Who Will Go?

Throughout our series on the book of Judges, "Part-time Heroes: Ordinary People, Extraordinary God" we will be offering a daily devotional here on the blog that corresponds with the sermon from the previous Sunday.  This past Sunday we did an overview/intro of Judges from chapter 2 of Judges, so this week the devotions will come from the first couple of chapters.

Day 1 – Read Judges 1:1

Think of someone that you have followed.  Maybe it was a parent, perhaps a coach, maybe a mentor or boss.  We have all followed someone or probably even multiple people at various stages of our life.  But what happens when we are no longer able to follow that person?  Hopefully, the person we’ve been following has prepared us to no longer need them; they have readied us to act on our own behalf knowing that some day we wouldn’t have them to rely on.  The Israelites had been following Joshua and had been beneficiaries of his victories against the Canaanites.  However, part of what God had told the Israelites to do, occupy Canaanite territory, hadn’t yet been completed and their leader was now gone.  What were they to do?  Had Joshua prepared them to face the challenges ahead or had he done everything for them?  We all can and should learn from others, but, there is a difference between following to learn and following so we don’t have to do anything ourselves.  The same is true in our relationship with Jesus.  It is easy to allow others to go before God for us (a pastor, spouse, friend, parent, etc.); they pray, they read/study and then summarize it and wrap it up in a bow for us while we don’t do anything on our own other than listen to them.  While those things can be helpful in guiding us and teaching us, God wants us to come to Him directly, to pursue Him directly.  Go to God now and ask Him to lead you and show you where He wants you to pursue Him more deeply.