Thurs.’s Devo - Endure Till the End

Read: Judges 1:1-2:9; Luke 21:29-22:13; Psalm 90:1-91:16 Joshua died after he had made sure everyone knew the boundaries of their land. Now, it was time to go in and take their inheritance. The Lord said that Judah was to go first and since Simeon’s territory was within Judah’s, they took Simeon with them to conquer their land. Then, the rest of the tribes went in and began to take their land. They had victory after victory, but also defeat after defeat because they failed to drive out all the inhabitants of the land. The tribe of Judah couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of the plains because of their iron chariots. The Benjamites couldn’t drive out the Jebusites in Jerusalem. Also, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan could not drive out the Canaanites from their land. Some of the tribes were able to put their enemies to work for them as their slaves. *** The angel of the Lord met them in Bochim and told them that he had brought them from Egypt and given them this land. He would never break his covenant with them, and they were never to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. He had told them to break down the altars of their enemies, but they had not done that, so now they would become snares to them and their gods would become a snare to them. The people wept before the Lord and presented sacrifices to him. *** After Joshua had released everyone to go conquer their land, he died. He was 110 years old. He was buried in his land of Ephraim. The people continued to follow the Lord until the elders who had outlived Joshua died. They were the last to have witnessed all the great works God had done for them. *** When God gives us a promise, we will always have to fight the demons guarding our promise. They might be fear, intimidation, lies, etc. We have to fight them to get to our promise. We don’t want to be like the Israelites who gave up before they got their total victory. Another lesson to be learned from what we read today is that if we don’t pass on the stories of what God has done for us to our next generation, they will not walk in the victories we walked in. Our witness should make them press on to have their own stories of what God did for them. *** In Luke, Jesus had been asked by his disciples what would be signs of the end. He used the fig tree as an example. They could look at them and see that summer was coming. In the same way, they would be able to tell it was getting close to the end when they begin to see all the things that he said would be signs. Everything he promised in his Word would be fulfilled. He encouraged them to stay sober and awake. *** Jesus taught everyday in the temple and would sleep on the Mount of Olives. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was near and everyone would be coming to Jerusalem for Passover. The chief priests and scribes were trying to plan how to kill Jesus, but feared the people. *** Satan entered into the heart of Judas Iscariot and he met with the chief priests and the scribes. He was given money to betray Jesus to them. In the meantime, Jesus was sending his disciples ahead of him to prepare the room where they would eat their last Passover together. *** Lord, help us to remember that we have a real enemy who wants to kill, steal and destroy. But, greater are You within us than this enemy in the world. May we rise up and defeat the enemies that come to take our inheritance from us. May we fight strong in you name and defeat his power. Help us to endure till the end.