"Humanity..............."

We would eventually focus on Gideon in the Book of Judges Wednesday evening, but initially our teacher explored our thoughts on Israel’s continual cycle of backsliding, suggesting at one point (or so it seemed to me) that the failure to “separate” themselves from the world around them was perhaps to blame. While there’s little doubt that such inter-mingling, over time, greatly affected their identity as God’s people, however, in my own opinion the real root of their problem lay more in their never having actually surrendered, in the first place, to such relationship as the Almighty extended unto them. In other words, He was that deity Moses knew, the one that Joshua appeared to have some pull with, the one that shows up every now and then when things get bad. Most saw Him merely in terms of another religion, a form of worship inherited from their ancestors. Indeed, it is a condition still among us, people being people, even today. Our “Christianity” is quite often no more than a mental theology gained from our environment, a doctrinal image we’ve created out of chapter and verse, and sometimes out of less than that. If our assurance rests on faith, it is yet to be determined upon what our faith, itself, rests. In saying all this, though, it might be well to note that it’s not like this old man doesn’t believe in the Bible; rather that he doesn’t believe in himself. Salvation, therefore, at least for me, is an anchor-line connection restored unto me via the Cross, an “umbilical tube” providing me sustenance as I go, a “hook in my belly” continually helping me to “correct my compass” in the journey……