Daily Devotional for Monday, October 24 

Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Following God’s leadership, Gideon had taken three hundred men out of thirty-two thousand and won a great victory. Gideon and the Israelites never wanted to forget God’s great victory. 

The people had asked him, after the battle, to rule over them. “Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you” (Judges 8:22, 23). Gideon had told them to bring the jewelry from the spoils they had taken from the Midianite army, over a hundred thousand of them. He had decided to make an ephod, an object of respect to remind the people of the great victory God had given. 

God had given a commandment against the fashioning of graven images when he had appeared to the Israelites on the mountain at Mount Sinai. Maybe Gideon’s ephod was not a graven image but people from all over Israel came to Gideon’s hometown to pay it respect. Eventually, they came to worship it as if it, and Gideon, were the great saviors of the Midianite war. Gideon’s good intentions had become an idol. God never asked Gideon to make an ephod. God asked him to trust Him against the Midianites with just three hundred men. 

Good intentions are never enough. God is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12). God knows that there is only one pattern to follow and that is Jesus Christ. All He asks you to do is live like Jesus.

REFLECTION: Put your good intentions aside and simply do what Jesus Christ asked you to do.

David Thompson