For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    True riches are blessings from God. Unlike worldly riches we need make no choices we will later regret to obtain God’s blessings. I will seek God’s blessings rather than wealth and property.

    This psalm was written as praise for King David (or perhaps one of his descendants). However, as I read it today it seems to be praise for Christ. It is Christ’s throne which will endure forever. Wherever justice is found, there Christ rules and wherever Christ rules justice is found.

    When James and John asked for Jesus to promise them that they would get to sit in the places of highest honour they demonstrated that they had not yet understood Jesus’ teachings about greatness in heaven. The reaction of the other disciples to their request indicated that they also had failed to understand Jesus’ teachings on this matter. Having been raised in the Church and taught them from childhood, and, more importantly, growing up seeing them demonstrated by my parents (imperfectly, but demonstrated nevertheless), I do understand Jesus’ teaching on this matter. Even so, I still struggle to put it into practice. One of the key things I learned at a young age is that we should strive to elevate others.
    Jesus focuses here on serving others, but it is not enough to do things for other people. Sometimes, we need to allow others to do for us. Jesus calls on us to do what others need in order for them to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven. If we seek to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven, we will fail. We must seek to make others great.
    I love the scene with blind Bartimaeus for its simplicity. There is a reason it follows right after Jesus teaching His disciples that in order to be great in Heaven we need to serve others. This was not the first time He had taught this lesson to His disciples. Then we have the scene where Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, “I want to see!” Throughout the Bible “see” is often used as a metaphor for “understand”. Here, Bartimaeus came before Jesus and all he wanted was to see. When he received his sight, he followed Jesus. He understood. Do we want to see more than anything else? Or do we want to go on pretending the world works according to our desires?

    This passage tells us that if we, as a people, obey God we will live in safety. We will not need to worry about our security because God will take care of it for us. Our enemies will flee from us, even if they vastly outnumber us. On the other hand, if we, as a people, fail to follow God’s will, disaster after disaster will come upon us. Each one greater than the one before. Until, eventually, God brings our enemies to invade our land and make us prisoners in a foreign land.
    It is not a question of what laws the government has in place. It does not matter if the law of the land enforces God’s will. What matters is whether we, each and every one of us, chooses to serve God, or ourselves. If we serve God, we will be secure. If we serve ourselves, we will loose our very being.