So, I mentioned yesterday that I'm beginning to read daily in the book of Judges, and this morning I launched forth with chapter one. The first half of the chapter starts off on a positive note as, even after the death of Joshua, some of the tribes continue to gain territory in the Promised Land. (See one example in the post below.) But the second half of chapter one is not nearly as encouraging: it's simply a big list of territories that the Israelites failed to conquer - and we know from reading the rest of the Bible that this failure was what tripped them up and led them into idolatry, all throughout their history.
In some cases, they tolerated a compromise: instead of driving out the Canaanites or the Amorites, they allowed them to remain in the land and they turned them into their slaves, probably rationalising that this was an okay thing to do. We can do the same thing nowadays, coming up with "good reasons" for not getting rid of the things in our lives that are stumbling blocks for us and that prevent us from having complete victory.
We live as if life is a game of chance and that conquering is like winning that game: it may or may not happen, and we behave as if that's out of our control. When we don't have victory over something - like worry, anger, criticism or unbelief - we excuse it by saying, "That's just the way I am" - as if our disobedience somehow "couldn't be helped." That's what the tribes of Israel did and the whole book of Judges tells us of the consequences of that defeatist attitude.
Our modern society tries to brainwash us into thinking that tolerance is a virtue; if we don't champion a whole range of "alternative" lifestyles, we risk being accused of a hate crime. (But the Bible calls us to love people, not to tolerate them or their destructive lifestyles.)
And yet, at the same time, our society knows that tolerance can be a dangerous quality. When it comes to eradicating knife crime or violence against women, many police departments adopt a slogan of zero tolerance. They know that putting up with wrong behaviours is a recipe for disaster.
The same is true in our own lives. God hasn't called us to tolerance. When it comes to our bad habits, addictions and negative behaviour patterns, He is calling us, in contrast to the tribes of Israel, to be more than conquerors. (Romans 8: 37)
It's our choice.
In Judges 1: 14 - 15, we read the short account of a woman called Acsah, who was the daughter of Caleb. When the people of Israel were dividing up the territory in the promised land, it happened that Acsah and her husband were given land in the Negev, which was a dry, desert region.
So Acsah went directly to her father, one of the leaders of Israel, and made a special request: "As our land is in a dry place, please also give us springs of water." And her request was granted.
Sometimes in life we find ourselves going through dry and challenging seasons. It's good to remember that we can follow Acsah's example and go directly to our Father to ask for times of refreshing.
The Bible account tells us that Acsah and Othniel were given the "upper and lower springs." I don't know what that meant in their reality, but it made me think that, even in our hard times, we can trust God to refresh us in different ways: sometimes "from above," with encouragement that comes directly from Himself or from the Bible; and sometimes He will use other people to refresh and encourage us on our journey.
Are you in a dry season at the moment? Speak to your Father and ask Him to give you those springs of water.... and watch out for them, so that you don't miss them when they come.
Having filled the last page of my notebook yesterday, this morning I began writing in a new journal, and I also began reading a new book in the Bible: the Old Testament book of Judges.
I read my way through the book of Exodus earlier this year - which tells the story of how God brought one generation of Israelites out of terrible slavery in Egypt. More recently, I've been working through the book of Numbers; it tells of how that generation travelled for forty years in the wilderness and almost all of them died there. (Click here to read this blog post that I wrote last week about why they died in the desert instead of entering the Promised Land.)
The book of Joshua tells us the story of the next generation: how they conquered and settled in the land God had promised them. By the time we get to the book of Judges, we've moved on to read the life stories of a third and fourth and fifth generation.... and I was particularly struck by a one sentence description of the third generation. Judges 2: 10 says that, after Joshua's generation died, a new generation grew up who didn't acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things He had done for Israel. How sad! After all that God has done for His people, we now have another generation that is unfaithful and indifferent to Him.
If we were to ask people for a commentary on the previous generation, the contemporaries of Joshua and Caleb, many people might say that they were a generation who succeeded. In contrast to the Exodus generation, who rebelled against God and died in the wilderness, Joshua's generation were the ones who entered, conquered and settled in the promised land. That sounds a lot like success. It had been more than 450 years since a generation of their ancestors had lived in the land of Canaan.
But as the book of Judges begins, we realise that the previous generation had failed at the most basic of levels: they had failed to pass on a personal knowledge of God to the next generation, or to tell their kids about all the amazing things that God had done for them. And so in Judges 2: 10, we have a generation that not only knows nothing about what God has done in the past, they're a generation that doesn't even acknowledge Him in the present. They just do whatever seems right in their own eyes. (Judges 21: 25)
That's a very apt description of the generation we live in today, in the 21st Century. Whether we're talking about attitudes to marriage, abortion, or even gender, we have a generation who decides for themselves what is right or wrong, with no acknowledgement at all of the eternal truths of God's Word.
So, how do we measure success? In God's eyes, it's not about how many amazing exploits we did or about how famous we became. It's about whether we lived our lives in a way that showed others the reality of God and whether, after we've gone, the next generation continues loving, following and serving the Lord.
Success is measured by obedience, and failing to obey God's instructions to "pass on to the next generations" is perhaps one of the most tragic failures of all.
I just love it when God does something seemingly small and yet He shows impeccable timing.
Yesterday I was tidying up some tupperware containers in my kitchen cupboard and at the back of the cupboard I spotted one of those electric sandwich toasters. It's been there for about two years, but it's basically brand new; it's an appliance that I don't really use much, as I seldom have that kind of bread around. I decided to take it to the nearby YWAM centre, in case they would make better use of it there than I do.
As I was unpacking it in the dining room this morning, I heard a shriek of joy from a Brazilian staff member, "That's unbelievable," she said. "Yesterday I was trying to make a toasted sandwich in a frying pan and I found myself saying, "Lord, I wish I had one of those machines that I used to have back home."
It was fun to be able to say, "Take it, it's yours." Another little evidence of God's faithfulness and His sensitivity to even the smallest heart desires of His children.
Last week I wrote a couple of blog posts - from the book of Acts - about how it's possible to be born again into a new life with God... and then to live that new life without ever breaking free from your old ways of thinking. This week in my morning quiet times, I've seen a similar sort of thing happening in the Old Testament.
This morning, for example, I was reading in Numbers chapter 20, and the chapter heading in my Bible said, "A new generation." That was kind of intriguing, and reading further I discovered what prompted the Bible editors to give it that title. The chapter begins with the death of Moses' sister Miriam, and ends with the death of his brother Aaron.
Of course, this brother and sister were not the only ones to die in the wilderness. After the events of Numbers chapters 13 and 14, when the people rebelled against God and didn't believe He was big enough to give them victory in the Promised Land, God made a decision that no one over the age of 20 would enter and settle in the land; He told the people that they would wander for forty years in the desert, that most of them would die there, and that He would wait for a new generation to grow up and claim His promises of a land flowing with milk and honey.
It seems so sad. People like Moses, Miriam and Aaron had been part of the Exodus from Egypt, but they never got to the point of taking the Promised Land. That whole generation, with only a few exceptions, experienced the exhilaration of being set free, but they never really progressed to the lifestyle of living in freedom. And I suppose it's like that for many Christians today: they're "saved," but their attitudes, unbelief and old ways of thinking prevent them from entering into the fullness of what God has for them. Their whole Christian experience ends up being sort of second best, something less than what God would have wanted for them.
The case of Moses and Aaron is particularly sad. Each of them died on a mountain top in the desert (Aaron on Mount Horeb, pictured above, and Moses on Mount Nebo when they were so close to entering the Promised Land) because of what happened in Numbers chapter 20, when they disobeyed God's instructions about how to get drinking water from the rock for the people. The reason given in that chapter is that they didn't trust God enough and so they failed to demonstrate His holiness to others.
Aaron dies with dignity, on that mountain top in God's presence... and there's no doubt that those who have committed their lives to Christ will also be with the Lord when they die. But how sad if that mountain top is in the desert and they never go far enough to experience all of God's wonderful promises before they go to be with Him!
What a challenge that is to let go of our unbelief and our old ways of thinking, so that we can embrace the new life that God wants us to have.
Reading recently in Acts chapter 8, I was struck by the story of when Philip the evangelist met up with Simon the sorcerer. Simon is an example of the fact that people can make a commitment to Jesus and yet still be stuck in their old motivation or way of thinking. In Simon's case, that motivation was the desire to be highly thought of and to have a reputation for doing spectacular and supernatural things.
We're often hard on Simon, perhaps because of his background in black magic... but in fact, there are countless believers today who have come to Jesus and yet still live according to their old value system. There are those who overspend on clothes or technology and find their security in their own money. There are those who depend on their own intelligence and reasoning instead of leaning on what God has said. There are those who spend their lives in worry, instead of making the paradigm shift to trusting in God's goodness and care. These habit patterns are essentially no different to the way that Simon continued in the habit patterns and attitudes from his old lifestyle.
In what ways in my life do I need to become a "new creation" instead of being stuck in old ways?
As we saw in the post above, it can be hard for us to let go of the beliefs and habits of a lifetime. Many years after what happened with Simon in Acts chapter eight, we find another example of this with the early Christians in Acts chapter fifteen.
Among the Jewish believers in Jerusalem were some people who had grown up as Pharisees, and they carried that legalistic tendency over to their new found faith in Jesus. When they heard that many Gentiles were coming to faith, they wanted these new believers to be circumcised, just as the Jews were.
The debate became so emotionally charged, that a council of church leaders was convened in Jerusalem for the specific purpose of seeking God's wisdom on how to resolve this question. During the gathering, Peter gives testimony of how God is obviously welcoming and blessing Gentile believers, even pouring out the Holy Spirit upon them as He had previously done on the Jewish Christians. Peter argued that they would be "challenging God" if they attempted to burden the Gentile believers with human traditions and with laws that had historically been too heavy for the Hebrews to bear.
At the conclusion of the gathering, one of the church elders, James, makes a summary of the meetings and the decision taken. Referring to Peter's testimony and also to scripture itself, he says, "Let's not make it difficult for Gentiles who are turning to God." They identify just a few key principles from the scriptures - things like avoiding sexual immorality - and they pass on those things... but they are careful not to pass on all the "old ways of thinking," some of which are based more on human traditions than on Bible truth.
In the 21st Century, it would be so easy for us to do what James urges us not to do: making it difficult for new believers by insisting that they follow our old ways of doing things. Perhaps our habits and beliefs of a lifetime are to do with the sort of clothing that should be worn to church, about whether people can bring their children with them, about whether it's okay to clap when someone gives a testimony, or whether it's offensive to drink from a water bottle during the service... Often we don't even recognise that we are holding on to old customs and burdens that never came from God in the first place.
We're not talking about excusing sin. Let's not pretend that living with your common law partner or same sex spouse doesn't matter, for example. Let's not fail to make it clear that giving up our sin and embracing a holy lifestyle are still important in God's eyes...
... but let's remember that living a holy lifestyle is as much about giving up gossip as giving up smoking; as much about refraining from judging others as it is about refraining from getting drunk.
The message of Acts 15 is clear: let's not weigh down new believers with old burdens. Let's, instead, join the angels in rejoicing over every new believer that enters the family of God.
