Good Thursday Morning Blog Family. I pray all of you are having a safe and blessed day in the Lord. I also pray that you have gone before the Father this morning for your instructions for today, which makes for a very blessed day. Thank You Jesus.
I was reading about a man in the Book of Judges that I did not remember reading before. I pretty much always come across something that I don’t remember ever reading and go to that scripture and it’s like reading it for the very first time. Anyway, as I was saying, this man’s name was Jephthah and his story was very interesting. In fact, it made me think about how people are quick to make God a promise if He does what they are asking Him to do. When and if God answers that prayer, do you keep your word to God and do what you promised you would do? Well, I posted the story of Jephthah below so that you could follow along in case you had not read it or like myself, don’t remember reading it.
Judges 11:29-40 reads, “29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites. 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.
34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
36 “My father,” she replied, “you have given your word to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised, now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request,” she said. “Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry.”
38 “You may go,” he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin.
From this comes the Israelite tradition 40 that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
I am sure that was a very hard vow for him to keep, to sacrifice his only child. Even after sharing with his daughter, she agreed that he must keep his vow to God. That was amazing, because not only did Jephthah keep his vow he made to God, his daughter accepted it. Now, it wasn’t even that God asked him to do this, he made this vow on his own because of what he wanted God to do for him. He was a man of his word. Wow, how many parents and children today would have kept that promise? In my opinion probably not many. This is why you should be very careful what you tell God you will do, in order to get something from Him. You may just be talking, God is listening.
When we go to God in prayer and ask for things or for Him to do things for us, He never said we had to promise to do something for Him in return. Although if you take it upon yourself to make promises to God, please be a person of your word and keep them. The only thing He expects from us is to believe in Him, have faith and trust in Him, love and accept His Son Jesus, accept the Holy Spirit, love and be obedient to Him and His Holy Word and spend time with Him. To love like Jesus loves and live like He tells us to, with a loving and forgiving heart, to be Christ like. That’s not a lot to ask of us for all that He has done for us and given to us. Stop and think about it, He gave so much for such little in return. God Bless 🙂
Prayer
Father God, we come to You this morning in the Mighty Name of Jesus, Your Son and our Lord and Savior. Giving You all of the praise, all of the glory and all of the honor that belongs to You. We just want to say thank You for everything that You do for us on a daily basis, for all things that You have already done and all of the things that You have promised to do in Your Holy Word. Thank You that we don’t have to make promises and vows as Jephthah did in order for You to answer our prayers. Thank You, Thank You and Thank You. We love You. Amen