Daily Archives: December 10, 2012

Daily Bible Study

December 11, 2012 Bible Study

     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.

Amos 4-6:14

     The prophet began today’s passage by condemning rich women who used their position of power and influence to oppress the poor. Women who are demanding more stuff from their husbands. He goes on to condemn those who are self-righteous, who make regular offerings and brag about their offerings over and above the “default”. I do not think the first part is necessarily just about women. I think it applies to anyone who thinks that they are deserving of being treated well because they have wealth that was acquired for them by someone else. This passage is about those who think that because they follow religious rituals they are holy, better than others and therefore can abuse those others who are clearly less holy than themselves. This is a condemnation of those who think they are righteous because they give thousands of dollars to charity, yet have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on themselves. Someone recently said that God does not measure our giving by how much we give, rather he measures it by how much we spend on ourselves. I think that that can be abused as well, but it is a good starting point to think about giving.
     Amos tells us that God had sent disasters, natural and otherwise, against Israel to call them back to Him, but they had ignored them and refused to repent of their sins. God showed the people the results of their sins and they still refused to turn to Him. Reading this passage reminds me of what I have seen in my lifetime and how for the most part people are continuing to turn away from God despite what should be warnings and calls to return to Him. We have had Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. We have had the Columbine shootings, the Aurora movie theater shootings, the 911 attacks. We have had SARS, Mad Cow disease and AIDS. After each of these hits the news, there has been a short upswing in interest in God, but it quickly fades away and people return to their sinful lifestyles with a vengeance, laughing off anyone who makes a connection between these tragedies and sin (even when as in AIDS the correlation is pretty direct).
     The prophet tells us that now is the time to repent and turn back to God, away from our sinful and unjust behaviors. God does not want our hymns of praise and assemblies of worship, he wants us to seek justice and to care for the poor. Now is the time for us to pray and fast, to seek to serve the Lord in whatever way that He calls us. We need to turn away from religious behaviors that are just for show and seek to take those righteous actions which help those in need. Let us seek the Lord with all of our hearts. We need to fast and pray, not for our country, but for people. How may the Lord’s will be best accomplished in this world? We should pray neither for the continued strength of the U.S. (or any other nation), nor for its downfall (or that of any other nation). Rather we should pray that the people of the U.S., and of every nation, turn to God and repent of their sins. Jesus said that His Kingdom is not of this world and we should always remember that no nation on this earth is God’s Kingdom.

Amaryllis in the Window

Revelation 2:18-3:6

     Today, I read the messages to the next two of the seven churches. The church in Thyatira was commended for its love, faith, service and patient endurance. It was, however, reprimanded for permitting a woman who called herself a prophet to lead some believers astray with her teachings of sexual immorality and participation in pagan rituals. A severe judgment is declared against those who follow her teachings and fail to repent. The message continues by praising those who have not followed these teachings of “deeper truths” and asking nothing more of them than that they continue to hold tightly to the truths of the Gospel. There is a clue in this passage about how to recognize false teachings. The false teaching being condemned here claimed to be a “deeper truth”, something that was not known to the common believer. This is a common theme in many false teachings, they provide “secret” knowledge, or some other means by which those who follow them are separated out as special from others. But the message of the Gospel is that we are all the children of God and loved by Him. Anyone who turns to Him and seeks fellowship with Him will not be turned away.
     Next is the message to the church in Sardis. It has a reputation for being a strong and vibrant congregation, but the message tells us that it has died. Too many of its members are just going through the motions without any real commitment to doing God’s will. They are told to return to what they believed and did when they first believed. They need to wake up and follow God’s righteous path. Even so, there are a few among them who have remained faithful and whom God commends. This is a warning to us today that we cannot rest on what we did in the past, God calls us to righteous behavior today and tomorrow and every day until the Lord returns. We don’t get to retire from serving the Lord (and some of us don’t wait until we retire to attempt to retire from the Lord’s service).

Christmas Tree Angel

Psalm 130:1-8

     Yes, let us call on the Lord for help. If we call on Him, He will rescue us from our troubles, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us. We do not deserve God’s love. We deserve misery and trouble for all of the sins we have committed, for the harm and trouble we have caused others, but God will forgive us our sins. All we have to do is turn to Him and strive to allow Him to replace our sin with righteousness. How I strive to put my faith in nothing but the Lord, for only He can be relied on.

Proverbs 29:21-22

     Failure to control ones temper will lead on into all kinds of sin. I am usually very good at controlling my anger. Sometimes however I let that fool me into thinking it is ok to lose control of my temper. There are times when it is right to feel anger, and even occasionally to act on that anger. However, it is never right to let anger control our actions.

Bible Study

Advent Season–Responding to God’s Love

Lighting The Second Advent Candle

     This is late this week because I was neither inspired to write something yesterday, nor disciplined enough to do it anyway. However, this morning on the way to work I heard a version of “The Little Drummer Boy” and it brought together some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head for the last few weeks. I am sure most of you are familiar with the story line of “The Little Drummer Boy”, but I will sum it up as far as it is relevant to this post. The drummer boy is a poor orphan child (or so I suppose) who witnesses these fabulous, mighty and wealthy people bringing expensive and rare gifts to a newborn baby. He wants to know why. When he finds out that this babe is the Messiah who will give His life to show God’s love, the drummer boy wants to offer a gift as well. But he has no gift that, in his mind, compares to these wondrous gifts given by these eminent people. When we hear the song we recognize that he is wrong, that his gift is of much more value than the gifts given out of the excess of the rich. The drummer boy gives all that he has, he plays his drum for God in the form of this baby.
     This is oh so important. God created everything that is, He does not need our stuff. What God wants from us is us. He wants us to give Him our basic selves, not because that somehow makes Him better off or more or any of the reasons we want gifts that people give us. He wants us because when we give our essence to Him, we become more and better and better off. Part of the meaning of Christmas is that God loves us so much that He made Himself helpless to spend time with us. He made Himself a baby, there is little or nothing that is more helpless and vulnerable than a human baby. It depends on others for everything.
     Back to my theme. The little drummer boy thought that what he had to offer was of little consequence, but he wanted to offer it anyway. He was right, what he had to offer was of little consequence, but, even so it was of much more consequence and value to God than the wealth given out of the excess of possessions that the wise men brought. This is not to belittle or denigrate the wise men. They saw the signs and came to worship the King of Kings, offering gifts. But God wants so much more than that. God wants us to serve Him with the gifts He has given us.
     He came to us because He loves us. He wants us to offer ourselves up to Him. He wants us to show our love for Him, by showing His love to our fellow-man. As we go prepare to celebrate the memory of His coming as a baby, are we preparing for when He will return? Are we showing His love to those around us in need? Are we seeking out ways to use that which He has given us (and not just the excess) to serve Him by helping those who are suffering or in need? The little drummer boy offered all that he thought he had to honor the new-born king. Let us offer not only all we think we have, but let us dig deep and offer all that we are.