Five Keys to Total Recovery

Five Keys to Total Recovery

What happened between the accounts recorded in 1 Samuel 20 and 30 that made such a difference?

There are five keys, and those five keys that made the difference in David’s life can also be your story or mine. What is gone and destroyed can be totally restored!

Briefly, here are those five keys:

1. Encourage yourself in the Lord:

“But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6).
Praise is tough when things are going wrong and when you are asking, “Dear Lord, what am I going to do?” Praise brings God into your situation, no matter how bad it seems: “Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3). You may feel like doing anything but praising, but the second you start lifting your praises to God, He walks into the midst of your mess. He dwells in the praises of His people! Praise not only brings God into your situation, but it also gives you access into the presence of God (Psalm 100:4).

Isaiah 61:3 says that praise is a God-given garment that covers your life. That garment of praise covers your life of pain, hurt, confusion, worry, and stress, and this garment of praise brings you deliverance, protection, and preservation.

Praise is the believer’s weapon, releasing God to do battle for you.

2. Find someone whom you trust to agree in prayer with you.

That is David’s story, not just in 1 Samuel 30, but throughout his life. Agreement is a spiritual principle: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). Agreement delivers God’s people from temptation (Matthew 26:21). It enables right decisions (Acts 1:14), releases the power of God (Acts 2:1-2), brings the miraculous (Acts 3:1-7), unleashes no lack (Acts 4:31-33), breaks away the shackles (Acts 12:5-11), brings deliverance (Acts 16:25-26), gives boldness (Ephesians 6:18-20), opens doors (Colossians 4:2-3), and gives the Word of God free access (2 Thessalonians 3:1-2).

3. Act and move in faith, knowing that God responds only to faith:

“And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all” (1 Samuel 30:8). When you act, God acts. David didn’t sit around fuming and screaming. He didn’t even sit around confessing to the Lord. He released his faith by acting on what he was told to do.

God will not force you to step out in faith. The Bible even tells us that Jesus did not do great works in Nazareth because of the lack of the people’s unbelief. Lack of faith literally stops the Lord’s powers from flowing. Once we know what to do, we must do it!

4. Take your God-given authority. Attack the enemy!

We are told, “David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day” (1 Samuel 30:17). Take your authority by commanding things to happen. Penetrate the camp. The passage in 1 Samuel 30 tells us that David and his followers not only attacked, but they kept fighting until the enemy was subdued and all was recovered (verse 19).

5. Seal your recovery through giving.

After all was taken back, we are told, “When David came to Ziklag, he sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the Lord” (1 Samuel 30:28). Giving was David’s declaration of total recovery. It is a supernatural law that must be activated to bring continued blessings from God.

There is no other way to see outpouring after outpouring from God. When Israel was delivered from Egypt, they gave an offering that would go toward building the Tabernacle. It sealed their recovery. That’s why David planted seed—he knew it would protect his future.

As I write these words to you, I want to lift your faith to the heavens and tell you that your way of deliverance from distress, debt, and discontent is through the same keys that David discovered.