For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
If you make plans without seeking, and listening to, advice, those plans will likely fail. The more people you get advice from, the more likely you are to cover all of your bases when you make plans. No one person is going to see all of the ways in which a plan may go wrong, so make sure you have gotten advice from enough different people to cover all of the likely problems you may face.
I pray that everyone, from every nation, will praise the Lord. God loves us with a love which is beyond compare. If only people would come to understand and accept God it would make this world a much better place.
There are many lessons for us in the story of raising Lazarus from the dead. There is Thomas telling the other disciples that they should go and die with Jesus. There is Martha’s statement of faith and Jesus pushing her to have even more faith. There is Mary’s anger at Jesus for not being there in time and Jesus not judging her for that natural reaction. But the thing I want to look at is the reaction of the Jewish high council. They had rejected Jesus’ teaching and were unwilling to accept that He was the Messiah. They had asked Jesus for proof. They had asked Him for signs and wonders. Now, when He had raised someone from the dead, they did not say, “Finally, proof. He is indeed the Messiah.” Rather they said, “What are we going to do?” They decided that they had to arrange for Jesus to die. It was the only way they could think of to protect their position. We need to remember that there are people who will never accept Christ, no matter what proofs they are offered.
When faced with God’s signs and wonders we need to decide what we are going to do. Are we going to react like Martha (“I have always believed that you are the Messiah.”)? Or are we going to react like the Pharisees and chief priests (“If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him.”)? What am I going to do?
Despite having repented of pursuing David after David had spared his life, Saul once more had his army out trying to track down and kill David. Once more David has the opportunity to kill Saul and declines to take that opportunity. David will not kill Saul because Saul was anointed by God as king over Israel. David feels that it is up to God to bring about Saul’s death. Shortly after this, David left the lands controlled by Saul and went to live among the Philistines, beyond Saul’s reach.
The Philistines mustered for war against Saul and the Israelites. Saul was fearful and did not know what to do. My reading of these passages tells me that Saul was a great warrior and a good general. But he was unwilling to share the glory with anyone else. As a result, he had few subordinates who could command units of his army well enough to be given independent command. He could only muster an army which he could command himself. He could not raise and command an army as large as that of the Philistines, who had five or more independent commanders. Saul’s unwillingness to delegate left him in a bad way. Saul continued to compound the mistakes which he had made in not following God’s commands.