May 15 – Judges 20, Judges 21 John 8:31-59 Psalm 61:1-8
Judges 21:25
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
We get the the end of a horrible story here. A whole tribe nearly wiped out.
Each bad decision led to another bad decision as the last bad decision was attempted to be fixed in a way that failed.
It all really got out of hand. Not good. None of it.
And it’s really summed up in that phrase. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That always leads to trouble because our own eyes are so limited.
Don’t trust your judgment. Trust His.
John 8:34
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
The truth will set you free. Jesus said this to people who did not know they were captive. They thought they were free, but they were not. Juts because you’ve never been enslaved by people, it does not mean you are free.
It is said we live in a free country. I’d suggest the opposite is true. We live in a country bound in chains by sin and the effects of sin. On every street, there are people in chains to sin. Those who practice it are slaves to it.
We are far from a free country. But Jesus said if we abide in His word (get close to it and obey it) we will know the truth (Him) and we will be set free from the power of sin.
Freedom isn’t the ability to do whatever we want, but to have the chains of sin fall away.
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
That’s right. Before Abraham, He was. It seems grammatically incorrect until you see that Jesus is using the same term for Himself that God used when Moses asked who He was. “I Am”. Jesus is proclaiming that He pre existed before Abraham and does it in a way that identifies Him as God.
