"God's Relentless Faithfulness" February 22 Readings: Judges 1-5

  

Reading the Bible Chronologically in 2024

This year, instead of reading from Genesis to Revelation, we will read the Bible as the story flows, as it happened and was written. There are several plans out there and I have worked to combine them into a plan that lets the Bible tell its own story "as it happened." Remember, the Bible is inspired, but not in the order the books appear in our Bibles.  The Old Testament is approximately 3/4 of the Bible, but we will give more emphasis to the New Testament, spending half the year in the Old Testament and half in the New. 

Bible Readings: Judges 1-5

Background:  

Having divided up the tribal land, Israel failed to drive out the inhabitants as they were commanded to, and the result was a terrible cycle of spiritual drift, catastrophe, revival, and renewed drift. Chapter 2 explains the cycle and the rest of the book covers the stories of the judges that led Israel back to God. There are 12 judges but the book focuses on 7. Throughout the duration of this book, there is a downward moral spiral that results in Israel's lowest point in its history, in chapters 17-21. The good news is that as the book ends and Israel is at its lowest point it is about to enter its most glorious time in history. God is going to raise up King David to lead Israel to greatness.

God is great and good.

Daily Devotional: God's Relentless Faithfulness

Up and down, up and down, up and down. That is the story of Israel during the period of the judges. When Joshua died, Israel drifted into sin and as God had promised, he allowed them to be conquered by their enemies. They called out to God in their distress and time after time he sent another leader to call them to repentance and renewed obedience. God would deliver them from their oppressors and set them on a righteous path. Then, when the judge died, the people would depart from God and embrace idolatry again, leading to God's discipline and more oppression. Over and over the cycle repeated.

I have often wanted to take the time to track the time from the Exodus to the end of Malachi and determine how much of that time Israel spent walking in obedience to God and how much of it they were in sin. The time is sin is the majority - the only question is how great a majority it is. It might surprise us how seldom during that 1000 years Israel was actually serving the God who saved them from slavery in Egypt. Certainly, during the years the judges ruled Israel there were long periods of sin and brief times of revival.

It is a marker of the grace and faithfulness of God that he never gave up on Israel. In fact, he still has not. Scripture says that one day after they rejected his Son and continued to do so for at least 2000 years, he will restore them and build his kingdom around them!

God is faithful beyond anything we can imagine. He never gave up on Israel and he will never give up on us. He promises to never leave us or forsake us. We must never use his faithfulness as an excuse to sin, but we can rest in the truth that the God who was relentlessly faithful to Israel will be relentlessly faithful to you and to me.

Father, I thank you for being faithful to me every day. I fail. I sin. I let you down, but you have never let me down. 

 

Consider God's Word:

Thank God for his relentless faithfulness.
Think back on times that God has shown that faithfulness to you.
Is there a situation in your life in which you need to remember that faithfulness today?