If you've recently experienced a great spiritual victory, take a minute to check your luggage. You may have returned from the battle with something you definitely don't need.

Amaziah, King of Judah, followed the advice of a man of God before he went to war, and the Lord gave him a great victory (2 Chr. 25:7-12). Then, incredible as it seems, Amaziah "brought the gods of the people of Seir, set them up to be his gods, and bowed down before them and burned incense to them" (v.14).

There seems to be a critical time following every spiritual victory when we are particularly vulnerable to our own foolish mistakes. We may become proud, thinking we won the battle on our own. We may withdraw in a wave of depression and fear, wondering how we can possibly sustain the spiritual advance that has been made. We may suddenly reach out to embrace the very evil we set out to destroy.

Amaziah brought back the gods of the people whose army he had just defeated. Who could imagine it? And yet his battlefield baggage led to his downfall as king.

We need to follow up every spiritual triumph with a humble recommitment to the almighty God who gave it.  — David C. McCasland