Tues.’s Devo - Finishing Well

Read: Judges 1:1-2:9; Luke 21:29-22:13; Psalms 90:91;16; Proverbs 13:24-25
We begin Judges today which is a cycle of ups and downs with the children of Israel. It is the picture of a person’s life that walks an aisle to get saved yet never learns to walk in the spirit. It is painful to watch what they have to go through because they insist on doing what is “right in their own eyes”, but is evil from God’s perspective.
We sadly read the lists of tribes that didn’t drive out the inhabitants of their land so they allowed them to live among them. These inhabitants stand for addictions and iniquities in our own lives that we refuse to get rid of or let the Spirit of God help us get free of. At first they stayed as slaves, but eventually they were thorns in their sides that lead them to do the things they had hated before. Their gods were gods of pleasure and lusts which were hard to fight from a heart that was not totally God’s.
The angel of God spoke to them and told them that because they disobeyed him and refused to drive out the people of the land, he would not do it for them as he had wanted. He would never forsake his covenant with them but they would regret what they had done. The people responded with weeping but not repentance in action. They served God only until all the people who had seen the great things God had done for them had died.
How true that you cannot sustain a walk with the Lord on someone else’s experience. The children of Israel could not stay true to God based on what their elders had seen, they needed their own relationship with the Lord.
In Luke, Jesus gave them a hint to when the end was coming. It was the ripening of the fig tree. The fig tree is Israel, so when we see the Jewish nation start coming to the realization of Jesus as their Messiah, then we can know that it is getting close. Today we see individual Jews coming to salvation but I think Jesus is talking about the nation of Israel coming to the knowledge of their Messiah. We are not seeing that yet.
God had prepared everything for Jesus' last few days on earth. He arranged the room he would eat his last meal with his disciples and everything they would need for it. We can read this and see how God goes before us to prepare every good work he wants us to walk in.
Jesus spent much time in prayer on the Mount of Olives getting ready for his departure. He wanted to end well and finish his assignment.
Lord, may we walk with you consistently and in your Spirit.