes of the Kingdom of God.
Do you have zeal in your heart like that? In Romans 12:11 it speaks of the love which is genuinely Christian.

"Be never lacking in zeal" - that is don't delay or hold back from getting on with what you know to be right.

"But keep your spiritual fervour" - that is, keep hot, or keep on the boil, with the realities of the Spirit. You are serving The Lord.
Let Goliath stand for anything that mocks our intended victory in what is excellent. What are these defying Goliath's - renegade thoughts? Settled attitudes untested by the spirit and the Word? Motivation bleeding addictions? Shame shadows of the past? Fear of losing friends and man's approval? Whatever!
Let us attack these prison doors with loud cries to God. Let us fight the good fight till they are under our feet. Though all Israel laid down and accepted it, David wouldn't tolerate one mocker of His God. We must let the passion for Christ be stirred within us. We must confront the wild thoughts that challenge the Living Christ. All the moral truth of heaven and all the unseen strength of the powers of Light are for those who trust themselves to this Way.

*This is also the passion of Jesus for His Father's House, described in John Ch:2. Our Lord was consumed with zeal. He burned within to pursue His Father's call to establish a church of those called to believe the Gospel, in whose hearts nothing could dwell but the Word of the Lord.

Ian Clarkson (First published in ACCatalyst December 2010)