“Shout, for the Lord has given you the city”( Joshua 6:16)

If you have ever been to a sporting event or watched one on TV, one of the concurring events is that when a touchdown is scored, a homerun is hit, a basket is made and a goal goes into the net… and when a team wins the game… a great shout of victory can be heard throughout the stadium and throughout many homes watching on TV. These shouts can be quite tumultuous!

But how much more should our shouts be for the victory that comes not from a sporting event but from a spiritual battle in which the Lord our God have given us the victory. I believe that every battle, spiritual or otherwise, is won or lost way before the actual battle happens. It’s won or lost in the “shout” before the battle. When Joshua told the people to shout on the seventh day of the seventh march around Jericho, the people shouted. They shouted not with a voice of doubt, fear or unbelief… but with a shout of faith that was filled with expectation that God was going to bring the victory. It was a shout of confidence and hope. It was a shout in the expectation of every promise that God spoke and that He would move in power and might on behalf of the faith of the “shouters”.

“…when the people shouted with a great shout the wall fell down flat” (Joshua 6:20). In your battle, whatever it may be, where is your shout? Have you lost your shout under the weight of the circumstances you face? I’m talking about a literal shout, not a symbolic one. Ask our Lord to help your faith and get your fight back standing on every Word and promise of God. As David cried out, “the battle is the Lord’s” (1 Samuel 17:47). So go ahead… shout it out… yes, right now… The battle is the Lord’s but the victory is mine! “Shout to God with the voice of triumph!” (Psalm 47:1)… and don’t ever lose your shout!