Judges 6:11-40&7:1-25, “…The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor”
Judges 6:16, “And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man”, Our God is full of promises that He keeps, David reports God’s faithfulness in keeping promises.
In Psalm 37:25 he says, “I have been young and now I am old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread”, 2Corinthians 1:20, “For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God”. God promises Gideon to be with him and then He promises to help him defeat the Midianites. Let me make a point here, the promises of God can only be fulfilled if you stick with the plan. Jesus stuck with the plan by going to cross. At one point He desired that the cup of wrath of God would pass Him, nevertheless He said, “not my will but Your will be done”. By the time Jesus was done, He came out as One Man/God and the same is promised to Gideon if he stuck to the plan.
Willingness and promise requires a change for in verse 18 of Judges 6, “The he said to Him, “Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.” And He said, “I will wait until you come back”. Gideon has encountered with the truth, for the first time someone has told him something about himself he never knew, he has been promised God’s presence and victory, he is so blessed by what he hears that he cannot afford to lose the opportunity to be in the presence of the Lord. When you encounter with the truth like Gideon you can’t miss the opportunity of always wanting to be with the one who has revealed to you who you are, has promised to always be with you and has also promised victory. For Gideon his time of receiving ended now it was his time go give, he goes to the house to bring the best sacrifice to offer before the Angel of the Lord (the Lord). Human beings in general are selfish people it’s about us, about our gratification, about what I can gain out of it. We always love to be in the receiving end but to effectively walk with God, there is receiving and giving, Luke 6:38, “Give and it shall be given to you…”. Jesus was the Master yet He gave, God so loved the world that He gave and so can we. Sacrifice is giving up something for the sake of someone else. Hebrews 13:15, “By Him therefore let us offer sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name”, where you want to go will cost you time, availability, faithfulness, teaching, money, sleep, reaching out to the unlovely, washing all manner of feet. It will cost you to pray even fast.If it doesn’t cost you anything, I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice. Gideon goes and prepares a sacrifice brings it over and it’s presented to the Lord.
I thought that is all that he needed to do and all would be fine but there is more. But then Judges 6:25, “Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, “Takes your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal…”. Basically this means that now you got to bring down everything that is a hindrance to your move, things that are more important to you than God has to come down. If you’ve been worshipping a person, position, your money, your favorite game, they must come down. Gideon was not forced to bring them down, he was told and now the decision had to be his. Judges 6:26, “and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock in the proper arrangement”. It’s tough to bring down what you consider valuable to you. it’s scary even for Gideon but he knows that either now or never, he is scared of bringing that which they love but for the sake of his people, family, community, himself he is compelled to do it. What sacrifices have you made to walk effectively with God? what altars have you brought down and built that you know were not of God? Are you willing to change? and if so, what are you doing about to change? Who are you looking to. To finish, Blessings Ev
He Has Magnified His Word 