April 29

Judges 9:22-10:18, Luke 24:13-53, Psalm 100:1-5, Proverbs 14:11-12 



Pray: Father, help us today to see Jesus on every page of the Bible and may our hearts burn within us just as the two men on the road to Emmaus were pricked at the heart as Jesus revealed Himself to them through the scriptures, Amen.

Read: No great deeds of valor are recorded for either Tola or Jair, but they gave the nation forty-five years of peace. No foreign invaders are named, so these two judges served by solving the internal problems in the nation of Israel. These two seemed to be administrators rather than generals and God knows that at certain times you need both. When there are no battles to fight or trials to overcome, we sometimes take our blessings for granted, which can lead to laziness and sin. The people forgot God again and worshiped the gods of the enemy, and God had to punish them by an invasion by the Ammonites. The confession in verse 10 of chapter 10 seems insincere and only because of the suffering. It wasn’t until verse 15 when it is also followed by repentance that it moves from regret to true confession of the heart.

Edify: Jesus appearing to the men of the road to Emmaus is one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible. I love that these men tell Jesus about Jesus. Just imagine, the first two men to share the Gospel with Jesus! But what really makes this passage great is that Jesus shares with the two men from the Old Testament all about Himself and how all that was written before pointed to Him!

Practice: I hope we can read our Old Testament passages with a Gospel lens. Looking for Jesus to reveal Himself just as He showed Himself to the disciples, beginning with Moses and ALL the prophets.

April 28

Judges 8:18-9:21, Luke 23:44-24:12, Psalm 99:1-9, Proverbs 14:9-10 



Pray: Lord, You sit enthroned in heaven in all Your glory and holiness! You are exalted over all the peoples, may we praise Your great and awesome name! You are our great King and in Your might You love justice. May we worship at Your feet today, Amen.

Read: Gideon was a leader called of God, but Abimelech appointed himself and murdered his own brothers to become the leader. Absalom and Adonijah would make this same mistake and pay for it dearly. Jotham’s parable reveals that there is a price to pay for true leadership. Others had paid the price for Abimelech to rule, but he had sacrificed nothing on his own. A true leader must serve the people. But if good men and women will not pay the price and lead well, we will always get men like Abimelech. Abimelech’s sins eventually caught up with him, but he certainly did a lot of damage to his family and his people first.

Edify: I don’t believe there is a more powerful passage in all of scripture than to read of the resurrection of Jesus. It was too amazing for the disciples to even comprehend and when the women tell them, the scriptures tell us that they thought it was an idle tale. They soon realized that this was no joke at all and that Jesus had risen from the dead!

Practice: Let us live today remembering that our God is alive and not dead. He has risen and so have we from the old life of sin and death. Praise be to God!

April 27

Judges 7:1-8:17, Luke 23:13-43, Psalm 97:1-98:9, Proverbs 14:7-8 



Pray: God, we never know when You are using the every day things of life to test our faith. The men in Gideon’s army were tested by the way they drank water. Lord, help us to be on guard so that when we are tested we will remain faithful to You. Amen.

Read: Imagine 32,000 Israelites facing 135,000 Midianites, talk about being outnumbered. This is exactly the kind of situation that the Lord uses to glorify His Name. When God is on your side the size of the enemy doesn’t matter. The only true enemy was in the hearts of Gideon’s army. So God cut down their numbers even more from 10,000 to 300, so that the army had to trust completely in God. When God strips away those things in our life that we are trusting in for our safety or even for our prosperity, it’s not to make us poor or to put us in danger but to strengthen our faith in God.

Edify: There is so much we can be encouraged by as we read of the loving sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. One moment that sticks out to me is that thief next to Jesus seeking to be saved. This man is the perfect example for us that our works will not save us. There was nothing this man could ever do to earn righteousness with Jesus. His hands and feet were literally nailed to a cross and yet Jesus tells the man “today you will be with me in paradise.” The grace of God is truly a gift!

Practice: Join me in seeking to be fully aware of opportunities for our faith to be tested just like Gideon’s men, that we might be faithful even in the small things each day.

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!

April 25

Judges 4:1-5:31, Luke 22:35-53, Psalm 94:1-23, Proverbs 14:3-4



Pray: Lord, I love the prayer of the Psalmist today “When I thought, my foot slips, your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” Thank You Father that You watch our every step and You keep our feet on solid ground. Amen.

Read: In today’s Old Testament reading from Judges we see an interesting story of how the commander of the Canaanite army Sisera came to an unlikely death. He went into a tent owned by Jael the wife of Heber and while he was laying in the tent Jael took a tent peg and drove it into his head! Ouch! Deborah who was the prophetess and Judge over Israel at that time had heard from the Lord that Sisera would be delivered into the hands of the Israelites, they just didn’t know the way that it would happen. Often times we are asked to trust the Lord even if we don’t know the way the Lord will work on our behalf, no matter how strange it may be.

Edify: Even Jesus, when facing difficulty knelt down and prayed. He encouraged His disciples to pray that they not enter into temptation and then we read that He prayed with such intensity and agony that great drops of blood fell from Him as He sweat. Jesus modeled the passion and intensity in which we ought to pray to the Father. When we are facing trials that seem unbearable our only hope is to pray earnestly to a loving Father that hears our prayers!

Practice: Our practice should be to remember to go to the Father in prayer in every situation remembering that we are to pray with passion and intensity and not get caught up in the routine that we can sometimes turn our prayers into.

April 24

Judges 2:10-3:31, Luke 22:14-34, Psalm 92:1-93:5, Proverbs 14:1-2



Pray: Lord, as we read about the judges and how you raised up men and women in whom the Spirit of Lord was strong, we pray that we would not so quickly forget You and seek after false gods. The judges of Israel were an example of Your mercy and steadfast love despite the disobedience of the Israelites. I pray we seek You today for Your unfailing love and mercy towards us in Christ.

Read: In our New Testament reading we see the institution of the Lord’s Supper and the dispute that followed by the disciples. In a beautiful and yet common way, Jesus showed His disciples how He would suffer and die for their sins. He used simple bread and wine to point them to His body and blood that would forever be an atoning sacrifice. Yet, we see the disciples arguing over which of them would be considered greatest in His kingdom. Jesus reminds them that in His kingdom the greatest is the one who serves.

Edify: Psalm 92 reminds us that it is good to give thanks to God. It tells us that we should declare His steadfast love in the morning and His faithfulness by night. Many times in scripture it reminds us to rise early or to wake up giving praise to God. Then we are called to seek Him throughout our day and at last when we lay our heads down at night to sleep yet again praise God.

Practice: There is much in these verses to put into practice today. We see Jesus reminding His disciples that to be great we must serve and not seek titles and rank. In Psalms we are reminded to give thanks to God throughout our day and Judges reminds us not to forget the faithfulness of God towards His people.

April 23

Judges 1:1-2:9, Luke 21:29-22:13, Psalm 90:1-91:16, Proverbs 13:24-25



Pray: Lord, I want to love my children. Part of loving them is disciplining them. Help me to get over anger before I get into discipline. Help me to pray through before saying or doing something I regret. Help me to communicate to my children just how much I care!

Read: Proverbs 13:24 says those that spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them. Sometimes our children seem out of control. We must be extra careful though when disciplining them that we are not out of control.

Edify: There is a lot of debate in Christian circles about “spanking children” as a form of discipline. But regardless of how we discipline our children we know that if we love them we discipline them and if we hate them we don’t. But before disciplining our children we must deal with anger within ourselves. We must not discipline when we are angry! One more time…we must not discipline when we are angry! My dad used to say to me, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” I didn’t believe him for even a minute until one time I saw tears rolling down his cheek as he disciplined me.

Practice: When a child acts up we react…sometimes badly and sometimes quickly. Find your easy chair and pray or hide yourself away in your bedroom and pray. Cool off before you speak to your child or discipline him. Be sure your heart is right. Be sure you are filled with compassion and concern and not filled with rage and anger.