The Lord Alone Will Save
Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory—for all its strength, it cannot save you. . . . We depend on the Lord alone to save us. Only he can help us, protecting us like a shield. Psalm 33:17, 20
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As important as a warhorse was to a soldier’s confidence in battle, this passage describes dependence on the strength of a horse instead of on the strength of the Lord as vain and false hope, even deception. A “warhorse” in our lives might be a person, a plan, a strategy, or a technique that we rely on to assist us in gaining victory or working out a problem. We all face different battles that cause us to turn to someone else for defense or help. We may even spend hours talking, thinking through, and planning with people of spiritual, mental, emotional, or legal strength to help give us victory, especially when we’ve been treated unjustly. God doesn’t tell us, “Don’t have a warhorse.” He says, “Don’t count on your warhorse.” In other words, we are to depend on the strength of the Lord to save us in the battles we face and not on the intricate preparations we make or the influence or intelligence of someone else. We need to be prepared, but once we have done that, we can rest in the knowledge we have done the best we can and now the victory truly lies with God.
Prayers:
DEAR LORD, thank you for being my victor, for fighting my battles for me. When I start fretting over battle plans, help me to depend on you to protect and save me. My confidence does not lie in horses but in the living God. Help me to place my trust in your strength and not in the strength of another.
Quotes:
THE TRIUMPHANT CHRISTIAN DOES NOT FIGHT FOR VICTORY; HE CELEBRATES A VICTORY ALREADY WON.
Reginald Wallis
The One Year Bible Readings for today are: Nehemiah 7:73b–9:21; 1 Corinthians 9:1-18; Psalm 33:12-22 and Proverbs 21:11-12.
