{"id":4456,"date":"2022-12-26T15:13:12","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T21:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2022-12-26T15:13:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T21:13:12","slug":"devotional-on-judges-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-judges-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-1V1nFp-X7L4\/Xai9P5hZqpI\/AAAAAAABCJE\/rPIUqhP6S5866v5iupUNE33f4MMf_mkEQCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/P9259748.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Grand Canyon, AZ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Golden Ephod<br \/>\nJudges 8: Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown.<br \/>\nGideon and his army have won a great series of victories and now he returns home to a hero\u2019s welcome. When the people want to honor him he asks for some of the gold earrings that were taken from the slain enemy. One has to read between the lines a bit but it seems Gideon\u2019s intentions are good. He takes that gold and uses it in making a priestly garment called an \u201cephod.\u201d In the history of the Israelites the ephod was worn by the high priest. It appears that this ephod isn\u2019t intended to be worn; after all, it weighs around 100 pounds. Instead, it\u2019s put on display as a reminder of all the Lord has done for them through Gideon. If this understanding is accurate this fancy \u201creminder\u201d isn\u2019t all that bad. However, it isn\u2019t long before this object of remembrance becomes an object of worship. In fact, Gideon, himself, leads the way in bowing down before the Golden Ephod. How easy it is for us to elevate things to supreme importance while overlooking that which really matters. We church people debate music styles or building plans and worry about who will clean up after the potluck dinner (none of which are bad in themselves) while forgetting why we came to church in the first place. All the while, God is calling out to us, \u201cHere I am, over here.\u201d We miss his call for attention because we\u2019re busy buffing our Golden Ephod.<br \/>\nTake Away: Ultimately, it\u2019s all about the Lord and our relationship with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden Ephod Judges 8: Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown. Gideon and his army have won a great series of victories and now he returns home to a hero\u2019s welcome. When the people want to honor him he asks for some of the gold [&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":[137,396,581,863,1169],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456"}],"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=4456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14148,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions\/14148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}