Tuesday 1 Apr 2014

April 1: Judges 18:30-31

Key Verse: Judges 18:30
Then the children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

Devotion:
How important is history to you? I was unfortunate enough to have a history teacher who would make watching paint dry a more exciting prospect than going to his class. Needless to say I had problems with history and with his classes. But even though I did have issues in his class, I did like to hear about history and even began to enjoy it after moving to another class; a bit too late in the day for me to learn a couple of years of history in one term though…

History tells us all about what actually happened in the past and it is there, written down as faithfully as it can be so that we can learn from that past. It is there so we can take what has been learned and build on it in the future. But what happens when we don’t believe what is written down? Well that is like throwing away the instruction manual and trying to get to know everything by trial and error once again; it’s a lot of hard work and time that is wasted!

The children of Dan wanted more than just what was down in the scriptures; they wanted to be more important than they thought they were. One of our failing as a race is that we often think far too little of ourselves rather than remembering what God thinks of us by going back over what He has done in the past. When we do that we end up looking for something that will lift us up in the short term and that is most often vain things we seek. The Danites sought out something from the land they were taking rather than depending on what God had given them, ending up worshipping the local god of Micah the local priest.

You may think that they would have spotted the obvious: how could this god protect them when it could not even protect itself from being stolen! You may think that they should have known better by going back to the history and seeing what God Himself had done for them. You may think all manner of things should have changed their minds. But think first of all: what do you do when you get into trouble? Do you turn to God and accept what has happened or do you question God and look for a quick fix?

Points to Ponder:
Are you really trusting God?

Do you like quick fixes?