For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 12:19-20

    There are those who think they can change the world for the better with lies. They are badly mistaken. If you find yourself resorting to deceit to accomplish your goals it is a good clue that your goals are evil and not good. Those who wish to make lasting, positive change to this world rely on the truth.

Psalm 78:1-31

    There are two elements to this psalm (there is that two thing again). Each generation needs to choose to follow God’s commands by their own decision. The parents cannot decide for their children that the children will follow God (although I have known of parents who chose to follow God for their children’s sake). Each person must choose for themselves to give their hearts to God.
    Let us not be like the Israelites in the wilderness. They saw God’s marvelous power displayed for their benefit time and again. Yet, time and again they failed to have faith that God could meet their needs this time. I have seen what God has done in the past, I will have faith in His power and love for the future.

Luke 11:37-12:7

    The important point about this passage is its condemnation of hypocrisy, but we all know that. I was looking for something different to say about this when I realized something I never really thought about before. Jesus is not saying that our outward appearance should not look righteous to those around us. He is saying that we should focus on making our inward being righteous first. When we start to clean up our lives we should start with the parts that others do not see. If we clean up our inward being, our outward appearance will follow. It doesn’t work the other way around.
    When we teach people about God’s commands, we need to do more than teach them the “rules”. We need to work with them to teach them how to keep those “rules”. Jesus condemned the teachers of religious law for teaching the laws, but not offering to help people to keep those laws. Our job is to help people live a righteous life, not to condemn them for failing to do so.

Deuteronomy 29-30:20

    This passage was addressed primarily to the people of Israel and talked primarily about the land of Israel, but it applies to all of the peoples on this earth. The blessings and curses laid out in these passages apply to all mankind. Those who love and obey God will be blessed. Those who rebel against God and seek after other gods will be cursed.
    Today God is giving you a choice. If in the past you have rebelled against God and are suffering His curse, today you can choose to turn to Him and start walking in His way. If you do so, He will bless you and show you life. I do not know how to write this as I feel it needs to be written. I am convinced that someone will read this today who God is calling right now. All I can think is to quote the final paragraph of today’s passage (and to pray for you, whoever you are):
Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 12:15-17

    The first two proverbs fit together. Those who will not listen to advice will usually get angry with those who try to warn them about the weakness in their plan. However, the thing to do with these proverbs is to use them as a mirror for ourselves. Do I listen to others when I make plans? Do I incorporate what they say into my plans? Do I get angry when people insult me?
    As I read and thought about this, I realized a place where I struggle dealing with this. When people suggest I attempt to solve a problem using something I already tried, I have a tendency to feel insulted and get angry. The wise person stays calm in such a situation. I am working on recognizing that people often give such advice knowing that I probably know to try it, but may have forgotten. Let us all work on staying calm when we think someone is insulting us.

Psalm 76:1-12

    I like this psalm, but I struggled with finding something to say about it. Until I looked at verses 9 and 10 again. God has stood up and judged those who do evil. He has and will continue to rescue the oppressed on this earth. Those who defy God enhance His glory and He uses their defiance as a weapon to gain His victory. Those who defy God are serving Him just as much as those who submit to His will (the difference being that those who choose to do His will are rewarded, while those who attempt to resist it suffer).

Luke 10:38-11:13

    Jesus taught us how to pray. That teaching was a two part lesson (there I am with the two parts again). First He gives us a model prayer:

Father, may your name be kept holy.

God has adopted us as His children and we should look to Him as a loving, caring father. In addition, Jesus instructs us to pray that our actions show that God’s name is worthy of complete devotion. And that we pray that everyone learn to be completely devoted to God’s name. It is here that we pray for our wants. We should strive to want those things which will allow us to show that God’s name is worthy of complete devotion.

May your Kingdom come.

Our prayers should include the desire that the entire earth and everyone on it knowingly submit to God’s sovereignty (I need to do a blog entry sometime one my understanding of the Kingdom of God…not because I am so insightful, but because I need to work through comprehensively what I believe about the Kingdom of God). It is here that we pray for others, part of the coming of God’s Kingdom is others coming to Him and having their needs met.

Give us each day the food we need,

Here Jesus explains what sort of things for which it is appropriate for us to ask. We are to ask God to supply our needs, not our wants

and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.

We need to recognize that we are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. And we need to recognize that God has even more right to hold our sins against us as we do to hold others accountable for the harm they have done us. God is only willing to forgive us if we are willing to forgive others. Actually, we are only able to accept God’s forgiveness if we are able to forgive those who have sinned against us (or who we perceive to have sinned against us).

And don’t let us yield to temptation.

And finally we pray that God give us the strength to resist temptation while guiding us to actions which will keep us far from it.
    Having given us an example of what our prayers should look like Jesus explains the importance of patience and persistance. Note that this prayer is short and does not spend any time telling God what He has promised us, nor does it repeat itself(I understand that sometimes when we pray we repeat ourselves in order to put our thoughts in order. That is different from saying the same thing a different way on purpose. We do not need to repeat ourselves for clarity, God understand what we mean). If we remember that part of the point of prayer is to listen to God and to allow Him to show us the changes He is making in us, the emphasis on patience and persistence becomes clear.
    It takes time for us to accept the changes which God is making in us, as well as time for those changes to take hold. We will not be prepared to receive what we are asking God for if we are not patient. Further, we will not undergo the transformation God has in mind for us if we are not persistent. There is one more point about the importance of persistence and patience in praying for things from God. As we persistently and patiently pray for things, God will reveal to us how our true desires will be better fulfilled with something else (maybe different in a large way from what we started out praying for, or perhaps only different in a minor way). Let us learn to pray following the model Jesus gave us, and let us learn to be persistent in our prayers.

Deuteronomy 26-27:26

    The lesson from the first fruits offering is that we should give of our resources to God’s service before we pay our bills or use them to meet our needs. I will not condemn those who have so little that they have come to the conclusion they have none to spare for God’s ministry. I have been in that situation. I think I was wrong and that God would have provided for my needs, more importantly, I suspect that on at least one occasion I was in that situation because I had chosen to spend money on wants that should have gone to needs. Beyond that, we should put aside some of our resources to meet the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves.
    The Israelites are God’s chosen people and if they follow His commands to them, He will set them above all other nations. However, any people who serve God and strive to follow His commands will find themselves prospering.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 12:12-14

    This proverb reminds me of a business man who emphasized to his subordinates the importance of telling the truth. He did not do so on the basis of it “being the right thing to do”, even though that was why he did so. He made the point of telling them that if what they said was the truth, they would not have to worry about what they had told the customers (or others). This proverb reminds us that those who use lies and distortions to stave off trouble will, in due time, find themselves trapped by the lies they have told. The righteous need not fear such a fate because they have been honest in their dealings.

Psalm 75:1-10

    I thought at first that there was not much to say regarding this psalm when I realized there is an important point here that I can expand on slightly. The psalmist tells us that it is God alone who judges. The follow up being that it is not up to me (or to you) to judge the actions of others. No, our job is to proclaim what God has done. Perhaps if we do our job, rather than trying to do God’s job, the wicked will turn from their ways and and receive God’s forgiveness as we have.

Luke 10:13-37

    When the 72 returned to Jesus they were excited because even evil spirits had submitted to them in His name. Jesus told them not to rejoice that evil spirits submitted to them. The important thing to do was to rejoice that our names are registered as citizens of heaven. We are not sent to seek out and confront the demon possessed and the evil in this world. We are sent to heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, most importantly, to preach the Gospel. But the demon possessed and the evil in this world will seek us out and find us, just as they did Jesus. When that happens, He has given us authority to rebuke them in His name. We have no power over demons, spirits, and the powers of evil in this world, but Jesus does. He has given us the authority to speak in His name and, as long as we are serving Him, they have no choice but respond to the power He has delegated to us. However, we must never forget that it is not our power to which they submit.
    I was not planning on writing on the parable of the Good Samaritan, except that I realized that Jesus conclusion to that parable echoes what I wrote (or perhaps the other way around) about yesterday’s passage from Deuteronomy. Having described the actions of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells us to go and do likewise. Once more we receive the lesson that it is not enough to not do wrong, we must actively do right by caring for those in need, even if they might otherwise be our oppressors.

Deuteronomy 23-25:19

    This is a difficult passage for me to find a lesson in because the commands seem (to me) to go all over the place. There are several here which fit together for a lesson I understand, but others which I do not understand. The lesson I understand: Treat the poor and the weak with justice, make provisions for them to be able to meet their needs. It is worth noting that the instructions for the latter are not pure charity. Rather, the command is to be less than completely efficient in harvesting your crops so as to give the poor and needy the opportunity to acquire what they need to survive by gathering what you missed. Even the command to pay laborers their wages each day was about not maximizing your wealth at the expense of those who had no other choices.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 12:8-9

    Like so many of the proverbs, both parts of this proverb are basic common sense. Yet many people come up with excuses as to why they are an exception to one or both of them. While it may work out for them in the short-term, before too long this truth bears out. A group of people may find the thoughts and actions of someone with a warped mind entertaining or beneficial at first, but before very long they start to grate on everyone’s nerves. On the other hand, a group of people may initially find a sensible person boring and “no fun” to be around, but before long they realize that they need people like that to make things happen.

Psalm 72:1-20

    Paul tells us to pray for kings and those in authority. This psalm is a great example of what we should pray when we do so. The first, and most important, part is that we pray that God give His love of justice and righteousness to our government officials. Further, we ask God to help them judge the people under their authority with justice and righteousness. I will ask that God help those government officials to defend the poor and the children of the needy.
    The rest of the requests in this psalm follow from these things. If the government authorities judge with righteousness and justice their power will expand. They and the people under their authority will prosper.

Luke 9:7-27

    The first part of this passage reminds me of something I have commented on a few times so far this year. The fact that John the Baptist and Jesus were perceived by the people of the day as preaching the same message, to the point where many people thought they were the same person.
    When Jesus told the crowd that they must take up their cross daily, He was not talking about having to deal with the minor troubles of life such as dealing with difficult people.He was talking about willingly facing a horrible torturous death. The crowd listening to Him would have known exactly to what He was referring. Further, the fact that He was referring to crucifixion is made clear by what He says next. Are we willing to sacrifice our lives in order to serve Jesus? We, here in the United States, have not been asked to make that choice. That may change soon. Probably not our lives, but we may soon struggle to make our livelihoods. Recently, there have been cases where Christians have lost not only their livelihoods but their life savings for standing up for their faith. I believe that this will become more common in the near future. Of course this is minor suffering compared to Christians in some parts of the world. Will we here be as faithful in the face of this minor suffering as others have been in the face of more severe suffering?
    A character in a book I like said, “Remember, it does you no good to gain your heart’s desire, if you have to give up your heart to get it.” That is another way of saying what Jesus is saying here. Nothing you can gain is worth giving up your very self. In the same way, no suffering is so bad that it is worth giving yourself up to avoid it. There is so much more I want to write about this, but if you want to understand where I am going read the “Martyrs Mirror: The Story of Seventeen Centuries of Christian Martyrdom From the Time of Christ to A.D. 1660”.

Deuteronomy 16-17:20

    There are several points here which are worth noting. First, the Israelites are told to never put someone to death on the testimony of but one witness. They were to always make sure that there were at least two or three witnesses. This is an important point that applies to many cases. We should never reach a negative conclusion about someone until we have heard from multiple, independent sources. We should recognize that sometimes people misunderstand what is happening around them.
    Another point worth noting is the instructions for future kings of Israel. These instructions can easily be extended to others besides kings. Someone who runs a company should not accumulate wealth far beyond what the workers who make the company profitable are able to acquire. It is not my place to tell someone in that situation what that means. I am merely telling someone reading this who is a CEO that they should look at what they make vs what the common worker makes. If, in their judgment, they are making enough to be well above his common workers, he is making too much and/or they too little. I want to repeat, it is not the place of outsiders to tell them how much they can make, or how much their employees should make. It is up to each person to use their judgment, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to determine where that line is.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 12:5-7

    You can tell if the person giving you advice is godly by considering the outcomes they advise you to strive for. If they are recommending that you follow a just and fair course of action, they are godly. If the person advises that you do things which are not just and fair, it is likely that following their advice will serve their interests, but not necessarily yours.

Psalm 71:1-24

    I read this psalm and parts of it resonate strongly with me and others, not so much. The psalm starts out with the psalmist crying out for God to rescue him. While I have been in such circumstances in the past, that is not where I am today. Then there is verse 7:

My life is an example to many,
because you have been my strength and protection.
I am not so sure that my life has been an example to many, but God has been my strength and protection. Which is why I can never stop praising God for what He has done for me. A little later the psalmist says that he keeps hoping for God’s help. I do the same, but I do not just hope for that help, I am receiving it. God has blessed me and helped me in so many ways. Therefore I praise Him more and more.
    Then comes verse 17, which I connect with so well:O God, you have taught me from my earliest childhood,
and I constantly tell others about the wonderful things you do.
Here I connect most thoroughly with the first part. God has indeed taught me from my earliest childhood. My parents gave me wonderful examples of what it means to follow God. I am so very grateful to them for that. However, I do not tell others about the wonderful things God does nearly enough. I pray that His Spirit will move me to do so more. Finally there is verse 20, to which I can barely relate: You have allowed me to suffer much hardship,
but you will restore me to life again
and lift me up from the depths of the earth.
I have most definitely NOT experienced much hardship, but I am confident that God will lift me up from the depths if I descend into them and He will comfort me when sorrow comes upon me. The Lord has been good to me and I owe Him so much praise.

Luke 8:40-9:6

    One problem with reading through the Bible the way I am is passages like today’s where it has not been very long since I read, and wrote on, the similar passages in Matthew and in Mark. As a result, it is sometimes hard to see a lesson which is not the one I just wrote about a few weeks ago. It is not that I mind writing more or less the same thing. My problem is that I want to see what the Spirit is telling me as I read the passage and not just think, “Oh, the story of Jairus’ daughter. Here is the lesson that teaches.” The whole point of reading the Bible every day is for the Spirit to reveal lessons from Scripture that I need to apply in my life.
    That being said, Jairus and the woman in the crowd had something in common. They were both desperate. Jairus’ desperation was urgent and threatening to destroy him. His little girl, his princess, was sick and about to die. He had striven all of her life to protect her. Now, he was powerless in the face of death. There was only one thing he could. He went to Jesus and begged Him to heal his little girl. He went to Jesus, and joy of joys, he had hope once more. Jesus was coming. Then on the way they were interrupted by a woman as desperate as he (we will get back to her in a minute). When they resumed their progress a messenger arrived and told him his precious daughter had died. There was no reason to disturb Jesus any longer. Complete deflation, it was over. But Jesus’ said to him, “Don’t be afraid. She will be healed.” And she was, despite the fact that the neighbors laughed at Jesus when He got there. The little girl was healed and restored to her father.
    Now back to the woman in the crowd. She too was desperate, but her desperation was the soul-crushing desperation of someone who has been struggling with something for years. She has tried this and she has tried that. None of it has helped in the least. Her problem remains. She has one last hope, perhaps if she can get close enough to Jesus to touch the fringe of His clothing, then she could be healed and have a normal live. She got there, touched Him, and was healed. Best of all, no one needed to know of her desperate attempt. Except that Jesus knew and called her out in the crowd. But then all He did was tell her that her faith had made her well and sent her on her way. She must have wanted to dance a jog.
    I know people as desperate as these two. The problem is that they do not know Jesus well enough to have the kind of faith in Him described in this story. I am praying that the Holy Spirit gives me direction so that they become introduced to Him.

Deuteronomy 13-15:23

    Moses warned the Israelites against those who would try to lead them to follow other gods. He points out the different ways in which people would attempt it. He points out that there will be people who perform miraculous signs (or, at least, what appear to be miraculous signs) and people who make predictions about the future which come true who will attempt to use these abilities to convince others to leave off following God. There will be those who offer the thrill of the secret, or being part of a “special” group, to entice us to leave off from following God. In all of these cases, we are encouraged to examine what they are teaching to see if it is indeed something other than the word of God. But if we conclude that it is, we should have nothing to do with them.

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

Proverbs 12:2-3

    This proverb contains a truth which those who conduct foreign policy all too often fail to heed. Those who perform wicked deeds will never create stability. Stability is a byproduct of the godly people in a society. The roots referred to in this proverb provide stability not just for the godly but for the community around them, just as the roots of a tree growing on a hill reduce the chance of a mudslide by providing stability to the soil around them.

Psalm 69:19-36

    The psalmist continues to describe his depression. Despite his desperate depression he continues to call on God and to praise Him. As I read this psalm there was one phrase which makes me want to cry:

If only one person would show some pity;
if only one would turn and comfort me.
Every time I read this I vow that I will be that one. I know that I fail, but nevertheless, God calls us to be that one. The one who makes the difference, who shows the person suffering depression that they are not alone and that God loves them.
    Oh God, whoever it is who is crying out as the psalmist does her, if they are someone I know, make me be the one who turns and comforts them…or better yet, let me be just one of Your many servants who turns and comforts them.

Luke 8:4-21

    I will repeat what I have said elsewhere where I have blogged about the parable of the sower. Every time I read this passage, I fear that I am the soil with the thorns. I know I am not the hard soil, because I have responded to God’s message. I know I am not the rocky soil because I do not wilt in the face of opposition. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing myself as producing a crop that is a hundred times what was planted.
    That being said, I have been starting to get a different view of this parable recently. I noticed that the farmer spread the seed on all of the soil. Why would he waste seed on soil where it would not thrive? You could say, “Well, he did not know where it would thrive?” There is some truth to that, but surely he could tell where the soil was too packed down to thrive? The answer to that is that something might happen to change things. Perhaps the soil of the path would get broken up and the seed could settle in before the birds got to it. Perhaps the rocks would get dug out of the rocky soil, allowing the seeds to thrive (I know from a farming perspective that is silly, but bear with me). Perhaps someone would come and pull out the thistles and other weeds so that they could not strangle the good crop. The point is, we don’t know where the Gospel message will thrive so we should spread it to everyone we meet.

Deuteronomy 9-10:22

    The Israelites went against God’s will again and again, yet God gave them new chances. After Moses gives an account of all of the times they had rebelled, he tells them what God requires of them now: “He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul.” This is what He requires of us today.

• Fear the Lord

The best example I can think of what this means is something I witnessed happen between a friend and his dog. He had raised the dog from a puppy. He loved that dog and treated it well, but he demanded that it obey him. One day, just as it became an adult dog, he gently smacked its nose away from a bit of food it was going for. It snapped at him and bit him. He went from stern to angry. The dog ran under the table and hid. That dog feared its master the way we should fear God.

• Live in a way that pleases Him

Live with integrity and honour

• Love Him and serve Him with all your heart and soul

Feed the hungry, clothe the poor, love your enemies, bless those that curse you, etc.

Share this:

• Facebook
• Tumblr
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• X
• Reddit
• Print
• Email

Like this:

Like Loading...