January 18, 2024

Passage Read: Judges 6-9
Meditation Verse: 6:13

Thought

Gideon doesn't seem aware of the reasons for God abandoning the people to the power of Midian. He speaks as if God just decided one day to give them up and ignore them. But a prophet was just sent to the people to call out their sin. Does Gideon not realize that their worship of Baal and the Ashtoreth is an affront to God? God didn't give them up to the Midianites for no reason, but it was because they had turned to idols and away from Him. Gideon obviously knew about God, but he didn't seem to understand that worshiping idols and worshiping God was detestable to God.

Application

God brings discipline into my life not because He forgets about me or no longer cares about me, but because I have violated His command. It is not obedience to God when I obey some things but break others; He wants pure and undefiled devotion to Him, that means devotion to Him alone, not some love for Him and some love for some other god and some love for the world and some love for certain people. I can only have one master, and it will be either Him or something or someone else. It cannot be both. It cannot be my stuff and God's stuff. God wants control of every aspect of my life, or else He has control of nothing in my life. And if He claims me as His own, then He will bring discipline. I shouldn't miss the fact that the discipline comes because I have done wrong. It is never unfair or undeserved or misguided.