Happy Lord’s Day, friends! Today, let’s consider the 9 million spiritual wars going on in Israel, and pray accordingly.

As the war in Israel is being fought on several fronts, there are over 9 million spiritual wars taking place in the hearts of each of Israel's citizens. And one sign of the fierce resistance God faces in laying claim to our hearts is our constant complaining whenever we don't get what we want or when things don't go our way. Even though Israel had just witnessed God's power over water (Exodus 14), they immediately started complaining to Moses about water (Exod 15:24)!
Complaining is the expression of at least two false beliefs: (1) God isn't good and/or fair; (2) the universe and everyone in it (including God) is here to please me (i.e., the belief that I am God). And let us not be fooled: attempting to be more religious by keeping the commandments cannot fix this spiritual problem. In fact, Israel complained more after they received God's commandments on Mt. Sinai (8 times: Num 14:2, 27, 29, 36; 16:11; 17:6, 20) than they did before they had received them (5 times: Exod 15:24; 16:2, 7-8; 17:3). As hard we try to do what's right, we will still end up believing the lie that God isn't good or fair every time we encounter an obstacle in the pursuit of our own personal happiness. 
There is only way God can win this battle for Israel's heart, and that's by giving us a new one! Moses describes this as a circumcised heart (Deut 30:6); Jeremiah describes it as the writing of God's instructions upon our hearts (Jer 31:31-34); and Ezekiel describes it as the replacing of our hearts of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezek 36:26-27). But until that future day when God finally circumcises the heart of this nation, let each of us make a personal decision to let God win the war against the spirit of complaining in our own hearts by asking him to create in us a new one!