Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Judges 6:20–24 (NIV)
The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”
But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
CONSIDER
If we might draw a word of encouragement from the story of Gideon thus far, it would be this: God chooses the unlikely to accomplish the impossible.
If we were to draw a second word of encouragement from today’s text, it would be this one: a change of life only begins with a change of heart.
It would seem that taking on one’s oppressive enemies would begin with a battle plan against them, the building of an army, and the development of some new battle strategy. In God’s kingdom, deliverance from enemies does not begin on the battlefield but in the heart. It does not begin by changing what is outside but what is inside.
The first step for Gideon to lead the people to deliverance from the Midianites was not an act of war but an act of worship. Gideon had to bring his own life from its own divided loyalties to the place of the undivided heart.
So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Gideon made peace with God. Gideon made the shift from believing in God to believing God. It would take some more reassurances, but here is where he crossed over.
So may I ask you the question? Have you crossed over? Have you moved from the passive place of believing in God and into the active faith of believing God?
PRAY
Father, we know our hearts are divided. We want to be wholeheartedly and undividedly yours. Jesus, we belong to you. So we pray in the Spirit with the psalmist for you to search us and know our hearts. Test us and know our anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting. In Jesus’s name, amen.
