Good morning Friends. Judges chapter 9.
In this chapter we see how the desire for power, particularly at any cost, is very destructive. Innocent people lost their lives in pursuit of it (70 brothers). The hunger for power blinded the value of life, even one's own Brothers. The desire for power caused the man and his followers to behave dishonorably. God got revenge!
We must value life and treat people honorably.
A group of people at a city invited me to a meeting so they could minister to the school. As a result of the meeting, I was asked to be the speaker. I was excited and honored. The next day, one of the leaders, who did not know me, took it in her own hands to elect a different speaker behind my back and then informed me that everything was taken care of and invited me to be the person of prayer instead. I felt I was not treated honorably.
I stated to the leader that I did not understand how she could change things after those in the meeting already made a decision. To make a long story short, we worked things out but I definitely felt Dishonored.
When I was invited back a month later to speak again, I found myself wanting to exclude the lady who changed things because of my lack of trust. My thoughts were leaning toward dishonoring this person, almost in a justifiable manner. The Lord convicted my heart that I need to maintain honor and pray for the individual.
Lord help me live out Romans 12:1-2 where we are to honor others above ourselves.
Brother killing brother. We still sadly see this happening today in many different ways as we live in a world that is full of sin and suffering from the consequences of sin. There are power struggles, racial strife, political divisions and more that people seem to constantly be fighting about. The world may offer answers, but the only real answer is Jesus. Just look at Romans 6:23.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Thanks Pastor Blair for sharing your story today about being dishonored. I feel like I can relate to that from experience in my life. I think the natural human response is to try to fight back in those situations, but God wants us to maintain honor by not handling it in our flesh, but to trust Him to do something better. It may still be difficult to interact with the one who may have tried to bring the dishonor, but I think the best thing to do is to have the situation and our hearts surrendered to God.
The ApologetiX song that I chose for today is The Sound Of Sirens, a parody of The Sound of Silence.
https://youtu.be/qSwaK1_VPVs
I notice when Jotham climbed to the top of the mountain and shouted out, he started with an olive tree. When that didn’t work out, he cried out to the fig tree. Then the vine and finally, the thorn bush.
The search for king in that scenario started with highest of hopes, an olive tree, and it was quickly compromised to what some might say is a last resort, the thorn bush.
How often do we compromise in our own lives? We may set high standards or high expectations, and as things change we begin to lower them. Is it our fault? Not always… but how much are we willing to compromise? Is it for the glory of God? Are we okay with the consequences of what compromising might be? Do we set out to harvest the olive tree and wind up in the shade of a Thornbush? If the answer is yes, what are we missing here? As I read through this chapter I just thought about how quickly Jotham was able to compromise on his king.