January 17, 2024
Passage Read: Judges 2-5
Meditation Verses: 2:21-22
Thought
The Israelites fail over and over again. They intermarried with the Canaanites, so the relationships were very close with the people the Lord had commanded they destroy. The Israelites failed to walk in God's ways, but adopted the customs and gods of people who were supposed to be under the ban. God would bring trouble to them, they would cry out, then God would deliver them and keep them safe for the life of the deliverer, but afterward, they would corrupt themselves even more. When they repented, would they return fully to the Lord and walk in all His ways, or did it grow harder and harder to remember all that the Lord required of them? With each rebellion and ever greater corruption, were they able to return to the Lord and know what it meant to walk in His ways? Or was their worship of Him and understandings of Him less and less accurate?
Application
How far have we fallen from a true and correct understanding of God's word and will? Our repentance and obedience and faithfulness, how corrupted are they by the time and distances that we have fallen away from the Lord? Do we hold to more comfortable interpretations because we're blinded by the sin we embraced and adopted? Because we can't really see how far we've fallen from the Lord and His ways? We think we're doing fine because we don't understand and can't conceive of how far off the mark we wandered. We've recovered some of the distance, but not all of it, then we fall into greater corruption, repent and come back half that distance. It looks good, but we don't realize how much further from the truth we settle after each session of rebellion and repentance. It's an improvement, but after each cycle we end up further from God's intention, but not as far as in our rebellion. God help me cut through all the fog of my own rebellion and my people's rebellion to come back to a true and faithful understanding of what You desire for Your people. Let me return all the way and know You as You really are, and not just a bit better than my contemporaries.