God is on the throne!
Judges chapter 12.
The desire for power and fame or being envious and jealous of others is destructive. The Ephraimites couldn't leave well enough alone when Jephthah had victory over the Ammonites. The Ephraimites felt they had to go to war against Jephthah and ended up losing 42,000 men.
We struggle to be happy over other people's victories or blessings. I think the real struggle is we don't recognize who we really are in Christ. If we really saw how valuable and significant we were in Christ, if we really saw the beauty God has given us both inwardly and outwardly, we would not feel the need to bad-mouth or gossip against those we envy or “THINK” are so much better than us. We would be able to rejoice and be thankful for who God made in us. We would be thankful and rejoice for those serving around us. If we could do that we'd be complimenting others versus tearing down.
My challenge for us today is to think of that one person we envy or struggle with and pray for them blessings, then contact them, or when we see them next time, tell them something positive.
- Tell them how much we appreciate them.
- Compliment them on their gifts or abilities.
- Encourage them in some way.
The thing is, most everyone is always wishing they were someone else. We aren't content with who we are in Christ. We need to be encouraged by each other!
We have seen lots of judging so far in the Book of Judges, maybe too much judging! How sad that 42,000 men died over what I thought was a silly issue with behavior that seemed more like what you might expect to find among kids acting up on a school playground. I thought about how accents can come into play sometimes too like with Peter when he denied being a follower of Jesus and as we saw how pronunciation also played a factor here in this chapter.
I’ve been wanting to share an ApologetiX song, Judge somewhere while we are journeying through the Book of Judges and I think that it actually fits well for chapter 12. I’m sharing it here twice today. The first one was recorded live in a concert that features the keyboardist, Todd Waites as he shares his amazing testimony at the beginning of the video. May it be a blessing to you!
https://youtu.be/mV-A7WxQhX4
The second video below is also a parody of Jump and it includes the lyrics for the song.
https://youtu.be/UfVgimfNm4I
We have seen lots of judging so far in the Book of Judges, maybe too much judging! How sad that 42,000 men died over what I thought was a silly issue with behavior that seemed more like what you might expect to find among kids acting up on a school playground. I thought about how accents can come into play sometimes too like with Peter when he denied being a follower of Jesus and as we saw how pronunciation also played a factor here in this chapter.
I’ve been wanting to share an ApologetiX song, Judge somewhere while we are journeying through the Book of Judges and I think that it actually fits well for chapter 12. I’m sharing it here twice today. The first one was recorded live in a concert that features the keyboardist, Todd Waites as he shares his amazing testimony at the beginning of the video. May it be a blessing to you!
https://youtu.be/mV-A7WxQhX4
The second video below is also a parody of Jump and it includes the lyrics for the song.
https://youtu.be/UfVgimfNm4I