APRIL 3, 2026

   “Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.” 

― Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy

JUDGES 10-11

29Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. 30And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

32Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 33He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

34When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”

36“My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”

38“You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.

From this comes the Israelite tradition 40that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.(11:29-40)

LUKE 9:1-36

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 

There are moments in Scripture that unsettle me, that don’t fit neatly into my understanding of God. The story of Jephthah and his daughter is one of those. It feels heavy, even disturbing. A man makes a vow, and the cost is devastating. It forces me to wrestle with the reality that not everything done in God’s name actually reflects His heart.

When I step back and look closer, I see that Jephthah’s vow was not something God required. It came from a place of fear and control, shaped by surrounding culture more than by trust. Even though God was with him, Jephthah still tried to secure the outcome on his own terms. He bargained instead of believing. And that attempt to control what only God holds led to tragic consequences.

That realization lands closer to home than I’d like. Following God does not automatically keep me from acting out of fear or making misguided decisions. I can still try to manage outcomes, to negotiate, to hold onto control instead of surrendering it. I can still confuse activity for faith, or effort for trust.

Jesus’ words in Luke cut through that. To follow Him means letting go of my own agenda daily. It means releasing the need to control outcomes and trusting that obedience is enough. It is not about striking deals with God or trying to secure blessings. It is about surrender. Trust without manipulation. Obedience without conditions.

Freedom in Christ is not the freedom to grasp or control, but the freedom to love and serve without fear. When I try to take control, I move away from that freedom. But when I surrender, I step into it.

13You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh^a ; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”^b 15If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

GALATIANS 5:13-15

APRIL 2, 2026

 “A proud man is always looking down on things and  

people; and, of course, as long as you are looking 
down, you cannot see something that is above you.”  

~ C.S. Lewis

JUDGES 8-9

22The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us from the hand of Midian.”

23But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” (8:22-23)

LUKE 8:22-56

38The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39“Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. 

JOURNAL

Gideon refuses to rule over the Israelites. Jesus heals the demon-possessed man, the woman bleeding and Jairus' daughter. 

Power and influence have a way of corrupting us.  This is precisely why Gideon refuses to be anointed King.  It is also why Christ continually pulls away and always instructs those he heals to praise God.  There is an insatiable danger of wanting to become all powerful and begin to  believe your own press clippings. Jesus has a day where he cures the incurable in various ways and yet in the end instructs people not to tell anyone. 

Ultimately the future Kings in Israel will deviate from this path of humility and will seek honor and therefore will deviate away from God. The deviation will lead them ultimately into slavery again. The lesson there is that humility always comes...in one way or another we will be forced to acknowledge our fallibility and weakness. Even David...as great as he was struggled with this very issue. Early on though he had a firm grasp that humility was the path...not honor and accolades. 

17“Far be it from me, Lord, to do this!” he said. “Is it 

not the blood of men who went at the risk of their 

lives?” And David would not drink it. 

2 SAMUEL 23:17

APRIL 1, 2026

 “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

― Viktor E. Frankl

JUDGES 6-7

11The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

13“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

14The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

15“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

16The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”(6:11-16)

LUKE 8:1-21

11“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

JOURNAL 

Gideon comes into power and leads Israel out of the predicament with the Midianites. Then in Luke Jesus confirms that it is the heart that really matters.

I absolutely love the story of Gideon...he is a nobody and yet God uses him, chooses him to lead a band of just 300 men to overcome tens of thousands. It is interesting that these two verses get paired together. Jesus' words confirm exactly what we see in Gideon. It is the heart that matters...The seed needs good soil. We must be the good soil to receive God's power and love in a way that produces fruit. 

I love that our God is a God of underdogs, I love that he continually uses the least to accomplish the greatest feats. The daily challenge in life is to see and truly understand the incredible opportunity that exists no matter our circumstance. The opportunity to live a life of purpose and joy and to share that life with others. That opportunity exists every single day and each moment of that day. To get caught up in the noise and weeds of life is the greatest threat to that purpose and joy. It all goes back to what is the desire of our hearts. If it is for anything other than obeying God and responding to the world with his power, love and discipline then we will not be the fertile soil and the fruit of the spirit will evade us. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

GALATIANS 5:22-23