Today’s Readings
Context
Judges 2 tells the history of Israel during the period of the Judges in advance. It was a vicious cycle of unfaithfulness and enslavement, then deliverance. When Israel departed from God and embraced the Canaanite gods, the one true God of heaven would give them over to slavery to serve their enemies. They would be oppressed by the people whose gods they served. When they were enslaved they would call out to God and in his love and grace he would send a deliverer, a judge to free Israel, lead them back to God and restore them. As long as the judge lived they would serve God but then when he was gone they returned gradually to the idolatry that caused their slavery and the cycle would repeat. Over and again it happened until Israel's moral condition descended.
But what we see in Judges 2, more even than the tendency of Israel to sin, is the amazing faithfulness of God to restore.
Devotional - More Faithful than My Unfaithfulness
Jesus told his disciples something that troubled them greatly. They were to forgive someone who sinned against them seventy-seven times (or seventy times seven - four hundred and ninety times). That many, they thought? Really? We have to forgive that many times? What they were forgetting was that they were simply responding to the amazing love and faithfulness of God.
Judges 2:18 tells us that God was moved by the groanings of Israel's sufferings - each and every time. The first time. The second. The third. The tenth. The two hundredth. Over and over again Israel turned from God to serve idols and brought trouble on themselves and over and over again God was faithful to hear their groaning, forgive them and restore them.
It is always dangerous to teach about God's faithful forgiveness because the wickedness of the human heart is moved to take God's holiness lightly. Why be careful? Why be holy? God will forgive me. We must never do such a silly, evil, thoughtless thing. Paul warns us in Romans 6 and 7 that we must never allow the grace of God to be an excuse for sin.
But hear this, my friend. You can never out-sin the love of God. You cannot put yourself beyond the forgiveness of Christ. The faithfulness of God is greater than the unfaithfulness of human beings and his amazing grace can always redeem, always restore, always forgive, and always renew. You may have messed up, fallen away, or blown your chance to be significant in God's kingdom. But the God of heaven is greater than your failure.
All you need to do is repent and return to him. He is willing to receive you into his heart and restore you. God is more faithful than you can imagine. This is a fundamental truth in God's kingdom. Everything is built not only on God's saving grace, but his sustaining grace and power.
Judges 2:18 tells us that God was moved by the groanings of Israel's sufferings - each and every time. The first time. The second. The third. The tenth. The two hundredth. Over and over again Israel turned from God to serve idols and brought trouble on themselves and over and over again God was faithful to hear their groaning, forgive them and restore them.
It is always dangerous to teach about God's faithful forgiveness because the wickedness of the human heart is moved to take God's holiness lightly. Why be careful? Why be holy? God will forgive me. We must never do such a silly, evil, thoughtless thing. Paul warns us in Romans 6 and 7 that we must never allow the grace of God to be an excuse for sin.
But hear this, my friend. You can never out-sin the love of God. You cannot put yourself beyond the forgiveness of Christ. The faithfulness of God is greater than the unfaithfulness of human beings and his amazing grace can always redeem, always restore, always forgive, and always renew. You may have messed up, fallen away, or blown your chance to be significant in God's kingdom. But the God of heaven is greater than your failure.
All you need to do is repent and return to him. He is willing to receive you into his heart and restore you. God is more faithful than you can imagine. This is a fundamental truth in God's kingdom. Everything is built not only on God's saving grace, but his sustaining grace and power.
Father, I thank you that your faithfulness is greater than my sin. Renew me and restore me.
Think and Pray
Do you need to come to God in repentance and seek his restoring power? Remember that he is serious about sin, that he disciplines his children, but that he is always willing to restore.
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