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Christian Devotional – February 8, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 8 We must be careful of our examples. Read Judges chapter 8. As we follow the story of Gideon, we see that he continues to have tremendous success and victory. God gives him wins in battle over the enemies that had been oppressing the children of Israel. However, Gideon was not perfect. Gideon chose two build a golden ephod, which became a source of idol worship for people. Then when he died, the people reverted back to the evil ways they followed before. We need Godly and Christian examples to follow. But one piece of the rollercoaster to avoid is putting too much faith in other…
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Christian Devotional – February 7, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 7 Get up! Read Judges chapter 7. To me, this chapter may be one of the funniest stories to read in the Bible. Here you have Gideon, a reluctant leader who really doesn’t want to be the one leading the people. He is terrified of his own shadow, it seems. He is trying to find an army and puts together 32,000 people. And then God eliminates 31,700 of them, leaving only 300 people to go attack. The first elimination question God gave him was telling people if they were afraid, they should go home. I almost wonder if Gideon wanted to go home at that point!…
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Christian Devotional – February 6, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 6 Divided allegiance. Read Judges chapter 6. Sometimes, when it comes to that spiritual rollercoaster up-and-down, we are our own worst enemy. The people of Israel had been experiencing peace, but then they started worship other gods along with the one true God. You see, if we are going to avoid the rollercoaster, we can’t have a divided allegiance. We must be following God, and God alone. When Gideon obeyed the command to destroy the temple of Baal, people were angry with him and upset. Do we defend the “extra” things in our lives? Do we try to keep them instead of allowing God to destroy…
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Christian Devotional – February 5, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 5 The importance of praise and thanksgiving. Read Judges chapter 5. The Israelites had just experienced an amazing victory. How do they respond? They sing a song of praise and thanks to God. This song was passed down through the generations and that is how we come to have record of it here. The people also had peace for 40 years after this. Do we remember and praise God for the victories that he has done in our life? Are we being diligent and intentional in our praise? God is worthy, of course. But, it is important to realize that this also keeps us focused on…
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Christian Devotional – February 4, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 4 Be obedient. Read Judges chapter 4. Ultimately, we must remember that God is the one that acts. Israel was in trouble. They had been disobedient and they had been taken over. Deborah was the judge at that time, and she told Barak that God would give them victory through him. He was nervous about leading the people and requested that she come with him. But as soon as he advanced on the enemy, God brought the victory. It does not say in the verse that Barak won the victory. It says that God brought the victory. When we are obedient to God, God moves. God…
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Christian Devotional – February 3, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 3 Obstacles. Read Judges chapter 3. When we think about the rollercoaster of ups and downs in our Christian life, we often see plenty of obstacles that are littering our path. I often tell God that it would be so much easier if He just removed the obstacles. I wouldn’t be up-and-down nearly as much if I didn’t have these things standing in my way. Here we see something similar with the people of Israel. We learn that God leaves the obstacles intentionally. There was purpose behind God’s decision to do not allow the people to completely wipe out those that were left from other nations.…
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Christian Devotional – February 2, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 2 Pass it on. Read Judges chapter 2. Interestingly, as we read through Judges chapter 2, we see that one of the biggest misses for the people of Israel is that they did not do a good job teaching the next generation to follow the Lord. They may have passed down the rules and the regulations, but they did not pass down the passion or the heart. People obeyed God only because they thought he would do things for them. They did not obey God because they loved him.That change in focus led multiple generations to rebel and decide not to obey God. When we follow…
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Christian Devotional – February 1, 2025
Avoiding the Rollercoaster, Day 1 Keep doing what your doing. Read Judges chapter 1. Now that we have spent time understanding our purpose, it makes sense to spend some time talking about how to keep that momentum going. You see, the people of Israel knew their purpose and they understood what God had for them to do. They just ended up riding a rollercoaster of obedience and disobedience. How do we keep from following in their footsteps? As we see from the start of this verse, yes, Israel’s leader had died. However, they continued doing what they were doing under Joshua. They sought the Lord first before they acted. They…
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Christian Devotional – January 31, 2025
Understanding Purpose, Day 22 Have life to the full. Read John 10:10. As we look at our last today in this series, we have seen just how tied together our purpose is with God’s purpose. In fact, we cannot understand our purpose without understanding God’s purpose. As we look today, we see that God indicates his goal is for us to have life to the full. His purpose in us begins with Jesus Christ and our relationship with him. As we understand that, we start to realize what it means to have a full life. We have a life that is under the direction of Jesus. We have a life…
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Christian Devotional – January 30, 2025
Understanding Purpose, Day 21 Desire and Purpose. Read 1 Chronicles 22:7. David had a desire. David loved the Lord and he wanted to build a temple for the Lord. However, that was not God’s purpose for David. God told David that his desire did not match God’s purpose. But God told him that his son would build the temple, so David did absolutely everything he could to get ready for fulfilling that purpose. He could have been frustrated and angry that God’s purpose for him did not include what he desired to do. Instead, he accepted God’s purpose and worked to make it possible for God’s purpose to be fulfilled…