PEOPLE OF VALOUR.

DAILY DEVOTION.

DAY NINE.

JUDGES 6:12.   And the Angel of the Lord appeared  to him, and said to him, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour."
This is where the Lord calls Gideon, God is about to deliver the children of Israel from the Midianites. We see here that God does not say to Gideon that He is going to make him a man of valour, He declares that he is that already. So what does the word valour mean? It means one who is strong, virtuous and worthy. So this is how God sees Gideon, of course Gideon doesn't see himself that way, he was hiding in the wine press thrashing wheat. All that Gideon can see is all the problems that they are having because of the Midianites and he is wondering where God is in it all.God then tells Gideon to go in his might and deliver the children of Israel for he has been sent. But all Gideon can think of is how he is not qualified to do what God is asking him to do. 
How often do we find ourselves in this situation? God calls us, shows us some new revelation in is word and then tells us to walk in it and all we can think about is how we blew it yesterday, or how inadequate we are. God saw the potential that was in Gideon, He knew what He had created him to do. The same is with us. Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God's creation in Christ, that He has created us for His purpose, for the works that He has called us to walk in before the world was created. When we see that we know that God is in control and we can trust Him. Gideon asked God to confirm that it was really Him speaking to Gideon, God showed him by consuming the sacrifice that He asked him to prepare for Him. There is nothing wrong with asking God to confirm what He is saying to us. We see with Gideon that he gathers his army and God says to him that he has too many in his army, God is concerned that the children of Israel will take the credit for themselves when they win, even though it is God who will give them the victory. He will do the same with us, God will strip us back to the position where we are totally dependent on Him. The whole point of it is so that He will get all the glory and we will realise that it is only by His power that we can really do anything for Him. Of course we know that Gideon went out with his army of three hundred against the Midianites and God gave him the victory and Israel lived in peace for forty years under Gideon's rule. 
We see something significant in Gideon's journey, at the start of it God tells him that he is to destroy the alters and the wooden image that have been set up by his father to worship Baal, and he is to build an alter to the Lord in its place. It is important for us that we make sure that we have nothing in our lives that we place ahead of God, as Jesus said we are to worship God in spirit and in truth, our whole lives are to be offered up to God as a living sacrifice. Gideon was given the job of delivering the children of Israel from their enemies, God has also given us a job, going out into the world and delivering people from the power of the enemy, we will face our own enemies in doing that, but if we recognize that it is God who has called us and that He sees and knows the potential that He has placed within us through the Holy Spirit, then even though we are few in number compared to our enemies, God will give us the victory and He will get the glory.