the story cont'd

the israelites fell to sinning AGAIN (unfortunately..) so they suffered from the philistines for 40 years. God spoke to a man named manoah, who had yet to become a father. God told manoah's wife that she'd bear a son that was to be a nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. the son was to also never cut his hair.
manoah's wife gave birth to a baby boy, and the boy was named samson. the boy grew up to be a strong man. God orchestrated for samson to run into a beautiful philistine woman. samson wanted to marry her. but God had planned this to happen so that samson would have a reason to confront the philistines, who were still ruling over the israelites.
samson and his father set out to meet the philistine woman. on their way, a lion ran towards samson. by God's spirit, samson tore the lion apart with his bare hands.
later, when samson looked at the lion's carcass, he saw that there was honey in it and bees were swarming around the carcass. samson took the honey from it and ate it. his father and samson hed a feast at the philistine woman's village. samson decided to tell a riddle to the young men of philistine. they bet 30 linen garments and clothes.
the philistine men weren't able to answer samson's riddle, so they threatened samson's wife (the philistine woman) into finding out the answer.

sunday's post

the story cont'd

the israelites, suffering from the consequences of their sin, cried out to God. God knew that their sufferings couldn't be appeased just from providing them with food and soldiers... it was necessary to show them that their spiritual foundation was nonexistent.
God chose a farmer named gideon, who came from the weakest clan of their people. he picked an ordinary man, and not a strong soldier, on purpose.
the angel of God appeared to gideon and commanded him to save the israelites from the midianites. gideon was doubtful that he had such an ability. but once the angel of God proved to gideon that it was indeed God that gideon was talking to face-to-face, gideon obeyed.
the day that gideon and his men were to face the midianites, God commanded gideon to reduce the size of his army. this was so that the israelites wouldn't boast about their victory, thinking that it was their strength that saved them.
so gideon was left with merely 300 men. but as God promised, gideon and his men won. so the people had peace for 40 years.

up and running again...

ok PUSH RESTART. let's do this right haein!

Jeremiah 30-31.

Jeremiah continues to prophesy the fall and ruin of Jersualem and its people because of their sin.. some will see that death and die in Jersualem and some will survive and be carried off into exile to Babylon. Those who are exiled are told to settle down and live out their lives there.. submitting to the Babylon king and being good citizens there.. building up the city through prayer and trying to prosper the city. After the 70 years, God will return the people to Jerusalem and city will be fully restored - a seemingly impossible feat! But God will do it! And this time... things will be different. The point of this whole.. banishment-to-restoration experience... is that it will make God's people seek Him again with all of their heart. God's desire throughout this whole thing is to get the hearts of His beloved people back to Him. He wants their hearts again. They've wandered. He wants to be their one and only God again. It's that relationships He wants to restore, above all. He wants to restore the covenant with His people again.

another overdue update from me! im sorry- gotta get more consistent with this.

jeremiah 16-21. matthew 8-13.

omg jeremiah is crazy! he's so bold! he's been prophesying about all the death, destruction and gruesome suffering that Judah and Jerusalem will experience because of their wickedness.. but it's a prophecy so the people are not receiving it well and many don't believe him. the leaders plot to kill him for his words. Jeremiah knows that he is called to speak these words to them, but as any man would, he is struggling to live this lifestyle where ppl are constantly persecuting and mocking him. he's not well-liked obviously and life is really hard. he believes in what he's doing bc He knows that God is on his side, but at the same time, in his flesh he still has a hard time living day to day and he's honest about that with God. he even says he wishes he was never born because of how hard his life has been. but at the same time, his undresatnding of God's will and glory does not change - he knows that this is his calling and he continues to fulfill it boldly EVEN when the threat of death is all around him. that is serious commitment and faith. wow.

and then in matthew, Jesus goes around teaching and healing people. though it seems like Jesus is just on this "healing" spree where He releases His power wherever and whenever to whomever.. but that's not true. Jesus chooses to release His power only when the person has faith. that's ALWAYS what Jesus comments on.. before He performs a miraculous work, He always comments on the person's faith. "according to your faith" or "because of your great faith" or "your faith has..." Faith is the key to unlocking GOd's power in our lives and the lives of others. without faith, He will not work.

wednesday's post

the story cont'd

barak, deborah and the israelite soldiers pitched a tent on mount tabor. the one day, deborah told barak that he should take his men and go after sisera, the army commander of canaan. barak and his men killed all of sisera's troops. sisera was able to escape, however, and he found shelter at the tent of a woman named jael. jael welcomed sisera in, but while sisera was sleeping, jael killed him. thus the israelites won against the evil king of canaan. israel had 40 years of peace.

AGAIN the israelites started sinning. they didn't really have a strong leader among them. the people gave into sin and pagan worship, and they were punished by God accordingly - for seven years, the midianites oppressed them. the israelites again cried out to God in their misery. God sent them a prophet, who said that despite the fact that the Lord brought the people out of slavery and out of egypt, and despite the fact that God aided them in winning NUMEROUS victories against their oppressors throughout history, and despite the fact that God always provided for them, they didn't listen to God and obey God...

aaahh im so sorry haein! ive missed a couple posts last week! here's a long-overdue update from me.

matthew 4-7. jeremiah 12-15.

God's wrath and utter holiness show that God will never compromise his glory - He's very upset with the Israelites who kept "backsliding" and would not acknowledge God even after all He had done in their lives (v5-9). He will bring suffering because they have straight up rejected him. reading through these passages of God's intense wrath against sinfulness and then trying to compare it to my understanding of His mercy/grace... brings up the question of what is God's "threshold" of mercy? how do you know if your obedience has just gone too far? hmm..

also, reading matthew has been good because going through the gospels this time, i have a fresh perspective. ive come to realize that i want to get to know the "trinity" better. ive become really comfortable and intimate in my relationship with God, my Father, but then i realize that is my default. i always pray to and relate to God my father but i rarely pray specifically TO and intentionally address and approach Jesus himself or the Holy Spirit - the other two of the Trinity. i realize that i want to know how to approach Jesus as the Son of God and develop a special relationship dynamic with Jesus. because though God and Jesus are the same, they are also specific characters too. hmmmm. it feels strange to think about this in this new way.. but yeah im tahnkful thati get to read through the gospels with this new approach of.."Jesus, help me to get to know You specifically." if that makes sense... hahaha

The story cont'd

After living in God's mercifully given peace for 80 years, the Israelites sinned again.
God sold the Israelites to the king of Canaan to punish them. They lived in terrible oppression under the army commander named Sisera.
at that time, a prophet named deborah was the leader of the israelites. she summoned for a man named barak, and told him that God commands of him to go defeat sisera and his army.