I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. 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.

     God gave Jeremiah a prophecy for Jerusalem. God was going to destroy Jerusalem because of the wickedness of the people, but He would restore them again after a time. Those who wish to stop counting Israel among the nations had better rethink because God has made a covenant with the descendants of Jacob and He will not break it. God will never abandon the people of Israel.
     Jeremiah had another prophecy for the people of Jerusalem. At the king’s command, the wealthy of Jerusalem had freed their slaves who were descendants of Jacob. However, after a short time, they found excuses to force those they had freed back into slavery. Jeremiah condemned them for this and told them that God would bring punishment to them for their wicked acts. The people had made a token of obeying God’s commands, but did not follow through and obey the spirit of those commands. For this, they were condemned. Do we do the same? Do we see some area where God is calling us to be more faithful and we make a nod in the direction of following His will, only to go back to our old ways after a short time?

     Paul tells Timothy that there will come people who teach that it is wrong to get married and people who teach that it is wrong to eat certain foods. Paul however tells us that God created those foods to be eaten with thanksgiving. We should not reject any food, but instead we should eat it with thanksgiving to God for meeting our needs.
     We should not waste time arguing over old wives tales or godless ideas. Instead we should train ourselves to be godly the same way that a professional athlete trains themselves to compete in their sport. How do we train ourselves to be godly? When you train yourself to compete in athletic events there is a series of things that you need to do that build on each other. I may be reading more into what Paul is writing here than he intended, but it appears to me that he tells Timothy (and us) how to train to be godly. For athletes, the first step is build your conditioning and strength. For Christians, the first step is to read the Scriptures. The next step for athletes is to work on learning the moves particular to that sport. For Christians, the next step is encouraging our fellow believers. Finally, athletes study film to learn how to counter what their opponents are going to do. For Christians, this step is teaching others what we have learned from reading the Scripture. I am sure there are flaws in the way I have fleshed out this analogy, but I think there is some merit to looking at it that way. The important point is that training ourselves to be godly is hard work. We need to discipline ourselves to it and strive to build ourselves up in serving god in the same way that a successful professional athlete strives to constantly improve his game.
     We need to live our lives as an example to other believers. This involves what we say, the way we live, the way we show love to others, how we express our faith and our purity. We should not neglect the spiritual gifts we have been given and we need to stay true to what is right.

     Are we like the psalmist? Do we sing of God’s unfailing love? Do all of those around us hear of how wonderful and powerful God is? Both young and old alike? There is no one as mighty as God and He is entirely faithful. I need to work at expressing my faith more openly to those around me. God I pray that you give me both the words to say and the courage to say them, so that others may know that I believe.

     Those who gossip cause people to become angry. Either at the target of their gossip, or at themselves. Both are things that we should avoid. The second of today’s proverbs is one that I am happy to say involves a choice that I have not had to make. There are two messages here. To men who are single the message is this; if the woman you are dating is always finding fault, run away, run far away. To all who are married, think about what you are doing, are you arguing about something because you are attempting to improve the one you love and your life together, or are you arguing because you want to change them to make things better for yourself (or for some other reason other than the first one I mentioned)? If you are doing the latter, you are making the other’s life unhappy for no good reason. Even though the proverb refers to a quarrelsome wife, it can be just as true the other way as well.