This will be short this morning because I am focused on what the Lord is teaching me from Gideon’s story.
A young man who felt he was the most insignificant person in his family and in his town. A man who was threshing wheat in the pit of a wine press. If you know anything about threshing, you know that in that day you needed a brisk wind to separate the wheat kernels from the chaff.
There is no wind in a wine press. Gideon’s fear kept him from being productive.
What changed?…God!
Jehovah Shalom. God is peace!
The first thing the Lord asked Gideon to do was this:
“Get your father’s second-best bull, the one that’s seven years old. Use it to pull down the altar where your father worships Baal and cut down the sacred pole next to the altar. 26 Then build an altar for worshiping me on the highest part of the hill where your town is built. Use layers of stones for my altar, not just a pile of rocks. Cut up the wood from the pole, make a fire, kill the bull, and burn it as a sacrifice to me.
27Â Gideon chose ten of his servants to help him, and they did everything God had said. But since Gideon was afraid of his family and the other people in Ophrah, he did it all at night.” Judges 6:25-27 CEV
Pull down the altar of false gods. Then build God’s altar high on the hill for all to see. No longer was Gideon hiding in a wine press. He put God forefront for all to see. (Although he did it at night because he hadn’t completely conquered his fear.)
We all have false gods that need to be pulled down: fear, self-promotion, affluence, pride, independence.
“Â But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well.” Matthew 6:33 CEV
The Lord wants to be first place in our lives. He wants to take us out of the wine press. He wants us to be willing to worship Him where everyone can see.
