Each time God invests His power and purpose on any human vessel, which we refer to as His Anointing, the primary aim is to magnify trust in His Imperial reign and to encourage human souls to mostly look beyond our travails, problems by not ignoring them, rather to reflect vigorously into the power of creation that resides in Him. The power of His anointing on any person or situation is the absolute creative ability of God to saturate that situation or person with the unstoppable lead that changes the person or situation to the divine approval for success. The Holy Scriptures is a collection, compilation, synopsis, treasury of lots of ordinary cases but by divine touch are turned mostly into miraculous or divine appointments. To bring the message home, the greatest miracle in the Holy Bible is actually when we give our lives to Christ Jesus because we become born again not of corruptible seed (Human production), but of incorruptible seed (Holy Spirit) by the Word of God that lives forever. The old time Prophets were looking into the dispensation of Grace that would come and really sought to be part of it. The Holy Scriptures makes us understand that the greatest of the Prophets or any human are not up to the least of those born again in Christ Jesus. Why? This is because the dispensation of Grace is the everlasting power of God served to humankind on the glorious plate or tray of truth and love in Spirit with the removal of sin and death from the devilish menu that was forcefully injected into the human conscience. Under grace, the human soul is fed with the fullness of forgiveness, power, comfort, and eternal provisions of life. However, those old time Prophets and people, who obeyed the will of God through good conscience showed us great lessons to learn from, and deeds that should always strengthen our faith in God through Christ Jesus.
The case of Gideon was one of such among tons of them. Like we have said before, God always holds us accountable to our words and actions because He has faithfully given us His love entitlement to live and abide with. When we deliberately or unknowingly violate His will of righteousness, which is always meant for our good, we open up the door for the enemy into our situations and lives, and sadly it will do what it knows best, which is to attack and destroy human joy and happiness to life. In this reflection, the people (Israelites) abused their privileged relationship with God by committing all sorts of atrocities and the consequence was that another Kingdom overpowered them, by putting them in bondage such as forced labor and arbitrarily taking over their subsistence (Food supply). They were in such pains that they had to cry to God for help, which He normally does by coming around with His mercies. This time around, God chose Gideon to accomplish His purpose. That is, the Midianites ruled over them and even their harvests were collected from them. At this same time Gideon, who came from a poor family was gathering and hiding his harvest, when the Angel of God came and spoke to him about his purpose to free his people. Gideon did not believe and asked for signs to prove that this was God’s mission. First, he made a small sacrifice of thanks to God on the rock, which was consumed by fire from God. In fact, before the military exploit, Gideon was instructed by God to tire down the symbol or image of idol worship (Baal) the people were into. He did this at night with ten other men and in the morning the people eventually got hint that it was the handiwork of Gideon, but his father was a just man and told the people when they were seeking to kill Gideon that they should allow the god (Baal) to defend for itself, if it was really a god. Gideon was then nicknamed Jerubaal, meaning if Baal is a god, let it defend itself. The purpose of putting down the image of Baal was to clear the land from the curse the people had brought on themselves through the worship of this false god, and the building of an altar to God on this rock, signifying God had purified the land for the task ahead by raising His banner of spiritual victory on the rock. Before venturing on, let us highlight this core spiritual fact to this whole episode. That is, before these whole processes began, the Holy Scriptures opened it to us that the Spirit of God entered into Gideon, which was the beginning and divine strength to this whole journey and fight of faith. Like we said from the beginning, the anointing makes the difference in human lives and purpose. By spiritual discernment, God’s anointing (Spirit) on Gideon was the key to whatever happened or the result that was to come. However, even with these signs, Gideon was still not convinced he was the one for this great task. His human instinct was still having a better part of him, as he went further by asking God to wet the wool he would place on the floor without the floor getting wet, which God did overnight. To confirm the situation, he reversed the request by asking God to wet the floor around the wool without wetting the wool, which again God did. This time, he was convinced and summoned the elders to inform them of the task ahead of the nation. Subsequently, they gathered about thirty thousand soldiers to fight the Medianites, who were already stationed on the other side of the mountain with innumerable numbers of soldiers. To prove that this was God’s war and not man, He told Gideon the number of soldiers he had with him were too much. That Gideon should ask those who are afraid or terrified to go home. On this request, twenty two thousand went back home. Again, God told Gideon, the number was still much, but this time around God was going to set up the selection process by Himself. That is, Gideon should send all the remaining ten thousand soldiers to the river bank to drink water, and whosoever kneels by bowing down to drink of the water with their hands as cup should go back home, but those that puts their hands down and use their tongue to lap the water like dogs, would be the ones to stay and fight the war. Through this selection process, only thirty (30) passed the test, while the remaining failed and were sent home.
After these 30 were chosen, Gideon and his servant were led at night by the anointing to do reconnaissance, secretly survey or spy on the camp of the Midianites. In doing this, they overheard the Midianites recounting and interpreting the dream one of them had, which in nutshell was that of the defeat of the Midianites by the mighty hand of God for the people. With this confirmation of the victory already handed to them by God. Gideon divided the 300 soldiers into three units with a trumpet each and gave them instructions on what to do by blowing the trumpets after he did and to say, the sword of the Lord. These events happened and the sound led to confusion in the camp of the enemy as they started fighting among themselves, killing themselves with their own weapons, while others fled for their dear lives, even with their Kings. Gideon and his team with the help of supportive neighbors eventually captured the two Kings and brought them to justice by killing them. Even the people wanted Gideon to be their King, but he refused by saying the Lord God is their King because he knew this victory was not by his strength or war decision, but of God. Although, he made a spiritual miscalculation just after this victory, when he took the earrings of the people’s prey and used them to make a symbol in his city as a landmark for the victory, which wrongly the people were then idolizing. Notwithstanding, the land was at peace for forty years during his time as their Judge. (Ceremonial leader).
This story shows to us that true valour, bravery, guts, audacity, backbone, courage, fearlessness, boldness and heroism are actually built on the power and submission to the will of God. That is, with God we are in majority and the large numbers of the adversary or issues are irrelevant when matched with the power of God. It shows us how God used the weapons of our enemies to destroy them, when the flow of His Spirit moves in our favor. Human instincts and capacities are great and always cultivate the human minds to great developmental opportunities. However, the capacities and magnificence of divine anointing, appointments or provisions is the arena of endless service, value, possibilities, and the usefulness of creation at the beck and call to any human submission to the Spirit of God. The greatest challenge in the human soul is going full throttle into this calling of His Spirit. Thankfully, Christ Jesus is the key into the manifestation of the Spirit of God freely made available to humankind by faith in His Grace. Thankfully, Christ Jesus is the audacity of possibilities and valour to all human mysteries exposed to humankind freely in love. Thankfully, Christ Jesus is the infinite service of freedom and truth into the human soul with no tint of corruption, double-dealing, shady, and unworthy attitudes. Thankfully, Jesus Christ is alive as Captain of our souls forever to the Glory and Honor of God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit… Amen
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