God of the Battle

God will fight for you. You probably know that, or at least, you've heard it. 

Whenever I hear something along these lines, I get cinematic-type images in my head of me and God going to battle together, each of us slashing a sword around and cutting through darkness (in my imagination, we don't have to slay anyone; just darkness. Call me a pacifist. I don't know). Anyway, I have these images of me and God in the trenches together, sharing an MRE, taking our helmets off for a second, wiping our brow. 

In other words, when I hear that God will fight for me, I can't seem to help but think about the battle. 

But the battle is only part of it. 

The other part...is the outcome.

Israel was standing on the edge of the Promised Land; Moses was giving his final instructions; Joshua was preparing to lead the people into battle; the people...had their hesitations. Nobody wants to go into battle. Nobody wants to have to fight. Then, Moses tells the people: God will go into battle with you. God will fight for you. God will fight with you. 

Then, God will save you. 

Isn't this really what we're all thinking about? It's not that God would fight for us, or that He would go into the battle with us. I mean, that's nice and all and most of us are certainly appreciative of that. But what we really want is to come out on the other side of the battle. What we really want is a victory. What we really want is to be saved from all of the things the battle threatens to take away from us permanently. 

"God will fight for you" are amazing words. Tremendous words. Encouraging words. But these extra few words - "and God will save you" - change everything for me. They remind me that this life, this faith, it's not just about the fight, which is a lie that is so easy to get drawn into; it's about the victory. It's about the saving. It's about coming out on the other side of it. 

And I don't mean just eternally, just when this life ends and we get to Heaven. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not what Moses was talking about. That's not what God was promising on the edge of Canaan. The people of Israel could not have imagined anything at all like a crucifix; they could not have imagined anything at all like Christ. When they heard Moses tell them that God was going to save them, every single man, woman, and child in that assembled nation heard that God was going to bring them through this battle, through this fight. In this generation. In this life. 

Do you believe God is saving you in this life? Do you believe that when He fights for you - when He fights with you - the end goal is that you would be saved...today? Not for all eternity, but for today, for right now? 

Have you heard that God will fight for you? How do these extra few words - "and God will save you" - change your understanding of what that means?