Wednesday, March 11, 2009

"The Lord is with you, mighty warrior"

I go to Gideon as a man. I go in my frailty, my brokenness, my humanity... I go as a man. Yet, I go as a man, with my Lord, expecting to meet my Lord. I go with the "perfect love" Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5:43-48, "Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect". I go with the love Paul spoke of in Romans 12:9-21 "Love must be sincere". I go with the love Augustine spoke of when he said, "Love, and do as you want".
The power of the Lord is with me in that love.
The Lord sees me and calls me by a new name, "Mighty Warrior".
I fear not my weakness, for God is with me.
I go in the strength I have, for God sends me.
I build an alter to the Lord and it shall be called "The Lord is Peace".

Judges 6:11-24
11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
13 "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
14 The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?"
15 "But Lord, " Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
16 The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."
17 Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you." And the LORD said, "I will wait until you return."
19 Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so. 21 With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!"
23 But the LORD said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die." 24 So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace.

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