The Same Promise of Victory

December 2

God’s expectation of Abram, that he would make the things of the Lord his top priority, is also His expectation of us. Scripture is replete with examples of the men and women who were used of God who had to first be willing to lay their own reason, their own goals, aside to simply trust the Almighty.

Some of the things they were asked to do are mind boggling.

When Gideon was told that his army was too big, that he would have to whittle it down (Judges 7:2-7), it required profound faith for him to trust that the great army of the Midianites could be defeated by the 300 men that God allowed Gideon to keep. The reality is that the victory came in spite of Gideon’s extremely small army. The victory came because of the Lord, and He had no intention of sharing His glory with an army of any size!

When we are asked to dispense with human reason, with our own prior experience and our finite understanding of how things work and how problems can best be resolved, God has a plan that exceeds our very limited scope. He has a plan that will not disappoint us, if we will but trust in His power—if we will but trust in His love.

As He demonstrated to Gideon, whatever small resource we possess becomes more than sufficient to overcome whatever force confronts us because it isn’t our ability or our resources that achieve the victory—it is, as in the case of Gideon, God Himself!

Abraham trusted God in every matter of importance—from leaving his homeland to believing for his promised heir when he and his wife were beyond child-bearing years (Genesis 21:2), to being willing to sacrifice his long-awaited son (Genesis 22:6).

The Word says in Hebrews 6:11, “We want each of you to demonstrate the same diligence for the final realization of your hope.” God wants us to evidence Abraham’s level of faith, trust and obedience in our lives. He wants us to rely on Him for our victories as Gideon did. If we will, we, like them, will not be disappointed.

He will Himself provide a sacrifice as He did for Abraham. He will Himself rout the enormous foe that stands before us as He did for Gideon. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8, and “He will never fail or forsake us,” Hebrews 13:5. His people today have the same ability to trust as did these heroes long ago—and believers today have the same promise of victory that they received.