For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
It is honourable to avoid fights, only fools quarrel when they could avoid the fight. Avoiding a fight is not a sign of weakness, but of wisdom.
The beginning of this psalm is a wonderful blessing for those whom you know. It is my blessing for you today. May the Lord answer all your prayers.
We are not made righteous by inheritance. It does not matter how righteous our ancestors were, no matter how many generations of righteous ancestors we have. We cannot become righteous by following a set of rules, or laws. The only way in which we can become righteous is by trusting in God. It is those who believe in Jesus’ saving sacrifice who are made right with God. We do not need to seek someone to intervene with God for us. As a matter of fact, we should not seek someone to intervene. There is no special class of priest who have been empowered by God to bring us to Him. God’s message comes to each and everyone of us. It is up to us to accept it in our hearts and place it upon our lips. We do not need to go on pilgrimages to some far away land. God will meet us where we are. He will send His word to us, no matter where we may be.
“Everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.” That is God’s promise to us. There is no complicated formula needed in order to receive salvation from God. If we truly believe in our hearts, and openly profess with our lips that Jesus is our Lord, we will be saved. This is true for everyone, whether their ancestors were Jew or Gentile, saint or sinner–it is the same God who is Lord of all.
Jehoshaphat ruled Israel well. He followed the example set by the early years of his father’s reign and did not make the mistakes which Asa made later in life. One of the things which he did which I find interesting is that he sent out officials from his court to teach people all around his kingdom. They took with them the Book of the Law and used it as a teaching tool. As a result of this and his other actions to be faithful to God, the surrounding peoples were afraid to make war against him.
For all of his wisdom and trust in God, Jehoshaphat made one clear error. He made an alliance with Ahab by having his son marry Ahab’s daughter. Perhaps he was hoping to influence Ahab to abandon Baal worship and turn to God, but it did not work out that way. However, he did not fall for the “We all worship the same God, just in different ways” line. When Ahab asked Jehoshaphat to join him in going to war, Jehoshaphat agreed, but requested they consult a prophet of God first. Ahab summoned his prophets. The passage tells us that they numbered 400, which matches the number of prophets of Baal Ahab summoned to Elijah’s challenge on Mt Carmel. When they had testified that Ahab should go to war, Jehoshaphat, rather than being satisfied, asked if there was not a prophet of the Lord they could consult.
It is worth noting that Ahab had summoned the 400 prophets in response to Jehoshaphat saying that they should consult the Lord. Yet, when the 400 prophets had been summoned, Jehoshaphat still asked after a prophet of the Lord that they could consult. This supports the idea presented by historians that many of the followers of Baal considered Baal to be the same god as the God of Israel. However, the followers of the God of Israel did not consider Him to be the same god as Baal.