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.
The prophet Isaiah condemns those who put on the forms of piety and righteousness without actually behaving in a righteous manner. He uses fasting as the example behavior, but I believe this applies to all sorts of “righteous” behavior. There are many people who claim to be working to do good who are in actuality merely working to please themselves. God gives the standards by which He judges righteousness. It is to free those who are wrongly imprisoned, to lighten the workload of those who work at your command. It is sharing your food with the hungry and shelter to the homeless. It is giving clothes to those who need them and making oneself available to relatives that need help. If you do these things, then God will bless you. This is not something that you delegate to someone else, whether that someone else be the church or the government. Further you need to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest and a day to focus on worshiping the Lord, not a day to pursue your own interests. This is where I most often fail. I too often spend my day of rest pursuing that which gives me pleasure rather than focusing on God. It is not the doing of that which gives me pleasure that is wrong. It is the failure to focus on God. Isaiah goes on to condemn a nation where lawsuits are based on lies. A nation where the courts oppose the righteous and justice is nowhere to be found. A nation where anyone who renounces evil is attacked. But God will step in. He will apply justice and save those who renounce evil. We must not delegate doing right to others.
Paul begins his letter to the Philippians by praying that their love may grow with increasing knowledge and wisdom. I think this is an important connection. How do we know if our knowledge and wisdom are truly growing in a Godly fashion? The answer is that if they are, the increase in knowledge and wisdom will lead to an increase in our love for others and for God. If we find ourselves fighting with others and with an ever shrinking circle of people with whom we associate (or who associate with us) then we can know that our knowledge and wisdom are not growing in the fashion God intends.
Paul goes on to say that because of his imprisonment the gospel is being preached boldly. While some are preaching the gospel out of jealousy and rivalry with Paul, many are preaching it sincerely. Paul does not care what motives lead people to preach the gospel, as long as what they are preaching is the gospel. This passage concludes with Paul telling us that he is torn between continuing to serve God on this earth and dying and going to be with the Lord. This represents what our attitude towards life and death should be. We should view death as a joyous reward where we get to be in the presence of God completely. On the other hand we should view this life as an opportunity to serve God in all we do.
The psalmist turns to God in his time of trouble. He calls on God to rescue him. Like the psalmist, God has been with me since childhood. I was raised in a Christian home by Godly parents. While there have been times in my life where I have fallen away from God, God has been part of my life since my earliest years. I hope that I have been an example to many, but I wonder if I have been less of a servant than I could have been. I call on God to use me as an example going forward so that those who meet me will desire to know Him as I do.
Fools scheme to commit sins. Do not take pride in your strength if it fails when times get tough.