Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants

by Louie Giglio

it’s not God’s plan for you to live with anything standing in the middle of your life, demoralizing you day by day by day.

God wants you to live free. God wants your giants to fall. He wants you to live without the chains that bind you, unfettered from beliefs that limit you. And you can!

No matter how many times you’ve tried before or how loud the voice is that says you’ll never be different than you are, God says somet...

Jesus’ desire for your life and my life is that we would have life to the full.

If God has it his way, we live free and he gets glory for being the giant-killer.

understanding that anxiety is not a thing, but a symptom of something(s), has been a game changer in dealing with the enemies of God’s glory in my life.

Wanting to steer toward great outcomes is noble. But trying to control the world is disastrous. In time, controllers crack under the reality that none of us are in control.

the easiest path might not be the best path, the path that Jesus invites us to take.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to die on the cross and be resurrected from the grave so we could settle for a reduced amount of God’s best. Jesus intended for us to “really live” (1 Thessalonians 3:8). And that means we can live freely in the power of what he has accomplished for us.

whatever giant we’re battling might be big—but it’s not bigger than Jesus. Nine feet tall is nothing to him. And he intends to set you free.

Time and time again, God had done miraculous things for his people.

if they would just trust him and follow him and lean into him, then they’d have access to that same power in their lives again.

Whatever giant we’re battling might be big—but it’s not bigger than Jesus.

You might have a nine-foot-tall behemoth in your life, one that taunts and intimidates you day after day after day. But with the power of God, that giant will fall. It doesn’t matter the size of a problem. God’s power and might are always greater.

God doesn’t want us to be demoralized if we face more than one giant that needs to be taken down. He’s able to take them all. And we’ll soon see he already has.

If some form of bondage is in our lives, if some attitude seemingly can’t be shaken, if some character flaw apparently can’t be overcome, if some thought darkens our mind, if some problem has sunk its teeth into our life and we can’t shake it as we move through our day, then take heart, because none of these giants are a match for Jesus. All these giants can—and will—fall.

Jesus wants to assure us that he is completely and totally able to take down the giants in our lives.

But through the power of Jesus, whatever needs to be overcome can—and will—come down.

God extends his grace and favor toward us to allow us to experience his supernatural power.

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.

mere human thinking or mere human power—if it’s only human thinking or only human power—can never produce a supernatural result.

God wanted victory to come simply because one young man trusted in him.

Worship is simply a shift of attention that allows us to see God better. Worship is like corrective lenses for our souls, bringing God clearer into view. That’s important for all of us, especially when life goes off the rails. Worship puts God in focus. When the Almighty is in view, our giant’s power over our thinking begins to flicker and fade.

I need someone bigger than my giant to set my gaze on. Otherwise, I listen needlessly to a dead Goliath when the Maker of heaven is holding me in his hands.

Jesus is on your side. He is fighting for you and he has won. That’s not hype. Nor empty rhetoric. Jesus has, in fact, defeated every foe.

Jesus is far more than just a good idea. He is the all-sufficient source for all we need, available every step of the journey and in every hour of our battle.

Satan was defeated on the cross. The battle was over. The victory was won. That’s all past tense. Thanks to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, Christ has rendered Satan powerless.

But Satan can still wriggle and squirm and make the hairs on our necks stand up. If we step on Satan’s fangs, he can still poison us and cause serious harm. We’re not in heaven yet, and the Enemy is still prowling around on planet Earth. His body is still flailing about, and he is still dangerous. If we listen to the Enemy, or if we follow his evil schemes, or if we mess with any of the practices he lays claim to, we will self-inject that poison into our lives. The poison will diminish our hope and weaken the abundant reality of what our lives can be in Christ. So there are two truths to keep in mind. One: Satan was defeated on the cross. Jesus has won the victory. End of story. And two: the snake still wriggles. The snake still has venom. It’s a now-and-not-yet reality. Catch the paradox? These two truths seem contradictory, but they’re not. When it comes to your giant going down, both of these truths are equally true.

Your giant is dead. And yet . . . Your giant is still deadly.

“For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.”

The work of defeating death and all hell’s power is finished. Completed. Done. Accomplished. Jesus has defeated all of sin, all of death, all of hell, all of darkness. Our giants have fallen. Goliath is dead from the hit to the head. He’s sprawled out flat on the ground. Smashed nose. Dirt in eyes. Bugs in mouth.

Jesus is the ultimate snake-crusher. Jesus demolished the snake, the Devil, with a defining and deafening blow. Death doesn’t carry a sting anymore. Death was swallowed up in victory. Jesus Christ won the battle.

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

The reason Jesus came to earth was to crush the power of sin and death. That’s what Jesus did. The work is finished.

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

“submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Resisting means we make a stand against temptation. We choose the pathway of Jesus. With the power of God in our lives, we deliberately decide to draw close to him. In simpler terms, don’t step on the dead snake head.

Ephesians 6:10–18 further instructs us to “put on the full armor of God.” Our armor is made of truth. Jesus has given us his righteousness. We have the gospel of peace in place. We have the shield of faith. We have the helme...

it’s always Jesus who brings the giant down. Not us.

We’re all in need of a real Savior—even

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.

Christ always does the real work. Christ is the real force for us to change.

When we follow Jesus, he hands us unlimited riches, but we need to cash the check too. Here’s what that “check” looks like in Scripture; it’s leaning into this truth: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).

God’s “divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life.” Stop right there. Focus on these three words . . . “Everything we need.”

God has given us everything we need for our spiritual life. All joy. All value. All purpose. All hope. All comfort. All power to resist temptation. All power to change. All ability to live lives of godliness. All guidance and marked pathways to live for him.

The unsearchable riches of Christ are like a huge cavern filled with gold that can never be fully explored. It’s an incredibly complex math algorithm that solves all the problems of mankind. It can be tapped into, but it can never be fully understood or written in one sentence on a chalkboard. Christ’s grace is readily available to us, yet in its entirety it’s so amazing it’s unfathomable.

we “can do all things through Christ who strengthens [us]”

The power to change was simply . . . Christ.

See, whenever a problem is concealed, it finds power in the darkness. But when a problem is confessed, it loses that power. Confession brings the light of Christ to shine upon that problem.