For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Paying for the education of someone who does not want to learn is a waste of money.
I always have trouble with this psalm. I do not see what message it carries for me and I pray that the main message I see in it never does apply to my life. Perhaps it serves as a reminder to be sympathetic to those who have been driven from their homeland and forced to make a life for themselves elsewhere.
The first thing that jumps out at me in this passage is that the leaders of the church in Antioch of Syria were worshiping the Lord and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them. Their response to the message from the Holy Spirit was to fast and pray some more. A few weeks back at a men’s meeting, the discussion revolved around why we do not see more results from our ministries. Perhaps the answer to that question is that we do not do enough fasting. I know that I do not fast often enough. I feel called to enter into prayer and fasting. I know that when I fast I usually become difficult to live with and do not deal well with others. Which means that I have to choose times to fast carefully. Despite this challenge, I must make the time to do so.
There are several lessons for us in this passage. The first is that sometimes when someone makes demands on us, they are doing so in order to provoke a confrontation. If that is the case, when we agree to their demands they will merely increase them. In this story, Ben-hadad made threats about what he would do after his victory that were ill-conceived, because when the battle came he lost. Despite losing the first time he faced King Ahab’s army, Ben-hadad entered into the second battle with over-confidence. This over-confidence led to his defeat a second time. After the second battle, we learn another lesson. Rather than defeat Ben-hadad once and for all, Ahab released him to go back and rebuild his armies in order to attack yet again.