Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 4-7.

The battle at the beginning of today’s passage and the battle at the end of this passage stand in contrast to each other.  In between are some other great lessons for us to learn, but I am going to look at just that contrast today.  In both battles the Israelites recognized that they needed God’s aid in order to be victorious.  In the first battle they tried bringing God to themselves in order to gain His aid.  They thought that by bringing the symbols of God to the battle God would fight for them, but that is not how God works.  Wearing a cross, going to church services, etc., these things will not make God deal with our issues.  In the second battle, the Israelites turned to God and away from their idols.  They committed themselves to God only and put away from themselves all that took away their attention from serving Him.  Only then did God fight for them.  We cannot force God to come to our aid by following the correct rituals.  God will only come to our aid when our hearts fully want to serve Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.