The Equipping of God
by Henry Blackaby
This is one of those tragic Scriptures which describes a group of people which are part of the people of God. This is a moment of God's choosing. God knew that His people would be facing incredible battles from the enemy. So He called Ephraim, a part of the people of God, and armed them for battle. But listen to the tragedy and then listen to the three reasons why this tragedy occurred. Psalm 78:9-11 The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. Here are the three reasons why they abandoned their colleagues and abandoned the conflict: They did not keep the covenant of God. They refused to walk in His law; and forgot His works and His wonders that He had shown them.
God had thoroughly equipped them, and they refused to accept the equipping work of God. And so, even though they were armed and carrying bows, fully equipped for the battle, when the battle came their hearts were not equipped. Their hearts turned them back, leaving a vacuum where they should have been putting additional strain on the fellow believers. The other people of God had to make up the difference.
First, they did not keep the covenant; they forgot that the were a people chosen by God, called by God and equipped by God to be the people of God in God's timing. Did God know there would be moments of struggle and battle with the enemy? He did. Did He make adequate provision? He did. But they did not hold to themselves that calling of God which He had given them.
Second they refused to walk in His laws, in the path that He had laid out for them. If they would have read what God had provided for them and walked in it, they would have been ready for battle, but they never read their Scriptures, so they were completely ignorant of what God required.
We are equipped by the Holy Spirit, by the presence of the living Christ, by the fullness of God, by the Scriptures and have been granted an opportunity to come before God in prayer, and He's put His people around us to help us. Yet even though we're equipped and carrying bows, we're turning back in this day of battle. There is no possibility of winning this battle with that kind of involvement. We have abandoned our brethren who are in the battle, and we've left them alone to fight the battle.
Dear Lord, I don't want to stay where I am in my prayer life. I want a deeper level of prayer with my Lord. I want to move from where I have been to where You want me to be. Amen.
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