Author: admin

When Gideon worshiped God, God’s way, fire was the result. There was no question about God being pleased with Gideon’s sacrifice. It was obvious.

How could you tell if God was pleased with your worship of Him? If there is no physical fire, does God have any other means of assuring you He is pleased with your reverence of Him? If you can’t measure God’s pleasure of your life, how can you know if your life and your actions are acceptable to God? Or, are you merely assuming that they are?

We may have grown far too accustomed to worshiping God without fire. We grow satisfied with humdrum church services rather than dynamic, breathtaking encounters with the living God. Once the angel of the Lord departed, Gideon knew full well He had just undergone a life changing divine encounter.

When was the last time you felt that way as you left church?

Don’t assume you know how to properly worship your God. Just because you enjoy your worship or feel comfortable with it, does not entail that God is equally content. We tend to think that God is far too easily satisfied. We can inadvertently behave as if He is some pitiful, elderly grandfather figure who is just grateful that someone chose to stop by to visit Him.

He is not. He is God. It is not enough that we worship God; the manner in which we worship Him is also critical. It is all too possible to worship God casually, carelessly, or capriciously. We can be distracted and half-hearted. We can also give God far less than our best. While this might meet our sense of need to worship, it does not satisfy God.

Rather than being guided by our own likes and dislikes, we must seek God’s opinion on how we are to relate to Him. Only He can tell us if our worship is acceptable. Only He has the standard that matters.

God had specific instructions for Gideon. Anything less would have been inadequate. Perhaps God He has some particular behaviors He’d like to address with you as well.

“So” can be one of the most important two-letter words in our life. There is always a “so” after we hear from God. So, after Gideon heard a word from God, he responded immediately in obedience. Heaven always waits to see our response to His divine summons.

Some people choose to argue or enter into a prolonged debate with their Creator. Others agree with what they heard, but hesitate to take action.

Gideon not only responded immediately, he also acted vigorously. There was no food in the land, yet he offered a princely sacrifice. He might have excused his niggardliness due to poverty or hard times, but once Gideon heard from the Lord, he offered up the best that he had.

We often think of Gideon as being the “least” in his family. But God saw his heart and knew He had found a servant He could be pleased to use.

For all of Gideon’s weaknesses, he did have a heart that honored God. The moment it was clear that he had encountered God, Gideon’s immediate response was to worship.

In those moments when we face difficult circumstances or fierce opposition, we need to watch for the opportunity to have a worshipful encounter. It is often in the midst of our difficulties that we see God in ways we never had before.

If we become consumed with the task of obeying God, or if we immediately focus on the problems and difficulties, we may miss the opportunity to enjoy a powerful, fresh encounter with almighty God.

Gideon had just been given an extremely difficult and dangerous assignment. He might have become consumed with logistics. He might have had his mind racing with tasks that needed to be performed. But his immediate reaction was to take time to worship the One who had just spoken to him. Perhaps this glimpse into Gideon’s heart reveals why God chose to work through this fearful farmer in the first place.

One of the greatest challenges today for God’s people is that we do not know God as we should. His voice is unfamiliar to us. He speaks, but we are uncertain it is Him.

There are no shortcuts to knowing God. We must spend time with Him. We must learn what is on His heart. We must be still and listen.

Gideon was a member of God’s people, but he did not know God. When God initiated a powerful work that would free a nation from bondage, He first had to introduce Himself to His servant. Gideon may have believed in God, but he did not know Him.

Gideon’s question was not whether God could do what He said, but whether it was truly God speaking to him at all. Once he was certain he was hearing the divine voice, the timid farmer proceeded to obey.

We cannot afford to miss a word from God. There is too much at stake. Take time to familiarize yourself with His voice. Listen to Him. Observe how God dealt with others in the Bible. Prepare yourself for the word that is coming.

Imagine what the Church would be like today, if only His people had trusted Him.

The problem today is not the condition of unbelievers. They have always refused to believe or obey God. Nothing has changed. The problem is never God. He is just as powerful and willing to perform a great work as He has ever been. The one variable that always determines the extent to what God does is God’s people. Will we trust Him? Will we obey Him?

We spend far too much time and energy trying to explain to God why we cannot do what He told us, rather than immediately stepping forward and watching for a miracle. We claim that we serve a mighty God, but we live as if He is feeble and out of touch with the realities of our world.

We need to trust that God never asks us to do anything for which He is not fully prepared to make us successful. God can overcome any enemy. He can provide for our every need. His one great challenge is getting us to believe that.

The focus of our service for God can never be on us. It is never about us. When God asks us to do something, it is always about Him. It is His assignment, His provision, and His glory.

Yet when God gives us a task, we have a troubling tendency to talk more about ourselves than about the God who commissioned us. We immediately begin evaluating our strengths and weakness. We worry about the opposition. We fret about adequate resources. We anticipate people’s objections and criticisms. Our mind can review a thousand reasons why it will be difficult to impossible to do what God just said.

It is at this critical juncture in our life that our future spiritual growth and victory hinges. There are watershed moments in every Christian’s life where they either trust God and take a huge leap forward in their spiritual growth, or they wallow in worry and excuses and never experience what God intended to do in their life.

Has God been speaking to you about something? Are you trusting Him? Are you moving forward?

There will be times in your life that, if you did not know you were doing what God had asked you to, you would expect to experience certain failure. What God told Gideon to do was lethal. He would most certainly be killed. His own people would more than likely mock him or even kill him themselves. It was impossible. Gideon’s nation had been in abject bondage for seven years. Nothing had changed. The Midianites were just as powerful and fierce as they had always been. The Israelites were just as weak. The only difference was the call of God.

God did not promise He would provide Gideon’s men with the latest weaponry. He did not assure his fearful protege that he would have the best army or military tools. All God promised was that He would be with Gideon. The divine presence was worth far more than a division of chariots (or tanks).

This is why we must know when God has called us to a task. It may well be the only thing that sustains us when times become difficult. Do you know that what you are doing is something God called you to? Can you sense God’s presence with you as you do it?

We can be too quick to discount the presence of miracles in our life.

We read about God’s mighty power exercised in the lives of people who lived in biblical times. We study how God performed miracles throughout church history. Yet when it comes to our lives, we assume our time is different. Perhaps God doesn’t do that any more. Maybe we are so ordinary that we do not qualify for a miracle. When we do not expect a miracle, we do not experience one.

Gideon took the opportunity to ask God why He was no longer performing miracles on behalf of His people. The young farmer assumed the problem must lie with God. He would soon learn it did not. The problem with asking God a question is that you must be prepared for His answer. Because God is not working powerfully in your life, it does not mean that He cannot. It usually indicates that you are not in a place in your life where God is pleased to do a mighty work. It always takes longer for God to prepare His people for a mighty work than it takes for God to actually work a miracle.

We might well ask the same question Gideon asked so many centuries ago: God, why are you not working powerfully through my life?

Our focus is generally on our problems. It ought to be on God. As long as Gideon remained in a hole, dwelling on his enemies, his life would continue to experience defeat. Once God took control of the conversation, Gideon began to grasp the enormous possibilities for his life.

For Gideon, the key truth was that the Midianites were in the land. For the angel, the important truth was that God was with Gideon. Gideon was depressed. The angel was optimistic. When Gideon looked at himself, he saw a loser. When God looked at him, He saw a mighty warrior. Much of our success hinges on our perspective.

Have you ever considered the difference between what God sees in your life and what you see? Seek to elevate your view of yourself to God’s level! God is never content to view what you are today. He invariably looks at what you could become, with His help.

Never allow your past to define you. Let God’s call on your life, determine your identity.