- Judges 8 Daily DEVO And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family. Judges 8:27 – This passage is much like the verse in the Gospels when Jesus shares how difficult it will be for the rich to get into Heaven. Not because wealth keeps us from God, but we can allow a blessing from God to become what we find our security in and what we place our trust in. Maybe it’s money, a job, a relationship, or a past trophy like Gideon’s ephod of when you were used in the past, but we can allow what God has given us to shift our focus off of Him and onto the blessing instead. We can quit looking at the provider when we have the provision in hand. Let’s just make sure we aren’t like that. Let’s keep our eyes firmly focused on God in the times of need and then times of plenty. Don’t let the blessings become a distraction. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 588
- And Gideon went up by the way of the tent dwellers east of Nobah and Jogbehah and attacked the army, for the army felt secure. Judges 8:11 – Gideon is in a battle and the enemy army is on the run. Here we see the enemy army must have chosen to settle into a certain place. Why? Because they felt secure enough to do that. They felt safe enough to stop, rest, and take shelter in this place. This shows us though a truth we must remember. You can feel secure but still not be. This army felt secure, but they weren’t at all from Gideon’s army. We too can find ourselves feeling secure in our sin. Thinking I’m fine, nothing is going to happen, no one will be hurt, this thing is actually good for me. Know that security you feel is false. When we allow sin to remain in our story it’s like leaving the back door unlocked at night. Anything and everything we don’t want in our story has access now. The only shelter we can run to and settle in to be secure is Jesus. He is able to protect and bless how we need while keeping the enemy out. There you can feel, and truly be, secure. Find your shelter in Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1791
- And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing. Judges 8:4 – Massive victory had been found by Gideon and his army so far, but the battle wasn’t fully over. While they had fought long and hard and were completely exhausted, they kept pursuing the enemy to fulfill the command God gave them. Let this be our posture when it comes to the things God has called us to do, to still be pursuing after His mission even when exhausted. One of my favorite Spurgeon quotes is this, “If you, dear brethren and sisters, will give yourselves wholly to God’s work, although you will never get tired of it, you will often get tired in it. If a man has never tired himself with working for God, I should think he never has done any work that was worth doing.” We see from scripture examples of those who chose to serve the Lord giving everything they had towards the Lord’s work. Let us not then today be fooled into thinking that if we are tired in the course of serving the Lord that something is wrong. Do you think the priests ever became tired when carrying the ark? Do you think Paul ever got tired through all his beatings and imprisonments? Do you think Jesus ever got tired carrying the cross? Let us then serve the Lord today completely, even to the point of exhaustion, and then let’s keep pursuing the Lord from there, relying on God for each breath and ounce of strength we need to keep serving Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2864
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