Focus: Go for the Spoils

Text: 1Sam.17:8-9,50,52-53.

"Choose you A MAN for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us…David PREVAILED over the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David… And when the Philistines saw their CHAMPION was DEAD, they FLED. And the men of Israel and of Judah AROSE, and shouted, and PURSUED the Philistines, until thou come to the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the WOUNDED of the Philistines fell down… And the CHILDREN of Israel returned from CHASING AFTER the Philistines, and THEY SPOILED their TENTS."

Battle broke out between Israel and Philistia in which Goliath and David, as representative individuals, stood each for his own people respectively.

It is a battle in which David's defeat or victory is Israel's, and the same goes for Goliath. Well, you know the whole story! The battle was fought and David won it for Israel. What that means is that the victory won by David was victory for every Israelite. Everyone in Israel was a winner.

No one needs fight the battle again for himself. The battle has been fought and won by David once for all, and as a result, everyone in Israel has won it through David. The victory was decided and effected by one man. That is it on one side.

The other side of it is that everyone must go for the spoil. It is kind of mop up action. Goliath is dead and his head chopped off, but his little demons must be rounded off and put where they rightly belong. Spiritually speaking, it is about every individual in Israel appropriating for himself the victory already won by David. No one needs to repeat the battle. It was decisive and final, but each person must make the victory real in his or her own life.

Jesus says to his disciples, "I have overcome the world." Jesus Christ won the victory for us at Calvary. Therefore, in Christ we are all overcomers, and indeed, more than conquerors. His victory is ours. We can't repeat Calvary. But we have a responsibility to making sure that we possess the spoils of that victory. In your life, let it not be said that Christ fought in vain. We must subjugate the little demons that hang around us. You must daily make a statement about who is in charge now. Satan is forever defeated and decimated. He has been dealt a death-blow. His defeat is final, and his wound, fatal.

Now as individual Christians, we must take the spoils and enjoy the privileges and blessings that Christ's victory has afforded us. Embrace your salvation. Receive your healing and deliverance. Accept your pardon and experience your peace. Don't let the victory of Christ be for nothing. Go for the spoils and bury the fatally wounded demons. Amen.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter