So many of us become stagnant because we are waiting for God to accomplish His will in us. Or we become burnt out because we work and work and work, throwing ourselves in different directions to see if we can feel a difference. Often, we either think it’s all up to us or all up to God. But we are...

It can be a dangerous thing to ignore the lessons of the past. Culture can begin to spiral into pointless immorality when proud and uninformed ideas reign. For me, specifically remembering the world’s origin and the history of God’s plan for man’s salvation is the most important, and we must teac...

The fact that Bible was not written for the good publicity of ancient Israel is very apparent when you get to the book of Judges. If anyone were trying to write a book of propaganda, they would steer away from most of the stories contained in this Biblical book. No, the Bible isn’t attempting to ...

"In our reading today, we see how God chooses the least likely man for the task. It’s amazing how the Bible records the truth of Israel’s history so that we can learn from the foul-ups, bleeps, and blunders of those who have come before us. A common human blunder has always been leadership. Even ...

"God has revealed Himself and His ways in the pages of the Bible. It takes time and work to uncover these truths and understand what God is saying, but the medium, that it is a book with traceable history, allows us to be confident in its unchanging nature and gives us time
to think about it and ...

"The people living in the Promised Land created a major mess for themselves and made it worse when they attempted to fix it on their own. In fact, we see many examples in the book of Judges of them doing exactly what the words of God told them not to do. By the time we get to Judges 21, we’re at ...

"The time of the Judges was a time of change. We’re told multiple times that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. We read about how evil was so prevalent that no one seems to have been able to worship God the way they were supposed to. That is one of the reasons why the book of Ruth is ...

"The transition of the leadership of Israel from Judges to Kings is the theme of the book of 1 Samuel. Samuel was the thirteenth and last Judge of Israel. The people had decided that they wanted a king. No more would God raise up temporary deliverers to rescue Israel from their physical enemies. ...

"Saul was established as the king of Israel, but he did not rule by following the LORD as he should have. The passage we read today exposes some harsh truths about Saul, and reasons why God had rejected his kingship. Saul was a handsome and stately man on the outside, but inside he was stubbornly...

"Israel had originally asked for a king because they wanted leadership like the nations around them. Even though God was clear that a king would cost Israel dearly, that was still their choice. Even though God had chosen Saul, because of Saul’s choices, God eventually rejected his kingship. We’re...

"King Saul was intensely jealous of David. Rather than being thankful for God’s provision and victory over the Philistines or accepting God’s call on his own life, Saul fumed in his heart over these things. This is something that is very relatable as a human being. We have all tasted the bitterne...

"What does it mean when we say, “I follow God”? How does someone do that? As a follower of God, how one lives and responds reveals much about what they believe. This is a question David explored. When David was defending Israel, he was considered by many to be an enemy of Israel. However, the tru...

"When we experience dark or devastating circumstances, as people who follow Jesus Christ as LORD, we wonder why? Why do we have so many problems? The answer is important, although simple. What we need to do is focus our attention on how God desires us to respond or react. David, the great king of...

"David continues to conquer the land which God had given Israel, completing the work the tribes of Israel were tasked to do in the book of Joshua. Much was left undone in ancient Israel, but David, following the LORD, completed it. David grew up a shepherd of his father’s sheep, yet it was the LO...

"Many of David’s difficulties as king stemmed from his family life. David seems to have had a great ability to deal with the challenge of enemy nations, but at home, his inaction or inability to bring God’s justice to his children created great problems. The Bible records one of these problems fo...

"King David had many sons and daughters who were living in the lap of luxury and whose minds seem to have been corrupted. David’s family problems didn’t just impact him: because of their lineage, their problems held the people of Israel in captivity. The account of David’s son Absalom is tragic i...

"God expected the Israelites to take their covenants seriously. He expected them to be like Him. The book of Joshua tells us that the Israelites were tricked into making a covenant with the Gibeonites, and that Joshua upheld the covenant anyway. The Israelites had taken an oath to protect Gibeon ...

"Near the end of his reign, King David chose to take a census of the people of Israel and Judah. While a census like this was acceptable in some circumstances, at this time in David’s history it was not. Even when Joab, the commander of David’s army, heard the king’s request for a census, he ques...

"The ancient Israelites did not take the presence of God lightly. When they wandered the wilderness before settling in the Promised Land, they experienced the presence of God at Mount Sinai, and it scared them! God allowed them to see the manifestation of His presence in a physical form; they kne...

"King Solomon is mostly remembered for his great wisdom. However, the Bible also tells us the unfortunate truth about the end of his life. While he started out great, Solomon quickly began prioritizing the wrong things. He chose his human relationships over his relationship with God. Like most th...

"The aftermath of Solomon’s life was not good for Israel. The nation split in two after his death. The majority of the nation, ten tribes of Israel, chose to follow Solomon’s enemy, Jeroboam, as the new king of Israel. In a terrible twist, Jeroboam was also entwined in idol worship, except, rathe...

"There are Christians who work every day in environments that are hostile toward God. I like to call those Christians: God's Secret Servants! There is a great example of this in 1 Kings 18. Obadiah was in charge of King Ahab’s household. Ahab was famously dismissive of God, and he was an enemy of...

"1 Kings 21 shows us the depths that Northern Israel had fallen to. Unlike their sister nation of Judah, Northern Israel did not remain loyal to one dynasty or family of kings, they experienced a lot of war and usurper kings. With the stories that we’re told of Israel’s inner workings, it’s reall...