Love to hear from and know who is listening
I am sure you can recall a time when you were asked to do something that you really didn't want to do and you reluctantly said, I will do it but only on my terms. When my children were growing up they were masters of doing things on their terms. I could always tell when they wanted something because when I came home from work they would be doing some task that I normally couldn't get them do to without a great deal of persuasion. One of my favorite memories was when the girls first got their driving permit. They wanted to go cruising around town, but they couldn't do so without a parent or grandparent. They knew I would likely be busy doing something and they also knew that Joyce was a bit of a push over and a lot easier to talk into going cruising with them. What they were unaware of was that Joyce more sly then they realized. The girls would call Joyce after school and ask her if she would go cruising with them and let them drive. Joyce would then lay out her terms. She would tell them that she would go cruising with them but they would have to clean the house, do the dishes, wash the laundry or some other household chore she needed done before she would go cruising with them. It was amazing how many things she could get them to do all just so they could drive around town for a couple hours. Isn't this how we treat God at times?
Negotiating with God is something we are all tempted to do and most of us have at some point. Even people who claim to not believe in God find themselves doing this. God, if you get me out of this I will go to church! God, help me win the lottery, and I will triple tithe. Sound familiar? In Judges Chapter 11, the bible tells us about Jephthah. Jephthah’s mother had taken him to live in another nation where the people worshiped false gods. The Ammonites, declared war on the Israelites and the leaders of Gilead, where Jephthah was from, came to him and asked him to lead their army into war. The Bible says God was with him to accomplish this task. Jephthah prepared to attack the Ammonites, but before the battle, he made a vow to the Lord that if God would give him the victory, he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house to meet him. Jephthah won the battle and returned home to be greeted by his only child, his daughter.
Judges 11: 32-34 NIV Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. 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.
This is not a story about the death of an innocent child, but how catastrophic a skewed view of God can really be. What Jephthah ultimately wanted was God’s help. He knew that victory in the battle he was facing would require divine intervention. We all face challenges that we know are too big for us to handle on our own. Deep down we know that we need God’s help to do what’s in front of us, but it’s how we seek that help that’s the issue. Jephthah chose to barter. He thought God’s favor required him to make a deal. When we make God’s favor about what we can do for Him rather than what He has done for us, we put a price tag on His grace, which in the end, only cheapens it. God’s favor is not based on what we can offer Him. Whenever God’s saving power is at work in our lives, it’s never because we made a deal God couldn’t refuse.
Ephesians 2: 8-9 NIV For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so tha
