You're listening to the battle ready Bible study. We are starting week two, day one,

Deuteronomy 24. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you,

against your enemies, to give you victory. Well, you picked a very, I think, intense passage.

And I have to say, in my first 10 years of being a follower of Jesus, I loved these

kinds of verses because everything felt like a fight. Everything felt like a battle. And sometimes

the battles were internal, sometimes. They were external. And to be really honest, sometimes

it felt like they were against people. You it felt like um the moment i tried to

make good decisions um there became like bad forces and i don't think it's accidental that the

bible is written in the context of actual battle in the context of actual war and in the context of

taking territory and i know it's controversial and and's controversial and there are a lot of different nuances,

but the reality is that every one of us is in a battle.

Every one of us, every single day have to get up and choose to fight.

And that there is really no neutral in life.

You're either fighting to move forward or you are

surrendering to move backwards. You're either taking ground or giving ground. And I love this promise

that the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies and give you

victory. It's so, I think, empowering to know that God is on

our side. Now, the challenging thing is that you don't want to make this promise of you against

other people. And because in the end, the enemy is not another person. The enemies that work against us

are the forces of darkness, are the forces of evil, and the kingdom of darkness. And we war not

against people, but for people, but sometimes, let's be honest, that battle is fought in the context

of one person against

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