“His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Certainly God can help us by working with or even through us. But did you know that He can help us and the people around us by working in spite of us? He can use our character flaws and failings to His glory. Read the rest…
“Then Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Gideon’s fleece has become synonymous with testing God. And that’s exactly what Gideon was doing. But, far from anything praiseworthy or worth imitating, this was an act of faithlessness by a man who was a coward. Read the rest…
“And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.’ And Gideon said to him, ‘Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?” But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
The story of Gideon is one of my favorites. This isn’t because of why you might think. It is often presented to highlight the faith and courage of Gideon as he takes his army of 300 and defeats the thousands of Midianite soldiers in a decidedly non-traditional fashion (God seems to excel at devising…creative…battle plans to make sure He gets the glory for the victory). While perhaps Gideon was courageous and faithful in that moment, I tend to see his story as evidence of God’s willingness and ability to work through anybody to accomplish His plans, even a whiney coward. Read the rest…
“Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
How do you make plans? How attached to those plans are you? What James offers here is a reminder that all of our plans must be made contingent on what the Lord has planned. All of them. We can strive for whatever we want, but nothing will happen that He does not allow for some reason. The question then becomes: What does God have planned? Read the rest…
“Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, ‘You are telling a lie. The Lord our God did not send you to say, “Do not go to Egypt to live there…”‘” (ESV – Read the chapter)
The people of Israel who hadn’t been taken off to Babylon as captives or killed in the process were scared. The options before them didn’t seem good at all. Some of their leaders had murdered the governor the Babylonians had put in place to rule over them. They feared retribution was coming and would be painful when it arrived. The various nations around them not only didn’t want to help, but were actively antagonistic toward them. The only option that seemed to make sense was to head to Egypt in hopes that by coming as refugees from their mutual enemies in Babylon, they would be received graciously and not as a hostile force. Read the rest…
The Nexus 