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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Discovery!


Dr. Morris, my teacher, talked about the temptations of Jesus.

Do you know what every temptation is about?

To fully trust God or to take matters into your own hands.

Believe it or not, this same concept came up in my personal Bible reading.

Click on this link to read Samuel 4 , like I did.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I%20samuel%204&version=NIV

I love when God shows me something neat in several ways. It is like he has called my name and said, "Look at this".

Samuel 4 is where the Israelites go out to war with the Philistines. Someone gets this epiphany, "this big aha moment", or at least he thinks he does.

"Those philistines must have their gods with them. We have a real good luck charm! Why don't we go get the Ark? Then we will win."

Eli's son's come with the ark to the camp too. Everyone knows that the ark has "brought good luck before", so they give a big shout and the Philistines investigate all the noise.

The Philistines gather all their courage and best war strategies to beat this new challenge. After all, everyone has heard about the Famous "gods" of the Israelites!

30,000 Israelites die. Eli's sons are killed( just like God told Samuel!) Eli breaks his neck at the shocking news and dies. His daughter-in-law, who is in the most intense phase of child birth, learns the news of the lost battle and her husband's death, and gives birth immediately. As she dies, she never even sees her new son, but she names him Ichabod, "The Glory has departed from Israel".

That's temptation: The Israelites did not trust God to help them win the battle. They had "a better idea" and went to get the ark to use as a good luck charm.

The ark was special because it was the symbol of God's presence. It had no power by itself.

We need to trust God and wait for Him to solve all our woes and worrys. We don't have to come up with any really smart ideas to save ourselves. All we need to do is walk with Jesus all the days of our lives.








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