If you do not take the time to get your job done and to take care of the details, poverty will quickly overtake you. I find proverbs like this a challenge. I know that I am lazy and love sleep more than I ought. This reminds me not to procrastinate, but get things done when they need to be done.
Prayer is clearly the topic God is after me about. Yesterday, in the passage from Colossians, Paul’s instruction to devote ourselves to prayer struck me. Today, the first thing to strike my eyes was Paul saying that he prayed constantly. As a result of his prayer, the Holy Spirit reinforced Paul’s words with power giving those who heard assurance that he spoke the truth. If we fill our lives with prayer the Holy Spirit will give us joy, even in the midst of suffering.
We were made to cling to God the way a loincloth is made to cling to a man’s waist. If instead of doing so we follow our own desires and worship things other than God, God will rot away our pride and bring destruction upon us. God desires that we act to bring glory to His name by living lives which respect Him. Let us abandon our pride and give glory to God before it is too late.
When we cry out to God, He will come to our rescue. When we turn to Him He will forgive our sins. Those who scoff at God will learn of His power one way or another. Those who persecute God’s servants will learn of God’s power.
Today I see this passage as giving us a tutorial on reaching the unsaved with the Gospel. We need to begin by making sure that the message we are conveying is not in error, that we are speaking and living the true Gospel message. In our efforts to convince people to follow Christ we cannot use trickery or deception. You cannot convince someone that you are speaking the truth by using trickery and deception. Further, we must make sure that our motives in preaching the Gospel are neither selfish nor impure. If we attempt to get people to follow Christ by using flattery, even if we initially succeed, we will leave them susceptible to being deceived into false beliefs later. The most important part is that we need to make those we wish to reach for Christ part of our lives. Let them see how we live out our faith day to day. Let them see our struggles and that we do not think of ourselves as perfect. But also let them see how our faith gives us hope in the face of adversity and the joy we get from serving God.
If the people of any nation learn to follow God and cling to His ways, God will establish them safely in the land which they hold. Those who choose to love and honour God will be given a place among His people. On the other hand, if we refuse to obey His will, we will be uprooted and destroyed. We have been made to cling to God so as to bring honour and glory to His name. But if we refuse to listen to Him and follow our own desires, worshiping that which is not God, we are useless, like an article of clothing which was buried in the mud. It is not enough to cry out to God for help as we continue to live our sinful lives. We must allow His Holy Spirit to transform us, to guide us away from the sins which have brought us into this difficult place to begin with.
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. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
God promised Jeremiah that any people who learned to swear by His name will become the people of God. However, He also promised that any people who refused to obey Him will be uprooted and destroyed. We have been made to cling to God and serve Him. If we do this we will be cared for and treasured by Him. If on the other hand we refuse to listen to God and follow our own desires, we will become like a rotting loincloth, good for nothing and of no value to anyone.
It is time to listen and pay attention. We must not let our arrogance blind us to God’s call nor make us deaf to His commands. It is not too late. Let us listen to God’s call and speak out to our neighbors. We are called to a dual ministry. The first part is to act according to God’s will. The second part is to tell our neighbors and fellow countrymen that God’s judgment is nigh. Now is the time to answer God’s call. Time is running short, but it has not yet run out.
Once more one of Paul’s letters starts off with a reminder of the central place prayer played in Paul’s ministry. And once more I am challenged to strengthen my prayer life. Since Paul found time to pray for the various believers in these various cities, what is my excuse? I do not have one and I come before God and ask Him to send His Spirit upon me and give me a heart for prayer.
This passage shows us the importance of living according to the Spirit and living out the Gospel in our lives. First, the believers in Thessalonica saw Paul living out the Gospel message he was preaching. In response to his teaching and the way he lived among them, they chose to imitate his life and that of Christ. They did this in such a way that others imitated them, initially in the local region, but over time throughout the entire Roman Empire. People were impressed with how they turned away from heathen practices to enthusiastically follow God. All of this resulted from Paul coming among them and showing them what it truly means to be a Christian. This is a challenge to me. Do I live my life so that others want to be like me? Do others witness my life and strive to follow Jesus so that they can be like me? That is my goal, to live my life so that others will want to know the Gospel to be like me. I wish to live my life so that it brings glory to Christ, so that others see how I act and want to know how they can be like that. Not because I want them to hold me up as some great person, but because I want them to seek the Lord.
Today this psalm as a whole did not speak to me. However, there is a section in the middle that did.
Let your compassion quickly meet our needs,
for we are on the brink of despair.
Help us, O God of our salvation!
Help us for the glory of your name.
Save us and forgive our sins
for the honor of your name.
Why should pagan nations be allowed to scoff,
asking, “Where is their God?”
I will call out to God for His compassion because I am in desperate need of His care. I have made mistakes and sinned against God, I ask for His forgiveness so that His name may be honored. I ask that God show Himself to those around me who doubt that He is real, that He silence those who say to me, “Where is your God?” I do not ask this for my own glory, but for His.
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 Lord tells Jeremiah that the wicked appear to be prospering because the people have turned against Him. The apparent prosperity of the wicked is only a temporary thing while the Lord brings His full judgement to bear. The Lord is bringing His judgement against the people of Judah and against all of the wicked nations of the earth. But the time is coming when He will restore the people of Judah to His favor. When that happens(and with the death and resurrection of Christ, it has happened), He will give a place among them to the people of every nation who call upon Him. Jeremiah uses a rotting loincloth to illustrate the relationship between the people of Judah and God. Just as a loincloth is designed to cling to our bodies and be a source of pride (it is well made and decorated), so the people of Judah were designed to cling to God and be a source of pride to Him. Instead they sinned and sought after other gods, as a result they became useless like a rotting loincloth. The same is true of us today. We are to cling to God and allow Him to embroider us to be a source of His pride, but if we turn from Him and wallow in sin, we will be as a rotting loincloth.
We must put aside our pride and seek after the Lord before He punishes us for our sins. We must humble ourselves before Him and call on His Spirit to live within us because we are unable, by our own power, to stop sinning and do good.
Once again, Paul opens a letter by telling the recipients that he prays for them constantly. Could we do the same? Do we pray for our fellow believers regularly? Do we pray often enough that we could use the word “constantly” about anything we pray for? Paul praises the Thessalonians by telling them that wherever he goes, there are people telling him about the faith of the Thessalonians. Once again we need to ask ourselves, do people say the same sort of thing about the congregation we worship with? Do we serve the living and true God with such fervor that people distant from us have heard of it? Are we making it clear to those we meet that we are looking forward to Christ’s return?
We should declare the gospel boldly, even in the face of opposition. We should do so without deceit or trickery. We should seek to please God, not our fellow man.
God pours out His anger on His people when they turn from Him. But when they turn back to Him, He will restore them to Himself. When that day comes, He will pour out an even larger dose of His anger on those nations and people who looked at their suffering and used it as an excuse to deny God’s very existence. Let us praise God for the wonders He has performed.
It is easy to think that taking a little more time for myself can do no harm, but such is not always the case. It is all too easy to allow laziness to overcome our better sense and lead us into poverty. I know those who are workaholics, to whom this proverb would never apply, but I am not one of them. This proverb directly addresses my weaknesses. I must strive to always work hard because I, all too easily, can slip into laziness.
