Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants

by Louie Giglio

I have a tendency to want to change whatever environment I am in. I want to make things better. I see what is, but I dream of what can be.

I was a controller who’d found he couldn’t control anymore. I was an approval-seeker who’d discovered not everything he did was applauded.

we are not David in this story. That’s a man-centered interpretation of the story of David and Goliath. You know who David is in our story? Jesus. Jesus is David in the story of David and Goliath. Jesus is the giant killer. Does that fact not wake us all up? Hello? We are not David. You are not David. I am not David. Jesus is David! Jesus fights the battles for us. Jesus stares down the face of impossible odds. Jesus takes up his sling. Jesus selects five smooth stones. Jesus takes aim at the giant. The giant falls because of the work of Jesus.

Jesus is the one who fights the battles for us. Yes, we do have some responsibility. We submit to Jesus’ plan. We resist the Devil using Jesus’ power within us. We align ourselves with the person and work of Jesus Christ. Yet it’s always Jesus who brings the giant down. Not us.

If we truly want to change, then we need to understand our dependency on the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Our change is more about trusting and less about trying. We’ve got to make this paradigm shift in our minds. Christ always does the real work. Christ is the real force for us to change.

When it comes to you and your specific giant, here’s a very practical application. Don’t conceal the severed head. Rather, confess the severed head. Tell a small group of trusted friends about the severed head of your giant—the same severed enemy’s head that Christ holds in his hands. Point to Christ as the victor. Let people know that Jesus has conquered what had once harassed you.

If we live for people’s approval, we will die by their rejection.

Our freedom and God’s glory are forever wound together in one story. Our giants go down so that we get free, yes, but they primarily go down so God gets glory.

We have our churches and our battle cries and there’s an entire camp of us hanging out together in our comfort. But the giant is taunting us. We are failing to let the victory of Christ into our lives in the fullest way, because we aren’t willing to step away from our sense of control, our ample supply, or our sense of material comfort. We won’t accept a challenge and move out with God into whatever he is calling us to do. We shout our war cries, but we continue to shudder in the shadow of our giants.

Our freedom and God’s glory are forever intertwined, and if we forget about the glory of God, then we won’t be willing to pay the price of whatever step it is that God’s asking us to take.

Complacency leads to inaction, but worship moves us into action. It puts holy urgency in our lives.

the greatest regret any of us will ever know is that of standing before Jesus knowing we lived too safe, too comfortable, too short-sighted. Realizing we were gluttons for pleasure when we were supposed to be lean warriors for others’ freedom and Jesus’ fame.

If there’s something that is choking the breath out of our lives, then God wants that stronghold broken. That is what deliverance is all about. Yet deliverance is about more than our freedom. God alone does the work to free us, but in setting us free the aim is that much glory is given to God.

There’s an extra motivation in our hearts when we say, “This Goliath, it must go down, God, because you must be lifted high.”