“I’ll do as much as I can, Lord, but I don’t know if I can do all you say, exactly the way you tell me.”  Believers with committed faith in God see a multitude of problems with this statement. While you ponder, let’s continue. The faithful know God gives us purpose with His way to fulfil it.  We know God guides and provides all we need to fulfill His purpose, according to His plan; but when it gets really hard, our faith falters and we draw back from obeying all the details of His plan and look for easier ways out.

“God I’m only human.”  This way of thinking is dangerously close to thinking God is not sovereign after all and is asking us to do the impossible—without Him!  This mindset fixed only on ourselves and our abilities negates the power of God who lives in us!  Our lack of obedience to God who knows all and is in all with power over all will take us down a path of problems that we never dreamed would happen…because we are indeed human!

After all these years I can still hear my mom saying, “If you would have done it the way I told you to do it you wouldn’t be having this problem now.” Is that what God is thinking as He guides his disobedient Israelites back under his protection with compassionate, unending grace? 

Judges 3

These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan ² (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): ³ the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. ⁴ They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses.

⁵ The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁶ They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.

Othniel

⁷ The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. ⁸ The anger of the Lord burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. ⁹ But when they cried out to the Lord, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. ¹⁰ The Spirit of the Lord came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war. The Lord gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him. ¹¹ So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.

Ehud

¹² Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and because they did this evil the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. ¹³ Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. ¹⁴ The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.

¹⁵ Again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. ¹⁶ Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. ¹⁷ He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. ¹⁸ After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way those who had carried it. ¹⁹ But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal he himself went back to Eglon and said, “Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you.”

The king said to his attendants, “Leave us!” And they all left.

²⁰ Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, ²¹ Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. ²² Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. ²³ Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

²⁴ After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, “He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the palace.” ²⁵ They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead.

²⁶ While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the stone images and escaped to Seirah. ²⁷ When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.

²⁸ “Follow me,” he ordered, “for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands.” So they followed him down and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab; they allowed no one to cross over. ²⁹ At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not one escaped. ³⁰ That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.

Shamgar

³¹ After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Bottomline: God told Israel to possess the Promised Land by ridding the land of all evil. But they did not.  God knew if they did not; they would intermingle with the remnants of evil left behind and succumb to their way of thinking and worship their idols, which eventually they did.  They were only human, after all.

God knew their hearts and longed for their obedience for their own good.  So, God used their self-inflicted problems caused by disobedience and raised up deliverers to save them.  Only God does that!  These deliverers were only human but fully trusted in God.  The power of His Holy Spirit filled them enabling them to overcome the messes created through disobedience and deliver Israel. 

God loved His created then and now for His love never ends. God provided deliverance when His people cried out to Him.  Time after time, God helped His disobedient people in ways beyond their thinking and dreaming.  God is faithful even when we are not. Are you humbled by this thought?  I am.

God loved and sent THE Deliverer.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3: 16-17 This is Jesus, Our Deliverer!

Jesus—God’s spirit and power, God in the flesh, came down from heaven and moved into the neighborhood of humanity with purpose.  (John 1) Jesus’ mission with purpose was to seek and to save the lost without God while reteaching who God is.  Jesus then willingly and obediently laid down his life for ours, fulfilling every detail of what God commanded and foretold through his prophets.  Jesus was, is, and is to come The Deliverer for all who believe.  Jesus was Son of Man (human) and Son of God (holy). Jesus who knew no sin became sin to pay for our sin.  Are you heaving a grateful sigh of gratitude right now? I am.

God’s Plan was for Jesus’ death on the cross to pay our debt in full; followed by Jesus’ resurrection from death three days later.  God’s best was giving to give us victory over death while solidifying our Hope of eternal life with Him!  Believe and be saved is the message and “only humans” can do that and then be filled with Power!  Get this and hang on to this Truth:  Our Deliverer releases and redeems us from the bondage of our sins and gives us power beyond our humanness to trust, obey and overcome all the troubles of this world because Jesus is the Overcomer of this world!  This is the secret, says Paul, “Christ in us!” (Colossians 1:42)

Nothing, absolutely nothing is too difficult for God. This means that when His Holy Spirit leads to it; He will lead us through it!  Only human?  Yes.  Christ in us? —Game changer.  Jesus changes everything!  The Light of the World!

Lord,

Thank you for reminding us not to fall for excuses of being “only human” when faced with hard stuff of life.  Help us instead to fully trusting in You and Your power working in us!  Help us to BE fully present and focused on you.  Help us to listen to you, allowing you to make us holy and moldable to your will.  Your will is who and what I seek. I know you will not disappoint. Guide all that I think, say, and do. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your compassions, they fail not indeed!  I am a mess with a message: “Christ in me!”

In Jesus Name for our good and Your Glory, Amen