I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
Moses urged the Israelites to obey the commands of God. He reminded them of what had happened at Peor, where all who worshiped Baal died, while those who remained faithful to God survived. Moses further reminded them of when they stood before the Lord at Mt Sinai and heard Him give the Ten Words (or Commandments). He continued by pointing out to them that they did not see the Lord’s form at Mt Sinai, so they should not in the future construct idols that purport to be in the form of the Lord. The Lord is God in both heaven and earth and there is no other god.
Moses tells the children of Israel that if they break God’s covenant they will not last long in the land which He is giving them. However, if later they seek God with all of their heart and soul, they will find Him. I believe this is a promise for everyone. If you seek the Lord God with all of your heart and soul, you will find Him.
Yesterday’s passage ended with Jesus’ instruction not to judge or condemn others. Today’s passage begins with clarification of what He was saying with that. Here He tells us that if the blind lead the blind, they will both stumble into a ditch that neither saw. In the same way, a student cannot end up more learned than his teacher. When you are teaching someone you cannot teach them things that you do not know. Jesus then goes on to tell us that we should concern ourselves with what we are doing wrong, not with what someone else is doing wrong. We cannot teach others to do right, if we ourselves are doing wrong. We should always consider our failures to live according to God’s will to be more important than those of others.
Jesus goes on to tell us that we can judge people (and ourselves) by the results of our actions. Those who are truly good do good for others, those who are evil cause harm to others. If someone’s actions are evil, their heart is full of evil. If someone’s acts are good, their heart is full of good. What we say also comes out of our hearts. We can be accurately judged by the words we use and what we say about others. We have a tendency to look at Jesus comments about judging a tree by its fruit as a way to judge others, but I think in this context Jesus was clearly talking about how we are to judge our own actions. Jesus gives yet another example about following Him. He tells us that listening to Him and following His instructions is a lot of work. It is not easy, but it is like building a house. If we want the house to endure we have to do a lot of work and dig down to the bedrock and start building the foundation from there. In the same way, if we want to follow Jesus we need to dig down to the bedrock of our lives and make changes there. Those changes will be hard work, but the resulting life will be worth it.
The day is coming when God will rise up and scatter those who have chosen to oppose Him. God is father to the fatherless and the defender of widows. It is inevitable that those who choose to oppose God will be crushed and on that day all others will gather to praise the name of God. When God’s enemies flee, those they thought of as weak and powerless will gather the plunder. Let us never forget that no matter how bad things now, no matter how successful those who practice evil appear to be, their destruction will come. While those who have patiently waited for God and followed His commands will reap well-being.
Those who trust in their wealth will fall, while those who are righteous and trust in God will flourish.