Book Review: Goliath Must Fall by Louie Giglio

Goliath Must Fall, by Louie Giglio, is a powerful read that challenges much of the conventional wisdom surrounding facing the giants in your life. In the book, Giglio speaks about some of the major giants that people often face – fear, rejection, comfort, anger, and addiction. I think many of us can relate to facing at least a few of these giants at some point in our lives. Throughout this book, the victory over these giants is based on three major paradigm shifts from the Biblical story of David and Goliath:

The first paradigm shift is the idea that “we are not David; Jesus is David.” With this shift, we begin to see that our battle against our giant(s) is not one that is to be fought between us and the enemy, but rather, Jesus has already fought our battle for us. It’s not, “be more like David,” have more courage, have more faith, go to war… but rather, Jesus is David. Which leads us to paradigm shift #2…

“Our giant is already dead. The victory is already won.” Oh, how I loved this paradigm shift! How often do we think of how powerful the giant is in our lives and we feel overwhelmed and insufficient to fight it/him? But, here’s the shift – the battle is already won and your giant is already dead. There’s so much power in those words! However, as Giglio goes on to discuss, “even dead giants can still call your name.” The enemy is defeated, but he still seeks to destroy and devour.

The third paradigm shift that Giglio discusses is that if “our motivation remains only about getting freedom for ourselves, then we’re missing what’s most important, and we won’t truly have the full power to change.” We need to change our motivation from simply “getting freedom” to bringing glory and honor to God. We are to bring Him praise for our freedom and chase His heart so that others may see His light shine through us.

Don’t think that just because I shared these paradigm shifts with you means that I have given you the meat of the book. No way. Giglio’s book is all about taking these shifts and applying them in your life to bring about real change and glorify our Heavenly Father. It’s a great read and will totally change the way you view the giants that you may be facing today and help guide you toward the next step in healing and walking in your purpose.

If you’re interested in ordering your copy of Goliath Must Fall, you can find it on Amazon by clicking here: GOLIATH MUST FALL BY LOUIE GIGLIO (affiliate link).

I personally enjoyed this book because I’m walking through a season of healing and it gave me an entirely new perspective on the power that I have in the name of Jesus when my giants try to call my name. I absolutely loved the chapter that spoke about how the enemy tries to pull up a chair at our table. Here’s an excerpt…

“God doesn’t promise that he will hit the eject button every time we are surrounded by hardship, trial, and challenge. He promises something even more powerful and stunning. Right in the midst of the fray, in full view of the things that are threatening us, our Shepherd spreads a table of provision for us. It’s a table for two. One seat for you and one seat is for the God who is for you…. The Devil wants you to think he has control. He wants to make you feel helpless and hopeless. He wants you to give in to the temptation to believe that things will never change. But as we have seen, he is the one who is defeated. His days are numbered. His head is severed. Jesus is, in fact, the Lion of Judah. His roar rules the nations. His voice shatters the Enemy. But for a short while, the spiritual fight rages on planet Earth and Satan prowls and roars and looks for a crack or a crevice through which he can insert himself into our minds, and thus our situations. If you don’t stop him, then he’ll be sitting at your table… the point is about how fast the Enemy can pull up a chair at the table that Jesus has prepared for you. With a big smile and overt confidence, the Enemy strolls into the moment, and before you know it you’re having a conversation with a killer.”

That visual was so powerful for me while reading this book. God has prepared a table for me. The Enemy wants to destroy what Jesus has given me (and destroy me). If he can suppress my voice and silence my praise for my Heavenly Father, then he disrupts the gifts and purpose that God has for my life, hurts God’s heart, and destroys me. Win, win for him. This is what he wants. So, he crafts his plan and starts planting seeds by whispering lies into my ears and my mind. I turn around and he has pulled up a chair.

Giglio goes on to say, “(I was) confident that in Christ, I had the ability to excuse the enemy from my table. I was the only one responsible for entertaining his thoughts. And I had the power to ignore them.” Ah… “I was responsible.” Giglio uses a lot of phrases like “accommodating your giant, justifying your giant, giving roots to your giant, forgetting the miraculous things that God has done, and deliberately drawing closer to Jesus.” God is the all-powerful giant-slayer, but while we are invited to lean into his love, his provisions, and his protection, we also have responsibility too. We must actively excuse the enemy from our table. We must not entertain him. “Do not give the enemy a seat at your table.”

I took some time and let this idea sink in for a while. Over the course of the several days, I started to visualize my table and ran my thoughts and feelings through an “invitation filter” to become more aware of who I was allowing to pull up a chair. It’s powerful. I started asking God to make me more spiritually sensitive to the source. And I started calling my giants out by name. No, fear, you are not allowed at my table. Insecurity? You were not invited. There is no chair here for you. It sounds silly, I’m sure. But, it’s a pretty powerful visual.

Overall, I left this book feeling like it would be a great read for anyone. We all face giants in our lives and surprisingly, Giglio has a way of making us relate to every giant that he covers. Yes, even the giant of addiction. If you choose to pick up this book, I would encourage you to read each chapter because you never know where God will touch you and speak to your heart. Every chapter is filled with gems of wisdom, growth, encouragement, and love.

To wrap up my review of this book, I’d like to share some of my favorite excerpts:

“Maybe we find ourselves tolerating the harmful thing at first… Maybe we try to justify its existence. We wrestle with it and wish it were gone. We’re annoyed the harmful thing is there in the first place, but we end up giving it free rent anyway. Before we know it, the harmful thing has established a foothold. It becomes a giant. A default routine is formed. Our giant becomes a habit in the way we think or act. Some days we fight to rid ourselves of the giant, but the problem never goes away entirely.”

“He intends to set you free.”

“Jesus didn’t come to earth to die on the cross and be resurrected from the grave so we could settle for a reduced amount of God’s best. Jesus intended for us to “really live” (1 Thessalonians 3:8).”

“Even dead giants can still call your name…. Satan’s power was broken on the cross. Yet even thought Jesus completed the work on the cross, this is where we feel the paradox: Satan can still harm us.”

“We still function as if killing the giant depends on us… if we truly want change, then we need to understand our dependency on the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Our change is more about trusting and less about trying. We’ve got to make this paradigm shift in our minds. Christ always does the real work. Christ is the real force for us to change.”

“We can look at the (severed) head of the giant and realize once and for all that the giant doesn’t hold any more power over us.”

“We don’t need to rationalize with our giants. We aren’t called to argue with them. Jesus invites us into the truth of the situation. That huge, ferocious giant might be coming at us with a sword, spear, and javelin, but Jesus is bigger than our giant.”

“So what do you do if your Goliath starts talking to you anytime soon? You remind him that he’s dead. You stop listening to what Goliath is saying, and you start listening to what God is saying. Maybe all you take is a tiny step at first, but it’s a big step for you to say, “Right here, right now, I believe in the power of the name of Jesus…” When you believe that Jesus is bigger than whatever it is you’re facing, something is going to shift in you.”

“Until we are dealing with the root, we will never change the fruit.”

“God doesn’t make mistakes. God doesn’t make rejects – that comes from assembly-line lingo. When a reject comes down the line, a worker says, ‘that one’s perfect. That one’s perfect. That one’s wrong. Oh no, not that one. Either throw it back and start over again or discard it.’ God doesn’t do that… For this giant to fall, for this giant to be rendered powerless in your life, immerse yourself in this fact: God made you. Uniquely. Beautifully. Intentionally. Purposefully. Wonderfully.”

“God chose you. Long before you knew him, he knew you. He loved you long before the world began. Before you ever felt the sting of rejection, God had already gone on record as choosing you. Before people decided whether or not you are good enough for them, God had already decided that he wanted to bring you into his family.”

“A whole nation was made free because of the faith of one person. There might be a nation waiting on you today. There might be a whole family waiting on you today… there may be a whole group of people waiting for deliverance because you’re stuck in complacency… God is inviting you to be part of his plans. It won’t always be comfortable. It won’t always be easy. You will probably need to step forward, not knowing anything other than you’re far out with God on the end of the limb, believing that he wants to make his fame known to this generation of people. Yet if you move in faith, God will always breathe life on your journey.”

“Let Jesus embrace you as you are.”

“Jesus defeated our giants with one fatal blow on the cross. He destroyed their power as he blasted out of the grip of death. The way we walk in that freedom is by believing each day that he will lead us as we put one foot in front of the other. Most times in our lives, the power is not in a massive leap, but in the succession of a thousand tiny steps.”

“When the tug from the Spirit comes, say yes. A lot. You’ll be amazed at what you can scale. What you can overcome.”

“Even when we walk closely with Christ, chaos can still throw rocks at us. Painful circumstances can appear in a flash. Jesus never promises us a problem-free life. Yes, there is still the valley of the shadow of death, and yes, there is still the presence of enemies. But thank God, Jesus leads us through the valley. Jesus prepares a table.”

“All of us have fallen short of our best hopes for our lives. Our choices have disappointed ourselves and those around us. But God is uniquely skilled to take the mistakes of our lives and turn them into something beautiful that brings him praise.”