Our True Identity

"And he stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, 'Why have you set yourselves in battle array? am I not the Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose you out of you one man to come against me" (1 Samuel 17:8).

The Israelites had forgotten who they were and what God's promises to them were. This loss of identity had caused them much damage. Goliath, perhaps unknowingly, took advantage of this situation. In challenging them he referred to them as "servants of Saul". He could have used another phrase, but he did not; he used the one that best suited his purposes: the one that made them servants of a corrupt and spiritually and morally degraded man.

They had assumed that identity, and that made them very afraid of the Philistine giant: "And all the men of Israel that saw the man fled at the sight of him, and were sore afraid" (1 Samuel 17:24). However, their true identity was different: "And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou dwellest, even all the land of Canaan for an everlasting inheritance; and I will be their God" (Gen. 17:8).

Indeed, they were God's people, loved and protected by Him under this promise: "When thou goest out to war against thine enemies, if thou see horses and chariots, and a people greater than thou, be not afraid of them: for the LORD thy God is with thee, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt" (Deut. 20:1). David was the only one who knew his real identity and God's promises; therefore, he felt no fear before that giant. "In the name of the Lord, I will kill you", he said resolutely. And he did!

Today, we, as Christians, without pride or self-sufficiency, but in the name of the Lord, trusting only in the power of His strength, must face with the same authority our problems and difficulties, knowing that we are children of God and that our triumphs will magnify His holy name. (Pr. José R. Frontado).

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