Police Devotion 10-17-2018
“For thou hast girded me with strength to battle” (2 Samuel 22:40)
As a cop, you need to be ready to fight. No matter what you hear about how police work has changed, one thing hasn’t—there will be times when you have to fight. You can’t always deescalate. Technically, you can NEVER deescalate because you can’t control what other people do. You can give a subject some slack to deescalate, but he may use the slack you give him to escape or attack you. If he wants to fight, physically or with a weapon, you have to fight, so you need to be in shape and tactically prepared.
You also need spiritual strength—a heartfelt willingness to do your best—which is just as important as physical strength. If you’re spiritually strong, you’re willing to fight when the time comes, but if you’re spiritually weak and apathetic about the job, your physical strength won’t matter if you won’t use it.
People may try to weaken your spiritual strength with their words. The prophet Jeremiah was accused of discouraging Judah’s soldiers with his words. He warned the people of Judah that they’d be taken captive by the Babylonians for their chronic sin and refusal to obey God. The princes of Judah wanted Jeremiah put to death, saying, “he weakeneth the hands of the men of war” (Jeremiah 38:4).
Jeremiah wasn’t trying to weaken the soldiers. He was saying what God told him to say and trying to get Judah to repent of their sin against God. He’d told them in the past to “amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you” (Jeremiah 26:13). Things would’ve gone better if they’d listened, but they didn’t. Jeremiah wasn’t the bad guy. The bad guys were the people who encouraged the nation to sin.
Your political and departmental leadership may weaken you with words. They may restrict you so much that they actually promote crime and make life hard for decent people. That’s their sin, not yours. You can’t help that, but you can keep strong morale. God sees what you go through as you try to deal with evildoers. God refers to criminals as people who “do that which is evil” (Romans 13:4). He also calls people who help them, by whatever means, “the help of them that work iniquity” (Isaiah 31:2). God sees it all: “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).
People may weaken you with their words, but God can strengthen you with His true and faithful words: “these words are true and faithful” (Revelation 21:5). The more you’re into God’s Word, the stronger you’ll be: “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one” (1 John 2:14). God also strengthens us as we pray: “In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul” (Psalm 138:3).
At times you’ll become weary, but the Lord will help renew you and increase your spiritual strength: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31).
You can trust God to give you strength for your battles. Our opening verse says so. Psalm 118:14 also says, “The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.” Most importantly, God’s Word tells us about how to be saved. Do you know Jesus as your personal Saviour? Are you sure your sins are forgiven and you’ll be in heaven when you die? If not, please click “Helpful Links” and then “How Do I Go to Heaven?” on the main menu.
Brian Miller
10/17/2018
Cleveland Baptist Church | 4431 Tiedeman Road, Brooklyn, Ohio 44144 | 216.671.2822