Judges 8 (view this passage)

nathan made this entry on February 9th, 2007
Topic(s): Faithfulness

This chapter deals with the famous story of Gideon. Most of us know of how God used him and only 300 other men to attack the Midianites during the night. There's more to the story, however. After that initial attack, Gideon and his men had to chase the Midianite men and two kings who fled from the battle. It was a long and hard chase. Gideon's men were hungry and tired, and when they reached one city they asked for food to eat. The city refused to feed them, though, because they didn't believe that Gideon and his men could catch and kill the two kings. They were worried that once the two kings got back on their feet, their city would be punished for helping Gideon. Furious, Gideon and his men continued their chase and arrived at another city and received the same response. In spite of the lack of help, God gave Gideon and his men extra strength to not only catch up to the two kings but to fight and destroy them.

Many times we will face battles in life when our friends and family may doubt us or may not be willing to help us. Even the church itself may not give us the support we would expect. It may happen that God gives you a mission, and sadly no one will support you through it. In these cases, God will be faithful to provide us all the strength we need. We must place our faith in God, and learn to not let our peers discourage us from following God's plan for us.

There is another interesting point from this chapter as well. After the battle, Gideon made a gold vest and breastpiece from the earrings and other jewels captured from the battle. He then hung these up in his hometown as a reminder of what God did for them in battle. He did not ask God about doing this, however, and these items became a spiritual snare to Gideon and his family. People forgot the intent of the items and began to worship and offer sacrifices to the vest as if it were an idol.

A lot of times we do things with good intentions. We assume that because our motives are right, that God approves of what we are doing and we don't take the time to ask about it. However as good as the intentions may be, we still need God's guidance. We should learn not to trust in our own understanding but to trust in what God says. Now it is true that God has already given us certain principles and truths in His Word, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about those things that we assume are good, but in certain situations those things may cause more harm than good. The bottom line is to never assume.

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