Sat 6.6 – Standing in middle of the battle

Today’s Readings: Colossians 3.5-9; Judges 7

Just as we looked at how Israel conquering the Canaan Land (promised land) is a picture of the New Testament believer in Christ conquering their flesh in this life to live the abundant life of John 10.10.

Today, we will look at another example of that from the history of Israel’s continued battles over the land of promise and abundance…let’s look at Gideon and this battle with Midian.

“Midian” means “strife” or “contention” and is waging war against the Israelites who are CURRENTLY OCCUPYING the promised land. This would picture how the “strife” and “contention” of our lives can come against us in an effort to re-claim the promised land of abundant living back to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Check out how Gideon conquers this enemy in 7.20-21, and see how it is an incredible picture of how we are to conquer our enemy of the flesh that causes us STRIFE and CONTENTION! (which only come by PRIDE, see Pro 13.10)

1. They blew the trumpets. We are going to have to speak and hear the truth of the Word of God if we are ever going to truly gain victory over the flesh and the STRIFE that it causes us. (Rom 10.17)
2. They broke their pitchers. We are to be broken, clay, vessels before God if we are to be used in His service and not in the service of our own flesh. (2 Tim 2.21, 2 Cor 4.7)
3. They held the lamp in their hand. Obviously the Word needs to be our Light (Ps 119.105) and we are to let OUR light shine to all (Matt 5.16)
4. They stood still, and let the Lord do the fighting. We have talked about how God doesn’t want our flesh to serve Him, but He wants us to allow Him to serve in and through us! The same truth in this battle is true of our lives today, not matter the battle, the Lord is the One who is going to have to fight for us, we just STAND (Eph 6.10-14)

Spend some time reflecting on this truth today. Ask God to help you overcome your enemies of strife and contention! May today be a day when you do not fight your battles, but you allow the Lord to fight FOR you as you simply STAND still! (Ps 46.10)

Thu 6.4 – Self Illustrated

Today’s Readings: Colossians 3.5-9; Judges 1-2

I want to take up our Devotions today right where we left off last night. We were crunched for time, so I just want to take time to expound on what God was teaching us in the ILLUSTRATION about the Flesh from the story of the Children of Israel in Judges. (guys, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to check out the verse references to understand the strength of these passages of scripture as we spend time in the Word today.)

A COUPLE THINGS YOU NEED TO KEEP IN MIND FOR THIS…

• Don’t forget that the land of Cannan (the promised land) is a picture of the Abundant Christian Life. We see that by comparing Exo 3.8 & John 10.10 – God did not bring the children of Israel out of Egypt just to bring them out…it was to bring then INTO the promised land, where He was going to dwell with them! In the same way God didn’t bring us out of the bondage of Sin and the World (Egypt) just to save us, but to bring us INTO an ABUNDANT LIFE in the place where He wants to DWELL WITH US!
• Don’t forget that the ENEMY OF GOD in this situation is the inhabitants of the land, those who currently control the ground where God wants to dwell with His people. This is a picture of how our FLESH is currently on the throne of our lives (Eph 4.22) and is thus the enemy of God (Gal 5.17), and the earthly ways of the flesh are what we will have to battle as the Israelites had to battle those who were already dwelling in the land of God.

NOW FOR THE BACKGROUND OF THE ILLUSTRATION…

• We noticed last night in Exo 23.27-32 that God said NOT to allow anyone to remain alive when they come into the promised land. He said for the children of God to DESTROY everyone when they get in there.
  • The same principal is true as we conquer this ground (our bodies – 2 Cor 5.1 & Gen 2.7), we must COMPLETELY DESTROY all of it’s NATURAL inhabitants – that is LUSTS! (Eph 2.3)
• Then, we saw that in Deut 7.1-10, God specifically repeats the instruction RIGHT BEFORE THEY BEGIN TO TAKE OVER THE PROMISED LAND, and in this passage He specifically says to SHOW NO MERCY to the inhabitants. People would surely be begging for their lives, trying to make deals with the Israelites and bargaining with them for survival.
  • Again, the principal repeats itself with the life of the believer – as we begin to realize and live in the PUTTING OFF of our flesh, and we begin to KILL it (MORTIFY OUR MEMBERS)what is going to happen is that our members are going to BEG, PLEAD, BARGAIN, and try to make DEALS with our Spiritual self in order to SURVIVE! And THAT is NOT what God said to do with the inhabitants of the LAND! This is where we run the risk of becoming PARTIALLY OBEDIENT, and thus DISOBEDIENT.
• And Lastly we saw from Psalm 106.34-40 that God said He ABHORRED the people who disobeyed His command, and did not completely wipe out the inhabitants of the land (our flesh).
  • Now, the reason for such strong language is because when they allowed the inhabitants of the land to remain, those inhabitants kept their false Gods with them…then they eventually bled those false systems of worship into the TRUE WORSHIP of THE TRUE GOD and thus led God’s people AWAY from HIM – Those inhabitants used DIECETFUL LUSTS to draw God’s people away from HIM, the very One who SAVED them out of EGYPT (SIN) to BE WITH HIM!!! No wonder he ABHORRED it. (I encourage you to look that word up on dictionary.com if you are not familiar with it’s meaning…and remember this is GOD who feels this way!!! WOW – so humbling.)

Spend some time dwelling on that today…then tomorrow we will pick up right here and keep going. So, tomorrow you will need to reference back to today’s devotion so that some of the things will make sense…

Pray that God will open your eyes to see wondrous things today from His Word (Ps 119.18), that He will give you strength and power to completely mortify your flesh as you go throughout this day! And I’ll see you here, tomorrow.