"He wasn't Listening - Will You?"

And an angel of the appeared to him, and said to Him, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!" Judges 6:12

As a youth Pastor this is one of my favorite verses to teach on. I can expound on it for hours and hours and hours, there is so much to gain from the life of Gideon but, you are in luck, I have one simple thought to put before you today.

Gideon's response to this statement reflects his heart about himself and his situation. He also made the same mistake that you and I often do. He was looking with his eyes. He wasn't listening to the prophetic word that was being spoken over him. He heard the words with his ears but not in his heart. His response shows that he heard the most important words of all. "The Lord is with you." except for one thing. He adds the word, if because his eyes are on himself and his situation.

"O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianitetes." Then the Lord turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."

When God speaks into or over our lives He isn't looking at the weak, ill equipped person that we are right now, he sees us prophetically and what I mean by that is that He sees who we will be with Him, with His Word, at work in and through us! He sees the future you. The one where he is performing His word in us.

Gideon wasn't listening. God called him a mighty man of valor and told him to go save Israel. So, Gideon called himself the weakest of the weak, and said I can't go. He wasn't listening! The reason God could call him a mighty man of valor is because of the first words that He spoke. "The Lord is with you."  Next He tells him, "To go in this might of yours." Gideon was only looking at his own weakness not what God was saying. He said, "Go in this might of yours." Gideon still wasn't getting it. The might he was to go in wasn't his own. The might he was to go in was God's presence. The fact that He had said "The Lord is with you!" is all the might Gideon needed to conquer the Midianites.

Once more He says, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man." Judges 6:16 When God speaks prophetically into your life it is because He knows that He will be there with you and that where He is, the evidence of His presence follows! He will perform His Word in your life! Know that He is with You and it is not about you, your strength, or your weaknesses, it is about His ability to carry out his Word! It is not your might but HIS presence!

"The Lord is with you! You mighty men and women of valor! Go, conquer,  in the power of His might!