He is risen indeed! Today is Easter, the day we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. Today we celebrate the most important part event in Christian history. Easter far outstrips Christmas as an important day. On Christmas we celebrate Jesus’ birth, but people are born everyday. On Easter we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. This was a special occasion. Let us remember it and celebrate it. For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
It can be fun to find just the right word to shut some one up by insulting them in a way that hurts just a little bit. Knowing how to say something so that it stings just a little bit and makes everyone else laugh is a talent people admire. However, the true talent is saying something that makes someone who is hurting feel better about themselves. It is that to which the wise aspire.
The psalmist tells us what to do when we feel abandoned by God, when we feel like His love is gone forever. The answer is to meditate on what God has done in the past. When we look at what God has done in the past we will realize that things today are not more than He can handle. God will act in His time for those who serve Him. Let us bring our requests to Him with patience and persistence.
Jesus talks about what happens when an evil spirit is cast out of someone. He talks about how the spirit goes out for a time, but before long returns. It finds the person who had been its home cleaned up and now an even more pleasant place to live, so it moves back in and invites its friends. This is what happens to someone who is rescued from an evil, destructive lifestyle who does not replace that lifestyle with something holy. The temptation will come upon them, they will return to that lifestyle, and they will be worse off than before.
The lesson here for us is that we can rescue people from drugs, or alcohol, or sexual addiction, or any of a large number of self-destructive lifestyles without involving the Lord. However, if they do not invite the Holy Spirit into their lives, the demons of those lifestyles will return and inhabit them once more. When we cast the demons, literal or figurative, out of someone, there is only one way to ensure that those demons will not take up residence again. That is for a Spirit more powerful than they to take up residence instead. If the Holy Spirit does not reside within us, the demons of the sins from our former lives will return and take up residence, bringing more demons with them. However, the Holy Spirit will not share His home with other spirits. If He lives within us, He will not permit those demons to enter.
Moses gave the Israelites some promises from God and some warnings. And while these were intended specifically for the Israelites, they apply to a lesser degree to any people. When a nation of people walk in God’s ways, follow His commands, and strive to serve Him, they will be blessed. They will prosper and their enemies will flee from them. However, if that same nation refuses to listen to God and will not obey His commands, if it stops striving to serve Him, they will be cursed. As I look at the blessings and curses in this passage, I see in them a reflection of things which have happened to various nations throughout the world at various times in history.