Judges 2:10-3:31
Luke 22:14-34
Psalm 92:1-93:5
Proverbs 14:1-2
Judges 2:10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.
I am saddened that we also are living in a time of a generation that does not know the Lord. I think about the gradual decline of God handed down from generation to generation and I am tempted to feel defeated by it. The legacy of faith is handed down less and less in each generation removing God more and more each one. But I know that God can reach anyone anywhere. I know that when I was a child I was not discouraged from knowing God but it was not presented as important or a priority. Which is a big change from the generation of my grandparents. My parents did not go to church and when I was young my great aunt (grandmother's generation) took me to a Greek Orthodox church every Sunday. This is the church I was baptized in. When she died of cancer I started going to a Lutheran church in walking distance of our home with my aunt (mom's sister). I don't know why but no one ever made me go, but I went even when my aunt did not. Maybe it was because I liked the fun at Sunday school when I was young and when I became a teenager I admit that a boy that I liked being there also had an influence on me being there. But I attended regularly went through confirmation classes and served as an acolyte almost every week. I remember feeling like that was where I needed to be. I know that God was preparing me and making Himself known to me. I continued to get up and go to church until I started working and I stopped going to church because I worked every Sunday. I didn't not live a Christlike life even before I stopped going to church. I didn't understand the priority that Jesus needed to be in my life. I have raised my children in church and stressed the importance of prioritizing God but they too have strayed from God because the world not only does not encourage seeking God but it condemns and criticizes it. It is easier to follow the world than to follow Jesus.
Judges2:20 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.
The Israelites experienced struggles and difficulties because of the life that they lived. I also suffered many struggles that were results of my poor choices and living far from God. And today we have in my opinion a generation of young people who are the most depressed, confused, unhappy and lost of any generation previous because they do not know God. I will not give into the temptation to feel defeated in this though. I know God can reach the lost. Even someone who has never heard about Him or never understood what they had heard about Him. After years of living in the world and like the world He brought me back. When I started going to church again it was because I had kids and I remember saying that I want my kids to decide for themselves what they believe and to make that decision they have to know what the options are. And through that He reignited in me the joy and comfort that I had known in church.
Judges 3:9 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.
When I took my kids in for Sunday school there was no reason to go back home so I stayed for adult Sunday school. This is when I started to study the bible and when God revealed to me the truths that convicted me of the need to surrender all my life to Him. I knew who Jesus was and what He did for me. But I didn't really understand what that meant. He was the deliverer that was raised up on a cross to save me. I remember the day that I was convicted of the depth of my sin and the need for Jesus in my life. As painful as it is for me that my children are not walking with God right now I am ever prayerful that Jesus will make Himself known to them again when the time is right. I am prayerful that when they have children that He will allow me to be an influence on them to come to know Him. And I have to believe that even though we know that the moral state of this world will continue to decline until the return of Jesus that does not in any way limit God's ability to accomplish His will and bring all those into the Kingdom that are to be there before that time. One of the ways He will do that is by guiding believers in teaching the next generation about Him.
So don't lose hope and be faithful in prayer for all those lost in your life because just as God consistently brought the Israelites back to Himself He can do the same for every generation. He will not be defeated! Be faithful and diligent in sharing the Gospel and be part of the battle because God has raised up a deliverer and His name is Jesus Christ.
Thank you for sharing your story.