April 26

Judges 6:1-40, Luke 22:54-23:12, Psalm 95:1-96:13, Proverbs 14:5-6 

Pray: Lord, I pray that we will trust You without needing to “put out a fleece”. I pray that we will trust Your will without You having to verify. Lord, often I seek signs for reassurance and I recognize this as weak faith. May I take You at Your Word today and obey. Amen.

Read: Gideon was an unlikely candidate for being Judge in Israel much less to be in the Hebrews “hall of faith”. When God found Gideon he was hiding. When God spoke to him he raised problems instead of trusting God. It seems like as we read this chapter, one of Gideon’s favorite words was “if”. When Gideon starts to obey God, he worked at night and had to have repeated reassurances that God would do what He said He would. Nevertheless, God stuck with Gideon and was faithful to accomplish His plans.

Edify: Pilate wanted to get rid of Jesus as quickly as possible and really wanted nothing to do with Jesus. He ends up condemning an innocent man to death and freeing a guilty one. Herod wanted to see Jesus do a miracle! The evil king would make the Son of God into a jester for his entertainment. I wonder if we don’t subtly fall into the categories of either wanting nothing to do with Jesus or just wanting Jesus to do something for us. I pray we see Him rightly as our true Savior and Lord seeking to do His will and asking what we can do for Him!

Practice: Our Psalm tells us to shout to the Lord, I wonder when the last time it was that we literally yelled out in excitement over who Jesus is and what He has done for us. Let’s shout to the Lord this day!