Judges 6:12 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!
Judges 6 begins with an angel talking to Gideon saying, “thou mighty man of valor!” However, in this passage Gideon isn’t feeling very valiant — he’s consumed with his circumstances — how poor his family is and how he’s the least of his fathers’ house. He doesn’t feel he’s done anything worthy of being called valiant, yet the angel still addresses him “mighty man of valor!”
Gideon is not the only one who struggles with feeling unvaliant, though, is he? Even the best of us struggle with feelings of failure and defeat. But we must remember that we are part of the Lord’s army — and in the Lord’s army, we do not depend upon our own strength. We depend upon the power of the Lord! We depend upon the victory that He has already won!
Imagine the countless thousands of saints like Gideon who have passed away before us and now sit in heaven’s glory where every tear is dried, and every wound is healed — who have already fought the battle of life and are calling down to us from heaven saying “Fellow Saint, you can get through this thing! Fight this battle — for we have fought these same battles in our lives and been rewarded with heaven’s glory! So fight through and we’ll see you soon beside us! March forward you mighty man and woman of valor!”
The Lord stands eagerly awaits our call. He wants us to walk in His power, not our own! Let’s give him our circumstances today and strive to rely on His strength to conquer them!
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
How to display the above article within the Worthy Suite WordPress Plugin.
[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Tonight begins the feast of Purim, which celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from one of many of Satan's attempts to purge them from the world. Mordechai gave Esther a great challenge then, "and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
While I was in the States, I read several stories about Ronald Reagan that made me appreciate him as a person and as a leader. But one amusing story really caught my attention and made me smile. When he was a young man, Reagan worked at a radio station and sometimes played records of sermons. His shift at the station was a one-man operation and so, on occasion, Ron would set the record playing and then sneak out for a cup of coffee. One day he got a call while he was at the coffee shop from the station's owner, ordering him back to the station, and then ... he received his termination notice. He'd returned to the station finding the record skipping at a particular point in the sermon...
Life can get so hectic sometimes -- we often try to do too many things at once. But when our schedule gets that hectic, we need to start investing in some quality time with the Lord. The operating word here is "investing".
In 2nd Samuel Chapter 9 we read of the story of King David and Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan and the grandson of the first king of Israel, King Saul. After Jonathan's death, David went forth to show kindness to Saul's house. Mephibosheth had become lame at the young age of five -- he had lived his entire life as a cripple.
The first man was called "Ah-dom", we know him as "Adam". The word used for "man", as in "mankind", in Genesis 1, is also the same word – "Ah-dom". "Ah-dom" is rooted in the three Hebrew letters, aleph-dalet-mem, and one of the Hebrew words for earth is "Adamah", which contains the same three letters, however it ends with the Hebrew letter "hay". "Adamah" means "red earth", or "red clay", and this word points to the natural earth elements, the "earth dust" that composed Adam’s body, and the body of every human being since. "Man" is "ah-dom", in a very real sense, "clay".
Yesterday, in our devotional I spoke of the two rains in Israel, the early rain and the latter rain. The prophet Joel speaks prophetically of these two rainy seasons in connection with the outpouring of God's spirit.
For much of the year, Israel receives little to no rain. The early rains ( "Yoreh") begin at the time of the Fall Feasts, September-October, and the "Latter Rain (“Malkosh”) concludes the rainy season around the time of the Spring festival of Passover.