Judges 10:10-16 – God’s Want Your Heart
10 And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.
11 And the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?
12 The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand.
13 Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.
14 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
15 And the children of Israel said unto the Lord, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day.
16 And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
By now in the book of Judges, “Oh, here we go again” seems to be a reoccurring theme! Once again, Israel forsakes God and goes back to worshiping idols. Except, this time when they look to God for help, they do not do it with their hearts in the right place. They go to the true God for help while still worshiping the fake gods. Well, the true God sees this for what it is and tells them to just go as the fake gods for help. Israel, then, does something almost uncharacteristic, they sincerely turn to God. The stop worshiping their false gods and submitted themselves to the Lord’s will, and God took note!
God wants nothing less than that for our lives! He wants our complete heart. God does not want second place in our lives, He wants the first place and anything that takes that first place needs to be out of that position in our lives before God can really use us. For Israel, it was their false gods. In our culture, that is money, popularity, friends, cars, etc. Our culture worships that kind of stuff, but we, as Christians, ought not to put those things before God.
We need to make God first in our lives. We shouldn’t let outside influences stop us from, for example, coming to church, or giving back (money, time, talents) to God and by making sure that we are completely submitting to His will.
Life Step: Think about it…
How do we act like Israel in today’s reading?
What made the difference between verses 13 and 16?
What can we learn from that example?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
We want God’s help on our terms. They did it then, and we still do this now. The Israelites finally acknowledged they couldn’t have it both ways, and realized what they were doing. Their hearts changed. Only God can recognize a true change of heart. The rest of us can only take someone at their word. We can’t fool God. It is just easier and smarter to do it God’s way. After all, He truly has our best interests in mind—-He made us. He cares more than any one can.
We act just like the Israelites sometimes. Different times, but we still make other things our “idols” and put them before God. The difference between verse 13 and 16 is that in verse 13, the Israelites were still serving other gods. By verse 16, they had turned from the false gods and served God!
Sometimes it’s easy to think we can do both, serve God and man (or thing). Like “as long as I go to church once in a while, I can continue to do what I want and everyone wins.” Nope. Matthew 6:24 says…”No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” God needs to be put above everything! Our family, friends, jobs, school, sports, electronics, etc. What really hit me, is reading about how sad God was when the Israelites turned from Him, and I don’t want to disappoint Him!!
Really good observations, Alexis!