Monday, April 12, 2021
David the slinger took five smooth stones when he ran to meet the giant that had dared to defy God. Though slingers were the snipers of their time, David had no guarantees. We look back knowing the outcome and take it as a foregone conclusion, but all David had was faith and the Spirit of God, who had come upon him in season to become a participant in the works of the God who works for those who wait for Him (Isaiah 64.4).
He took five, but he needed only one. That is profound for sure, but even more when we consider how these stones were shaped by the water and wind to become precisely what the slinger required—and hand selected—for the job. In the same way, we the living stones that are being built into the city of God are even now being shaped by the washing of the water of the word (Ephesians 5.26) and the wind of the Spirit of God (John 3.6-8) to the purpose and design the Father has for us. Your purpose is something the world can tell you nothing about, for it did not make you and doesn’t know you. Indeed, it only cares about you as much as a foreman—a hired hand—on a job site cares about keeping the machinery running (John 10.12). But you are far more than a cog in the machine of the world.
In Matthew 3.11, John the Baptist gave us his picture of Jesus, the Savior he had come to proclaim, to herald, to make the way for. “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (NKJV).
We need to reckon with the fact that Jesus is more than the sacrificial Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He equips us for the work He calls us into, and His baptism is entirely different from John’s, which could only signify death and resurrection with Christ. In Jesus, we have all we need at any given moment to do what He’s called us to do because, since what He gives us comes from the limitlessness of the Father and is eternal, it far surpasses that which is decaying, rotting, and even now passing away.
It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom (Luke 12.32). One, since it’s a gift, it cannot be earned, and two, we have access to every good thing we could ever hope to find as we do the good works that have been promised to us in Christ. It comforts me to know that He’s got my back, that I can hear a voice over my shoulder saying, “This is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 31.21).