Well, I am several days into my second year of this blog. Some days, I can tell that I see things in the passage I am writing on that I never saw before. Other days, all I get out of the passage is a reaffirmation of things I get every time I have read it. The story of the widow’s mite yesterday is a great example of this. I did not see anything new in the passage, but it still challenged me and led me to new resolve to make sacrifices in order to give to the Lord’s work.
I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for almost a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. 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.
I begin the book of Judges today. After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked God which tribe should first attack the Canaanites to clear their land. God told them that Judah should go first. The warriors of Judah asked the tribe of Simeon for help clearing their land, promising to help clear Simeon’s land when they were done. Together the two tribes drove out all of the Canaanites living in the hill country of the land allotted to both tribes. However, the Canaanites living on the plains had iron chariots and they were unable to drive them out. A similar pattern emerged as the other tribes renewed their drives to take control of their allotted land. The tribes conquered much of the territory but failed to completely drive the existing residents out.
God sent a messenger throughout the land of Israel, challenging the Israelites for their failure to drive the peoples out of the land and making treaties with them. God told them that since they had made treaties with the people living in the land, He would no longer drive them out ahead of the Israelites, rather those people would remain as a thorn in the side of the Israelites. Their gods would be a constant temptation to the Israelites.
Jesus tells us to be alert, to not let carousing, drunkenness, or the worries of this life dull our love for Him or cloud our minds. The Kingdom of God is near and we should pray that we remain strong enough to escape the coming horrors and to stand before God. Jesus tells us in this passage that “Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.”
Every day Jesus went to the Temple to preach and in the evening He went out to the Mount of Olives to spend the night. The religious leaders were plotting how to kill Jesus without triggering a riot. In the middle of their plotting, Judas approached them with an offer to help them arrest Jesus when the people were not around. The religious leaders were delighted at this offer and promised to pay him for doing so. The passage gives us no insight into Judas’ motives. Which in itself tells us something important, God does not care why we do evil. It is not our intentions that matter, but our actions. If I do wrong for the best of motives, it is still wrong. You can never accomplish good ends by evil actions.
As the Feast of Unleavened Bread arrived, Jesus sent Peter and John to make preparations for Jesus and the disciples to eat the Passover meal. He gave them explicit instructions on how to find the person who would allow them to use his guest room. I used to read this as Jesus sending them to meet someone who He miraculously knew would allow them to eat in his guest room. However, a year or two back, I realized that Jesus’ instructions read like directions given to someone to meet at a prearranged place. I believe that Jesus had prearranged with the owner of the room for Jesus and His disciples to eat the Passover meal there.
The psalmist tells us that God has been there ruling all since before there was time. He tells us that to God, a thousand years pass as a few hours of the night to us, hardly long enough to notice. God sees our sins, even those we think we have kept carefully hidden, they are in plain view to God. Our lives are short and even our best years are filled with pain and trouble. It is only through recognition of how brief our lives are that we can learn wisdom and even that comes solely at the hand of God.
It is God who makes us glad through His unfailing love. The source of our happiness and joy are the works of God’s hands. As God shows us His power, we experience joy. It is only as we find favor with God that our efforts will be successful. When we strive to do God’s will, He will make our efforts successful. We do not accomplish anything, not even God’s will, through our own skill and power, it is God who makes our efforts successful.
In the next psalm, the psalmist tells us that God will be our shelter. IF we place our trust in God we do not need to fear the traps that are set for us, nor the terrors of the night, nor the disaster at midday. If we but open our eyes we will see how the wicked are punished. IF we make God our refuge, no evil will be able to conquer us. He will order His angels to protect us wherever we go. Let us always remember that God keeps His word and He says:
I will protect those who trust in my name.
15 When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.”
Those who love their children will discipline them, failing to discipline your child is a sign that you do not truly love them. I do not have children, but time and again I have seen how the children of those who apply stern discipline with consistency are confident of their parent’s love. But those whose parents cannot be bothered to discipline them are constantly seeking reassurance that they are loved.