Thursday Encouragement #145

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement:

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him.

Judges 17:6 CSB

Chapter 17 and 18 in the book of Judges take place only two generations from Moses. One of the men doing what was right in his own eyes at this time is a man named Jonathan. This Jonathan is the grandson of Moses. And this man made himself a priest for the tribe of Dan and led the people in worshiping false gods and idols. Jonathan broke so many of God’s commands (you know, the commands his grandfather wrote down) I don’t even know where to begin.

I have to say that I’m not very encouraged by the book of Judges. It’s been rather difficult studying this book. If I’m completely honest, I’m disgusted by the people. They are hedonistic and barbaric. They are completely self-focused. And, they are dirty. Sin is soaked into the pages of Judges for sure.

By this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Isn’t this supposed to be an encouragement post? I don’t feel the encouragement!” And, you are totally correct. This isn’t encouraging. It’s actually quite depressing. I mean, I’m being super judgmental right now. What a stinker I am to judge these people who lived a long time ago.

But I think that maybe that is the point of Judges — that we judge.

Obviously, not in a superior way. I am no better than anybody else. I am a sinner myself. And so are you, dear reader.

So then what do I mean by judge?

I keep coming back to the phrase, “there was no king in Israel” from verse 6. It’s a truly heartbreaking phrase and it’s a total cop-out. Israel had a King! Remember, Judges 17 is TWO generations from Moses. I’m guessing that Moses knew his grandson. He maybe even knew his great-grandsons. This means people knew who God was during Judges 17. They knew what God had done for the Israelites in Egypt and in the Wilderness. These were NOT ignorant people. But they were people who clearly did NOT have a relationship with God. The same spirit that allowed the Israelites to build the golden calf in the Wilderness was the same spirit flowing through the people of Israel during Moses’s grandson’s time. How devastating this must have been to God.

I don’t want to be like this. So, I look at Judges as a whole. I look at all the characteristics of the people who constantly strayed from Yahweh, and I JUDGE myself. How am I like Jonathan, Moses’s grandson? How am I like Samson? How am I like Micah? Am I trying to honor God as HE commands or am I trying to honor God my way? Am I using the silly excuse, “but there is no king to follow, so I’ll just do things my way”?

The book of Judges is messy. But I believe it is a book that we can learn a lot from. It’s a mirror held up to us all where we can analyze our relationships with God and see where we are lacking and where we need to go to God for His forgiveness and grace. It’s a book that can help us all see what not to do, and in that we know how to relationship with God. In this way, I believe Judges may be one of the most encouraging books in the Bible because it illustrates just how much grace and mercy and love God has towards His kids.

Dear readers, today we have a choice: do we act like those in Judges, or do we learn from their mistakes? If we want to finish our races well let’s learn from those who came before us because one day we all will see Jesus face to face, and I’d like to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes

Andi @ Radiant Light

Leslie @ Words of Hope

Claudia @ Claudia Moser

Keneesha @ Women Loving God’s Way