For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The righteous will pick themselves up from set back after set back, but when the wicked fall they will fail to rise again.
When it seems like God no longer performs miraculous signs nor speaks through prophets, remember what He has done in times past. He will perform such wonders once more when the time is right. Fools will dishonour God’s name because they think He will not intervene in history. However, He will defend His honour and those fools who insult Him will learn their error.
This is another passage which I had committed to memory that perhaps I should re-memorize. Paul tells us that if anyone could have confidence in their own effort to be righteous it would be himself. He had everything going for him, born in a good family of great pedigree, taught from an earliest age to follow the rules, zealous in obeying the law. He had once valued all of these things, but no longer. All of those things, and anything else that could be considered to his credit, he considered a loss because they distracted from becoming one with Christ. No matter who we are or what we have done, none of it has any value compared with knowing Christ. Anything that makes us think we have righteousness in our own right is a flaw that distracts us from focusing on the righteousness which comes from Christ. If we think that in some way, in some part of our life, we have value independent of our faith in Christ it will prevent us from accepting what the Spirit wants to do in that part of our life.
Rather than seeking some righteousness we can call our own, we should strive to know Christ in all aspects of our lives and experience the power of God that raised Him from the dead. Let us covet sharing the type of suffering which Christ suffered (I cannot begin to tell you how much just writing that frightens me) so that we might share in His death, which is the only way to experience His resurrection.
As long as we are on this earth, let us not think that we have accomplished the goal and reached perfection. However, let us forget our past mistakes and look toward what we can do in the future in order to serve God. We cannot change our past, so let us focus on what the Spirit can do to transform us in the future. Let us seek out examples like Paul to model ourselves after. Look around for those who are striving to serve God the way in which Paul did. Then, let us follow their example so that we can become ever more like Christ.
We have a choice to make, will we be humble and contrite before God? Or will we seek our own way to righteousness? Those who strive to be righteous on their own may as well be mass murderers for all the good their righteousness will do them. Those who seek to consecrate and purify themselves are doing so before an idol while feasting on disgusting things. It is only when God consecrates us and purifies us that we become purified and consecrated.