Sunday, April 3, 2016

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”  ~ William G.T. Shedd

JUDGES 10-11

A son of a prostitute and a pack of scoundrels saves Israel...

11The Lord replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, 12the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites^c oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? 13But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. 14Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”

 1Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. 2Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.” 3So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.

4Some time later, when the Ammonites were fighting against Israel, 5the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6“Come,” they said, “be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites.”

7Jephthah said to them, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now, when you’re in trouble?” 

LUKE 9:1-36

Jesus defines the challenges of faith through a parable...

23Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

JOURNAL

God seems to always accomplish his objectives in ways that defy the traditions and preferences of man. Jephthah is scorned and sent away because of his mother. Yet he is exactly who is summoned to save Israel.  Jesus we know is not of proper pedigree and was born in a manger in a very questionable relationship.  Yet he is the Son of God and our Savior.  

This is comforting to know that God does not require social acceptance...often it is those that defy that acceptance that he calls upon to great missions.

6Who, being in very nature^a God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature^b of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8)