A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked. (Psalm 91:7-8 NKJV)

A promise that can change your life.

A promise that says even when you find yourself in the midst of darkness and evil times, no harm shall come to you. You will, however see, how evil’s way work against itself in the reward of the wicked, but you will remain untouched and unscarred.

A practical way of applying this to your life would be when you read newsletter headlines and observe the evil done on television, to not let fear take root in your heart, but to declare these words: “A thousand may fall at my side, ten thousand at my right hand, but it shall not come near me, because Jesus loves me”.

These words have power as they are spoken from God’s Word. We have learned from Jesus’ tribulation in the wilderness that when God’s written Word is spoken, the devil must stand down as he has no power against it. Now, if Jesus spoke the written Word of God to defeat the devil, so much more should we use it by declaring it over ourselves, our loved ones and our circumstances?

Verse 7 talks about thousand and ten thousands falling at your side, what relevance is there in that? This means that a multitude may fall around you but nothing shall cause you harm. If we can find ourselves in a place where we believe that regardless of who fell around us, it would never happen to us, we are walking in God’s victory and in the knowledge of His divine protection. See the powerful way in which these verses were translated in the Message translation:

Even though others succumb all around, drop like flies right and left, no harm will even graze you. You’ll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance, watch the wicked turn into corpses.

The key lies in keeping our minds off ourselves and our circumstances and to remain Christ-occupied as then we operate in the sphere where the enemy has no hand to play against us.

Maretha Retief

Illustration credit: Jeanne de Villiers