For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Who you associate with matters. If you spend all of your time around foolish people, you will do foolish things. When you do foolish things you will end up with trouble and problems. Even if, by a stroke of fortune, you avoid doing foolish things you will experience the trouble created by the foolish actions of those you are spending time with. If you find yourself plagued by trouble, as soon as one problem is resolved another problem crops up, it is time to examine your behavior. That is the type of circumstance fools and sinners find themselves in.
As an alternate, spend your time with the wise and you will find yourself becoming wiser. Your companions will offer you advice on how to avoid trouble and solve problems. The wise choose the righteous path and then, instead of being pursued by trouble, unexpected blessings keep turning up in their lives.
Despite feeling like God has turned His back on him and abandoned him the psalmist praises God and calls on others to do likewise. I praise God not just because He has done great things for me, but because He is deserving of praise.
As I read Jesus’ comments about the widow’s mites I was reminded of an article I read recently. During the last economic downturn extending into the current economic hard times, charities have discovered that donations from big money donors have fallen off, while those from those of lesser means have not only remained steady but increased. This fact serves as a reminder of the lesson Jesus was teaching here. God is not impressed by how much of our surplus we give to His work. He is impressed by how much we are willing to sacrifice in order to help those less fortunate than ourselves. When deciding if we are giving enough to God’s work the question we need to ask ourselves is if our giving means we have to forgo buying something we want?
Joshua presented the Israelites with a decision which each and everyone of us must make. It is a decision which must be made by every generation. Actually, it is a decision which we must make every day. We must choose who it is we are going to serve. Are we going to serve God? Or someone/something else? We have many people and things we can choose to serve. Joshua presented it here as a life decision, and it is. But it is also a decision we must make anew each day.
When Joshua told the people of Israel to choose whom they would serve, it was not a dispassionate question. He did not say, “Well, you need to choose a set of gods to follow. I think you should follow God, but its up to you.” No, he described all the things God had done for the Israelites, both those to whom he was speaking and their ancestors. Then he told them to serve God and God alone. Then he uttered the phrase that must have stirred the blood of the people listening, “Choose today whom you will serve…But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord!” When he uttered that line, I imagine that it was met with a loud shout from the people affirming that they too would serve the Lord. We need to confront the people we meet with their need to make a choice and we need to make sure they understand the seriousness of the choice they are about to make. But that doesn’t mean that we should not make it clear to them which choice we think they should make. We should use every bit of our ability to convince them to make the right choice.