For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Showing favoritism when passing judgement is wrong. Holding different people to different standards of conduct will lead to condemnation and problems. Letting those one likes get away with things that one would punish others for will lead to problems. Those who hold everyone accountable to the same standard will be blessed.
The psalmist tells us what to do when our troubles are great and God does not seem to hear. When our troubles overwhelm us and God does not seem to hear our prayers and cries for help, let us remember what He has done in the past. When we bring to mind the great things He has done for us and for others in the past, we will realize that He is biding His time until the moment is right. Let us never forget God’s power and love.
We were far from God and had made ourselves His enemies through our sins. Yet, He reconciled us to Himself through the death of Christ. Our sins have been covered over by Christ’s blood. Let us remain firm in our faith in the redeeming value of the Gospel message. It is God who has bridged the gap between God and man, which was created by man’s sin. We cannot bridge that gap by our own actions.
Paul was happy to experience sufferings for the Church and for the Gospel because by doing so he was participating in the suffering which Christ experienced. We should be happy to experience suffering in the same manner. God has given us a responsibility to tell others about Christ, warning and teaching all who will listen. Let us seek to grow to maturity in Christ and to help others do so as well. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord, continue to follow Him (If you have not accepted Him as Lord and have read this far, I beg that you do so now).
Let us let our roots grow down deep in Christ. I have always loved the metaphor of roots growing down deep for our faith. If you have grown a significant number of plants, you will have noticed how the roots grow out in all directions seeking water. I have right next to be now an orchid which was poorly cared for before I got it. Its roots were growing out in all directions seeking water. But since I have had it and started to regularly water it, gradually those which grew out into the air have died back and only those roots going down into where the water actually is have remained. It should be the same with us. Before we knew Christ, we sought God’s truth in all directions, getting what little spiritual “water” wherever we could find it. But now that we are in Christ, we can sink our roots deep into Him to get all of God’s truth that we can use. We no longer need to seek to extract a little bit of truth, spiritual “water”, from wherever we can find it, mixed in among other things of no value. We can turn fully to the Gospel for all of the truth, and more, that we can use to grow.
God has prepared His judgement against the world. The forces are gathered and are about to be unleashed. He is calling us to seek out the honest and the just. As in the time of Lot when God told Abraham that if He found just five righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah He would spare the cities, so today He is seeking five righteous people in each town. And just as in Jeremiah’s day, God is having trouble finding honest and just people among us today. This country does not need righteous laws. It needs righteous people. Are we, as the Church today, offering superficial treatments for mortal wounds? Let us not assure people of peace when there is no peace. Let us not seek to appear righteous by seeking “righteous” laws we will not follow. Let us call people to do God’s will, not call people to punish others for failing to do so.