Protective Walls

Reading for Today: Proverb Chapter 25

Gold Nugget

Verse 28: “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.”

Commentary

In the book of Joshua we read the story about the children of Israel as they set out to conquer Canaan. The children, after being set free from Egypt, wondered around in the wilderness for forty years before crossing over the river Jordan to the Promised Land. They had many enemies to conquer. Their first target was the city of Jericho. Heavily fortified by an impenetrable wall, Jericho had confidence in the wall that protected them from any and all enemies. In most cases their confidence was well grounded. Having a “hedge of protection” is something you will often hear Christians pray as they request protection for loved ones. It is very biblical and is mentioned in the book of Job. Job had a hedge of protection about him from the Lord. In an odd twist of illustrations, I will draw a comparison between these two stories. We can have confidence in God’s hedge of protection around us. We should be just as at peace as the residents of Jericho. Although Jericho’s hedge of protection was not built by God, it was secure to them. We know how the story of Jericho ends. The Lord destroys the walls of Jericho and the Israelites take the city. God, in a sense, lifted the hedge of protection from Jericho and allowed the children of Israel to literally walk in and claim the city.

We as Christians have a hedge of protection around us, but if we accept the truth of today’s scripture, we will see that our city walls (our hedge of protection) is conditional upon our obedience. I’m not saying a mess up today will cause God to lift His protection, but continued disobedience has always resulted in him allowing the enemy to defeat us throughout the history of God’s people. We have an unruly flesh that wants to run rampant without reigns. Failure to have rule over our flesh will result in our enemy being able to overtake us as easy as a city without walls. Consider today’s “gold nugget”, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.” We all should be able to identify the areas of our lives where our flesh is getting out of control and regain authority over it before we leave ourselves open to attacks.

Prayer

Lord, sometimes it comes from being under stress or heartache. Sometimes it comes from just feeling like we are entitled to a little indulgence, but whatever reason we allow our flesh to start having liberty, we need to be quick to put our flesh into subjection through prayer, fasting, studying and fellowship with the saints and build our walls back into protective order. Amen

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