Today, I am reading and commenting on  Judges 7-8.

When Israel’s enemies mustered their army to raid Israel once more, Gideon summoned the warriors of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali.  However, the army which answered Gideon’s summons was too large for God’s purpose.  So, God instructed Gideon to reduce his army, from 32,00 to 300.  Here is the important lesson we can take from the story of Gideon’s victory over the Midianites.  When God sends us on a mission, we can’t accomplish it on our own.  In fact, God wants us to go into it knowing that we will only succeed because of Him.  If we go into it thinking that we can pull it off with the resources we have gathered, we aren’t doing it right.  When we go into something to which God has called us, we have to know that we will only succeed because God ordained our victory.

There is a second lesson in this passage as well.  After his initial defeat of the oppressing army, Gideon summoned the warriors he had originally dismissed, plus the warriors of the tribe of Ephraim.  He asked the tribe of Ephraim to hold the crossing points of the Jordan so that the bulk of the enemy army could not escape.  They were successful, but resented that Gideon had not summoned them when he first gathered troops for battle.  However, Gideon did not give them attitude back.  Instead he praised their accomplishments.  He could have claimed credit for what they did, since, after all, what they accomplished was only possible because of what he had done first.  However, Gideon recognized that the glory was neither his, nor theirs, but rather the glory belonged to God.

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