“As soon as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded.” 1 Samuel 4:5
April 10, 2023
Is your God big enough? God is always good and always great. He cannot be manipulated to be a genie in a bottle to do our bidding. Israel found herself in the midst of a serious defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The Philistines worshiped their idol, Dagon. Was not Israel’s God the true God? Indeed He was. In trying to understand why they had lost a major battle, they answered the defeat by thinking like the Canaanites who trusted in symbols and graven images of their gods to get what they wanted. So what did Israel do? They resorted to emotional superstition, thinking their power for overcoming the enemy could come by simply having a sacred object to help them. We can do this very thing, thinking that by simply singing a certain Christian song, someone can be healed of cancer, placing a cross around our necks or an image of a saint in our car will provide protection. Do we think we can be more successful and deal with sin by merely observing communion, being baptized, or going through some ritual that this will convey a magical quality to us? The danger of substituting ritualism for spiritual reality can be tempting. A shrunken God is a false god. Even with the ark of the covenant accompanying them they were defeated in battle. God cannot be domesticated to make Him work for us.
H
“O Lord of Hosts, search me and clear my mind of ways I am making you a size to fit me.”