{"id":4446,"date":"2022-12-21T14:30:47","date_gmt":"2022-12-21T20:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4446"},"modified":"2022-12-21T14:30:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T20:30:47","slug":"devotional-on-judges-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-judges-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-IHn-x7PRXPw\/XaM42rQciMI\/AAAAAAABB_g\/Rj9dJBTNvzc2cQMODT_Ie5pMm0oNEI-DwCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/100_3321.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"901\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Monterrey Peninsula, CA<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGeneration to generation<br \/>\nJudges 5: God chose new leaders, who then fought at the gates.<br \/>\nFollowing the defeat of the oppressor Sisera we hear a duet being sung by Deborah and Barak, the two people instrumental in the victory that has been won.  It\u2019s a war song, all about how God fought for them and how he empowered them to do what needed to be done.  The book of Judges gives us history in 40 year or so chunks, so, while I earlier walked with Abraham year by year and traveled with the children of Israel in their wilderness journey at a much slower pace, each page of the book of Judges represents the rise and fall of an entire generation.  In this song, I find a description of how \u201cGod chose new leaders\u201d to fight for him in their generation.  While there\u2019s a lot of ugly stuff in this book of the Bible, I\u2019m reminded that God continues to be active in Israel.  Even though it\u2019s sometimes hard to spot, I see the golden thread of God\u2019s grace here.  A set of leaders fail and Israel plunges into the darkness of sin.  Then, the Lord graciously reaches down into that darkness and lifts a new leader to call his people back from the brink.  This is far from ideal.  It could and should be so much better.  Still, the grace and faithfulness of God shines like a beacon against this bleak backdrop of sin and failure.<br \/>\nTake Away: God\u2019s grace is seen in dark places.  It fact, it shines there, bringing both light and hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Generation to generation Judges 5: God chose new leaders, who then fought at the gates. Following the defeat of the oppressor Sisera we hear a duet being sung by Deborah and Barak, the two people instrumental in the victory that has been won. It\u2019s a war song, all about how God fought for them and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1511,7],"tags":[137,439,518,668],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14137,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions\/14137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}