Israel's Lack of Gratitude to the Lord (Judges 10:1-5)

1/30/2010 8:07 AM

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY

 

My Worship Time                    Focus:  Israel’s lack of gratitude to the Lord

 

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Judges 10:1-5

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 ¶  Now after Abimelech died, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel; and he lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. 2  He judged Israel twenty-three years. Then he died and was buried in Shamir. 3  After him, Jair the Gileadite arose and judged Israel twenty-two years. 4  He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys, and they had thirty cities in the land of Gilead that are called Havvoth-jair to this day. 5  And Jair died and was buried in Kamon.”

            Nepotism is a new word that I learned this morning and it is seen in verse four where the thirty sons of Jair all judged a city, and nepotism means giving favor to a relative while in power, “favoritism shown by somebody in power to relatives and friends, especially in appointing them to good positions.”

            The people of Israel lived in peace for forty five years as seen in this section under the judges of Tola, who was from the tribe of Issachar, and Jair who was from Gilead, which was a trans-Jordan tribe.  The problem is that they were not thankful to the Lord for the peace that was given to them at this time.  Dr. Wiersbe writes:  “The essence of idolatry is enjoying God’s gifts but not being grateful to the Giver, and Israel was guilty.”  He goes on to quote Deut. 8:10:  “"When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.”  He points out that this should be a good practice for people after they eat a meal instead of praying before the meal.  I have heard that this occurred to some who lived under oppression in Russia.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  After loosing a great deal of money in an investment shortly after my retirement I realized that I was trusting in the gift that was given to me by the Lord instead of trusting in the Giver of that gift.  That surely was a wrong thing to do and now I am working on being content with what I have and trusting the Giver of all gifts.  I am not doing this perfectly, but am thankful for the reminder of this from this section of Scripture.  “Jas 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”  I wrote the following from my SD from August 28, 2003 concerning James 1:17:  “If I understand what Dr. Wiersbe says about this verse it could start out something like this:  Every gift that God gives us is perfect, and the way that He gives it to us is perfect, and He keeps on giving us gifts all of the time, even when we do not realize that He is giving them to us, and God is not like the moving of the planets and stars, for He never changes because He cannot change for worse because He is holy, and He cannot change for better because He is perfect.”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:

 

1. Be more thankful to the Giver of all gifts, especially for the wonder gift of salvation.  “I will praise the name of God with song And magnify Him with thanksgiving,” (Psalm 69:30).

 

1/30/2010 8:40 AM