PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Judges 3-4
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“They were left to test the Israelites…” (Judges 3:4)
This is the perspective of the storyteller, the moral of the story.
This is what happens when the people disobey God.
Or, this is what happens when the people obey God.
God lets the people decide whether they want God or not.
God gives us the freedom; we are not forced to do life with God.
But if we pay attention, we see how things go without God.
If we learn from life experience, we can become wiser.
This is the purpose of the many tests we face everyday.
Our teacher does not want us to fail, but to learn and grow.
Jesus my teacher is asking me about the tests in my own life?
Where have I gone my own way, and realized that it was not good?
Where am I experiencing unhealthy or unhappy results?
Jesus does not want me to fail, but to learn.
He will come to help me, but does want me to want his help!
PRAYER
Lord, I know some of the tests in my own life, and I know what happens when I do not choose your way. Please step in again and again, until I learn!
The left-over remnants of the existing peoples that God had said needed to be wiped out – because of their pagan worship – didn’t happen as it should have. Through the testing, with many periods of occupation, the judges that ruled slowly wiped out many of the remnants. Sin is like that if we don’t take care of it – it festers – ultimately it needs to be dealt with. Jesus makes me clean and He points out things that need work. Help me Lord to not ignore the temptations that can still linger to set me along the wrong way! HS work and help me grow in resistance – be my judge!
I was created to serve the Lord. Time and time again we see in our reading today that when the people went their own way, doing what was right in their own eyes, left the Lord’s way and followed the ways of the people around them, God’s people were persecuted by their enemies. God disciplined His wayward people so that they would return to Him and serve Him only. Time and time again God steps in and leads the people from the error of their ways to serve Him again. I too need to see the hand of God in my life and how He continues to lead and guide me in His way.
1 Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter,
I am the clay.
Mold me and make me
after thy will,
while I am waiting,
yielded and still.
2 Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Search me and try me,
Savior today!
Wash me just now, Lord,
wash me just now,
as in thy presence
humbly I bow.
3 Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Wounded and weary,
help me I pray!
Power, all power,
surely is thine!
Touch me and heal me,
Savior divine!
4 Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Hold o’er my being
absolute sway.
Fill with thy Spirit
till all shall see
Christ only, always,
living in me!