For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Those who are kind and gracious gain honour, respect and other rewards. Those who are cruel and ruthless gain only wealth, and, ultimately, ruin.
Hear my prayer!
This struck me this morning as something I need to pray. It is strange because this psalm is about facing difficult times and persecution. Yet, this morning this psalm struck me as my prayer in my struggle with sin. Despite this, I think this psalm represents my prayer asking God to help me in my struggle against temptation.
John was a voice shouting in the wilderness that people should prepare the way for the Lord’s coming. Jesus has come, but we are still called to prepare the way for Him. Proclaiming the Gospel can still feel like shouting in the wilderness.
It is not enough to be a voice shouting in the wilderness, John did not just shout, “Prepare the way!” He told people how to prepare the way. He told them that it is not enough to say that you have repented of your sins. You need to prove by how you live that you have repented and turned to God. When the crowds asked John to be more specific, he gave an answer that is still good today. “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.” There is the message we need to be preaching to those around us.
Just as John’s message comes at the start of the Gospel of Luke, so this message is merely the start to preaching the Gospel. However, it is the start. You cannot preach the Gospel of Jesus unless you start here (and by starting here I mean doing this as well as preaching this).
Once the census had been taken of the warriors, the men over the age of 20 in each of the tribes except the Levites, Moses took a census of the Levites. The census of the Levites was of every male one month and older. None of the people on the earlier census which Moses had taken just after the Israelites left Egypt were on either of these lists (except for Joshua and Caleb. The Israelites had spent an entire generation in the wilderness.