For today, One Year Bible Online links here. Today marks the 14th year of my marriage to the my lovely wife. I thank God every day for bringing this woman into my life. Happy Anniversary, Darling!
This is a clear and concise warning about the dangers of becoming enticed by alcohol. While moderate drinking can have benefits, drinking all the time will lead to health problems and social difficulties.
This psalm will be my prayer for today. How much better would this world be if people everywhere were to pray this psalm, if God’s ways were known and followed throughout the earth? Yes, I will pray this psalm and hope that what it asks for comes to pass. May all the nations praise God and people everywhere fear Him.
At one time we were all dead to sin. We all served the one whose spirit is at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. Ultimately, everything we did served death. We served our sinful desires and made ourselves objects of God’s anger. In this way, we were no better than anyone else. But God, in His rich mercy, loved us so much that He gave us life by raising Christ from the dead. We cannot take credit for this transformation from death to life because it was none of our doing. It was a free gift from God.
We did not receive salvation as a reward for our good works, rather God gave us salvation in order to create a great masterpiece. He created a work of art out of the junk we had made of our lives. He transformed us into a new creation in Christ in order that we might do the good works He planned out for us long ago. Once we were divided into groups, and nations, a races, but God united us into one people, joining us together to be a temple where His Holy Name is worshiped. Let us seek to bring glory to God in all we do, encouraging others to praise His holy name.
As I read the beginning of this where the Lord calls on the idols men worship to tell what they had done in the past, or predict what would happen in the future, or to just do something, I was reminded of all of the models which people have proposed over the last century or two. Models which they claimed everyone should use to guide their lives, some of those models were economic models, some were scientific models, but all claimed they could tell us what the future held and demanded our loyalty. All of those promises proved to be empty and meaningless. But God has told us what He will do and we have seen it come to pass.
Isaiah then prophesies in the name of the Lord about the coming of the Christ, a prophecy fulfilled with Jesus coming. Further he tells us to look to the past and learn from what others have experienced. Let us look to the past and see how when people refuse to serve the Lord, death and destruction come upon them. Those that continue to heed His word are completely destroyed. But those who turn to Him and seek to follow His ways make their way through the times of trouble and oppression. God will deliver them out the other side. We have the examples of the way in which He treated His people Israel, predicting the troubles that would come from their sins, and predicting the ways in which He would redeem them once more.