{"id":4464,"date":"2022-12-30T15:42:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T21:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4464"},"modified":"2022-12-30T15:42:35","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T21:42:35","slug":"devotional-on-judges-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-judges-15\/","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\/-wB-nAny0Hnw\/Xazjha_PGHI\/AAAAAAABCKY\/AlabxqWNEtI8boFep7eqpBjinjrRYT8igCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/P9259752.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Grand Canyon, AZ<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Don\u2019t make stupid promises to God<br \/>\nJudges 11: I&#8217;ll give to God whatever comes out of the door of my house.<br \/>\nJephthah makes a stupid vow. As he leads Israel into battle against the Ammonites he promises God that, if he&#8217;s victorious, he&#8217;ll make an offering of the first thing to come out of the door of his house when he returns home. Now, the battle is won and as he returns home it\u2019s his own daughter who first comes out the door to greet him. Apparently, he keeps his stupid vow and offers her as a sacrifice. This is wrong on so many levels that it\u2019s hard to know where to start. For one thing, God doesn&#8217;t work this way. God does what is right because he\u2019s righteous. He doesn\u2019t play \u201clet\u2019s make a deal\u201d with us. Beyond that, God doesn&#8217;t want human sacrifices. In the history of the Israelites, only one time is such a demand given and that&#8217;s with Abraham and Isaac. Even in the dark ages of Judges every citizen of Israel knows the story; and they all know that God stops Abraham before one drop of Isaac&#8217;s blood is shed. Finally (although there&#8217;s more) just because we say something stupid to God doesn&#8217;t mean he wants us to do it. &#8220;God, if you make me well I\u2019ll be a preacher&#8221; might just get a response from God saying, &#8220;I\u2019m the One who calls preachers, not you! What makes you think I want the likes of you as a preacher in the first place?&#8221; I\u2019m to live in a genuine relationship with God, not one in which I\u2019m constantly trying to bargain with or manipulate him into getting what I want.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord doesn\u2019t want to make deals with us. Rather, he wants to connect with our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don\u2019t make stupid promises to God Judges 11: I&#8217;ll give to God whatever comes out of the door of my house. Jephthah makes a stupid vow. As he leads Israel into battle against the Ammonites he promises God that, if he&#8217;s victorious, he&#8217;ll make an offering of the first thing to come out of the [&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":[137,940,1138],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464"}],"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=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14155,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions\/14155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}