For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have been convicted to seek to develop a disciplined prayer life. It is still a work in progress. Please pray for me, that the Holy Spirit may show me how to pray in a disciplined manner.

    Someone who is full will turn down the most desirable sweet, but someone who is hungry will gobble down food that they otherwise would turn their nose up at. There is great pleasure in receiving sincere advice from someone who cares about us.

    God did great things for the people of Israel, yet time after time they turned from Him to worship idols. They were not satisfied with the provisions God had made for them and demanded more. God granted their desires, but plague came with it. They rebelled against the leaders whom God had given them and suffered for it. The psalmist recounts the other ways in which they refused to obey God. How many of those same sins are we guilty of? How often have we suffered the consequences of not obeying God’s will?

    Our places of worship here on earth are mere copies of the Temple of God in heaven. Jesus is our high priest in that heavenly Temple. Just as the Temple where Jesus ministers is greater than the earthly Temple, so too is the covenant He established than the one established the high priests of the order of Aaron. Under the old covenant the priests read the law to the people and interpreted it for them so that they would know what God expected of them. Under the new covenant, God will place His law in our minds and write it on our hearts. He will send His Holy Spirit to whisper His commands into our ears. We do not need teachers because we know God and He will speak to us directly.
    The message here is not that we should not listen to those whom God has sent to teach us His ways. Rather the message here is that we should not elevate those teachers. It is important that we recognize that the Holy Spirit will speak to each and every one of us. If a teacher we respect starts teaching something which we find troublesome, we are not to just accept it, but to study what they are saying, compare it to the Scripture, and listen to what the Holy Spirit tells us about the teaching in question. We should neither hold someone as an authority who cannot be questioned, nor ask others to so hold us. We each must judge for ourselves whether a teaching is, or is not, of God.

    Ezekiel tells us that Sodom was wiped out for the sins of pride, gluttony, and laziness, all while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. The people of Sodom lived a life of wealth and did not help the poor and needy. For this sin, Ezekiel tells us, Sodom was destroyed. I am not positive that Ezekiel is referring to the Sodom of “Sodom and Gomorrah”. That is not his point. His point was that God will destroy those who indulge themselves while refusing to help those who are poor and needy. Are we looking for how we can help the poor and needy outside our “door”?