05/11/2026
The Battle Belongs to the Lord!
“The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14
Friends, the battle belongs to the Lord. Pastor Joseph Prince likes to say, “when we work, God rests; when we rest, God works!”
He also said (with reverence because we esteem and magnify the Lord our God above all): “If God wants all the glory, let God do all the work!”
And the great news is, He has! When Christ absorbed all the sin of humanity on the cross and became sin for us – so that God the Father would not impute our sins against us - we became the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21)! And God will not punish the same sin twice, hallelujah!! So, when we are born again by the Spirit of God and become a new creation, God always sees us as righteous!! We are no longer sinners. That is who we once were (1 Corinthians 6:11-13) but now, oh the glory, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6)!
What does it mean to say that Christ is seated and that we are seated with Him?
When Christ sat down at the right hand of the Father, it illustrates that He is done working. Everything has been accomplished. We are seated beside Him because all has been done for us. We now have everything we need for life and Godliness (2 Peter 1:3), everything we need to live the abundant life of freedom (John 10:10; 2 Corinthians 9:8) that He died for us to have. The only thing that defeated, toothless, lying devil can do is try to make us believe that we must “do” something to receive what we already have. Because we so often look at things through our natural eyes, he tricks us into believing that we are lacking in some way and that we need to get up and do something about whatever is going wrong.
But the Lord told us that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5)! And in the very same chapter, He repeatedly says to “abide” in Him. We are branches and branches do not produce fruit unless they remain, abiding, in the vine. It is abiding, remaining, and being at rest that causes the fruit to be produced.
When we begin to understand this amazing revelation, we start to see the Lord’s invitation to be at rest in Him throughout the Scriptures. And it is one of the hardest things we are asked to do because it seems irresponsible to sit down and be at rest when we see, in the natural, all these problems. But have you noticed how we can struggle and strive and toil and worry and fear and still nothing changes? We spend our time stressed and depressed and crying to the Lord instead of resting and taking refuge in Him. He is the only One who can change it. If we do manage to change it, then we must maintain it! If we do it, then we are responsible for keeping it up. That just sounds way too exhausting to me.
I pray for all of us today, myself included, that we would receive wisdom, knowledge and revelation from the Lord as to what we are holding onto that we can leave in His hands. That we would know how to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, which is His rest, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1). That we would see the victory that the Lord has won for us in the land of the living and say, “the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).
~ Julie A Desjardins
And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands. 1 Samuel 17:47
Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s. 2 Chronicles 20:15
For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. Deuteronomy 20:4
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:6
17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:17-23
