Day 129, 7th January: Judges, John and Psalms
Holding Firm
Jimmy Dale, St Mark’s Church
Today’s readings
Judges 9:1-57
John 6:1-24
Psalm 58:1-11
So Joshua’s dead and Israel is without a king. Gideon has 70 boys who are due to govern Israel together. One of his sons, Abimelech, who’s mum had been Gideon’s concubine, was pretty low in the pecking order. A concubine was someone who lived with the man but without the rights of a wife (a legitimate ‘bit on the side’ so to speak) and as such Abimelech weighed in as 71st in line.
However this doesn’t sit well with Abimelech so he goes behind his brothers back and revolts with the people of Shechem behind him. Power goes to head and next thing we hear, he’s killed 69 of his brothers. Just the youngest, Jotham, survives by hiding. Abimelech is then made king, something Gideon has refused to do. Jotham gets all prophetic and as the chapter unfolds, we see this prophecy come to fruition with Abimelech getting more and more power mad until the people of Shechem rebel and Abimelech is finally killed in a humiliating way at the end of the chapter. I think if you take one thing from this, it comes in verse 23. Sometimes it can look really bleak, as if God is absent from a situation but as Romans states, God uses ALL things for good. We can take strength from the fact that God is never absent and always in control.
We see this again in the gospel reading, this well known Sunday school story, has so much power. If I asked to feed your church with a Mars bar, you’d tell me to jog on! This is 5,000, and that’s not including women and children! Next we read of the disciples caught in a storm but Jesus, walking on the water, comes to their rescue. We often brush past these stories with such familiarity. Next time you’re swimming, YOU try walking on water, see how far you get! Once again, we see that we have an all powerful God, in charge of every situation, nothing too difficult for him. This same God, we call father. How amazing is that!
Finally in the Psalm we see David, secure in the knowledge of who his God is and what he’s capable of. Like the OT passage, he is facing a bleak outlook but he holds firm to the fact he has a God that is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in complete control of everything.
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Today’s picture was taken by…
Rhianna Wood. Thanks Rhianna!
If you’d like to take your own picture to potentially be featured on the blog, then get your Soul Survivor Bible in One Year, and take a picture of yourself – and your Bible – at some interesting or colourful location. Then email it to us at editor@soulsurvivor.com.
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