For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I am away from home on a business trip for a few days. I am pretty sure that I will still be able to complete these as my daily devotions, but I may be later than normal in getting them published. I would appreciate your prayers for me and my wife while I am travelling.
I strive to live as the psalmist describes. I will rely on God to defend me from the wicked. I will love them and pray for them, even if they slander me. I will not hold enmity against them, even when they seek to destroy me. If I do so I will not need to fear their curses because God’s blessings will overcome any curse they may cast.
The writer continues his theme that we do not need to have a guilty conscience for the sins we have committed. Christ’s sacrifice covers over our sins, allowing us to approach God directly. We no longer need any priest other than Jesus to intercede between us and God. Since Jesus is God, this means that we can approach God directly.
As a result of this we should seek to motivate each other to acts of love and to good works of all kinds. In order to do this we need to meet together with our fellow believers. There are those who believe that because they have a personal relationship with God and with Jesus they do not need to regularly join with their fellow believers. They are mistaken. We need the relationship with our fellow believers, both to encourage them and to be encouraged. If we do not spend time with fellow believers being influenced by them to more closely follow God, we will be influenced by the non-believers around us to drift away from God.
The people of Samaria and Jerusalem were not satisfied with being God’s people. They were not satisfied with the power and wealth that came from doing God’s will. Rather than follow God’s will, they sought to become client states of those two powers. Rather than trust in God for their security, they sought the protection of Assyria and then of Babylon. Do we make the same mistake? Do we seek the protection of earthly powers, rather than trusting in God for our security>
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. I am sorry if my posts are not posted in a timely fashion for the next little while. OK, I have my power back, and I have my Internet back. I was just getting into a new routine and I think I am going to keep some aspects of that new routine. I hope that no one was too disappointed in my posts for the last week or so (or at least no more than they are routinely disappointed by my posts).
Ezekiel compares Israel and Judah to two sisters who prostituted themselves even though they were married. God had made a covenant with them, but they broke it. They lusted after the power and protection of foreign powers. They worshiped the gods of those powers and failed to keep God’s commands. They sacrificed their children and violated the Sabbath. Repeatedly Ezekiel brings up the sacrifice of their children. As if to say, how could you not know that you were doing wrong in your idolatry when it led you to murder your own children? Do we today see the connection between how we fail to keep a day set aside for God and abortion? We as Christians in America have little by little allowed ourselves to give up the standards that God sets forth in the name of convenience or not standing out. I am as guilty of it as the next person. We say, “Shopping on Sunday isn’t as bad as abortion.” While that is true, is not shopping on Sunday a case of us putting our priorities ahead of God’s? I am not going to tell you that shopping on Sunday is always wrong, but when we do it because it is more convenient, are we not worshiping our convenience when we should be worshiping God. I am not getting the words to come out quite right, but I think you can see where I am going.
We need not fear entering into God’s presence because Jesus has once and for all opened the way into the Most Holy Place of God’s presence. We can go into the presence of God trusting in Jesus to be our intermediary. Our spirits have been washed with Christ’s blood and our bodies have been washed with the water of baptism, so now we are clean before God.
There is a short instruction here that I want to make note of. “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do,…” From time to time, I come across a post from someone who says that they do not need Church. This passage says they are wrong. Of course, Church is not necessarily a group that meets in a building dedicated to “Church”, or even a formal group (although it is close to the latter). Church is the Body of believers. So, it is doing Church if there is a group of fellow Christians that you meet with on a regular (weekly?) basis to talk about your faith walk and worship God. What is the context of the verse I quoted above? We are to think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. We are to encourage one another in these end times. If we are part of a body that does these things, a body of believers that meet on a regular basis, we are following the instructions the writer gives us here.
We have been forgiven through grace, but this is not license for us to continue to sin deliberately. The key word is deliberately. Let us remember how we felt when we first came to know the Lord. Let us strive to serve Him with the same enthusiasm we had at that point. If we do this, the temptations to sin will be farther from us and the Spirit will show us how to be more faithful.
Let us not fear when evil people slander us. God will defend us against those who attack us for no reason except for our love of God. Trust that God will care for us when people repay our acts of good with evil, when those we love hate us. We must place our trust in God when people tell lies about us in response to our praying for them. The things the psalmist talks about will happen to us. Those who do not wish to follow the Lord will tell such lies about us. Let us be faithful to the Lord so that these things are lies.
Someone who is willing to guarantee a stranger’s debt is a bad risk, doubly so if they are willing to guarantee the debt of a promiscuous woman. These things are not bad in and of themselves, but they suggest poor judgment.
