Strengthen Thyself

Daily Devotional

1 Kings 20:22 And the prophet came to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest: for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee.

Refuse to stay at the same place. The only way to create and sustain victory is to keep strengthening yourself. Yesterday’s strength will not be enough for tomorrow’s battle.

In 1 Kings 20:22 following the great Victory of King Ahab and the Children of Israel over King Benhadad and the people of Syria. The Instruction from the Lord to King Ahab was to strengthen himself for the King of Syria would return in the next year. The essence of the instruction was, do not stay at the same place. Yes they had won the battle, but the war was not over. Because the war was not over and the enemy will come back again  to win, expect him to come harder than before. The only natural response therefore is to strengthen yourself so that you are adequately prepared for a tougher fight.

Not only did God tell the King to strengthen himself in 1 Kings 20:17, he also pointed him to two ways in which this can be done. The scripture said “mark, and see what thou doest”. The first thing the scripture advised was to “mark”. To “mark” means to set a target. Until you set a goal you will not start moving towards it. What do you need to do or learn in your field to become better than you are now? To strengthen yourself, set a target for each day as to the amount of time you will invest doing or learning in that area. The second step that was mentioned was “ see what thou doest” which means to track and monitor progress through continuous self-study. If you are not keeping track it will be difficult to decipher if you are getting any better, 

Life Application: Five areas that you should target strengthening yourself are: your obedience to the word of God, adding to your wisdom, honouring Kings in your environment, building and strengthening relationships with like-minded people and being more focused on completing goals set for areas of priority.

Prayer: Dear Lord, I refuse to stay at the same place I have been in the past. I ask for your strength to fight, to live and to take dominion. In Jesus name, amen.