For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    Everything and everyone will serve God’s purposes. Even the wicked will serve God’s purpose. When they come to their day of disaster they will serve as an example to others.

    I believe in God’s commands. It is through them that He teaches us good judgment. Since God is good and He does only good, if we follow His instructions we will do only good. When we falter and fail in our attempts to keep God’s law the arrogant will smear us and claim that the fault lies with God’s instruction. And here in verse 73 is my prayer for the day:

    Jesus warned His disciples that they would be expelled from the synagogues for their faith in Him. When we read this we see it as something which happened in the past, something which happened when Christians were thrown out of fellowship with Jews. There is truth in that, but I believe that there is more to it than that. Those who faithfully follow Jesus will be expelled from Churches as well. You can see it happening to a degree today. It is rarely an explicit, active expulsion, but those who are faithful followers of Christ are made to feel unwelcome in many of our Churches today. Fortunately, Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit so that we might continue to follow Him in the face of those who distort and misuse His teaching.

    David’s reaction to the illness and death of his first child with Bathsheba gives us a lesson for dealing with those same thing. When the child became sick, David fasted and prayed, pleading with God for the child’s life. He refused all efforts to convince him to eat and rejected every attempt to comfort him. However, as soon as he became aware that the child had died, he cleaned himself up, worshiped and praised the Lord, then got something to eat.
    David’s explanation should guide our behavior. As long as the child was alive, there was a chance that God would heal the child and allow him to live. Once the child had died, there was no longer any reason to fast, mourn, and pray about him. Let us spend our time and effort on those who yet live, where our prayers and concern might still change things. (The wording did not come out quite as I had hoped. I apologize to anyone who might find what I have written insensitive.)

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    God made everything that exists and He made them for a purpose. Even the wicked serve His purpose on the day of destruction. God will punish those who proudly believe they are better than others. He will show them that all people are equally loved by Him, and that He shows favoritism to none.

    I love this psalm. Indeed God does only good and gives us the measure of what it means to be good. I have wandered from God’s path for me, but He disciplined me and brought me back to Him. Difficult times are good for us because they teach us to follow God’s commands. Following God’s instructions is more valuable than any amount of wealth. God created me and formed me into what I am. I pray that He continue to form me into one wise enough to do His works. I will join with those who fear the Lord.

    Jesus could not remain on earth among us because He could only be in one place at a time. By returning to the Father, He was able to send the Holy Spirit to us. The Holy Spirit is capable of being with each and every one of us. The Holy Spirit by its coming shows that we do not need to be controlled by sin. We will have grief and sorrow on this earth, but that grief and sorrow will only be for a short time. The Holy Spirit will come to us and bring us joy. We may have peace in Christ, because while the world will bring us many trials, sorrows, and troubles, Jesus has overcome the world.

    In many places throughout the Bible, we are told how much God loved King David. Here we see that even though God truly loved David, He still punished him for his sins. David was not satisfied with his own multiple wives. He lusted after the wife of Uriah, his faithful follower. In order to get her, he arranged to have Uriah killed. He seemed to have escaped judgement for his sin, but God knew. God held David accountable when no one else could. The same will hold true for us. We may think that we have escaped punishment for our sins because there are none who can hold us accountable. But there is always One who can, and will, hold us accountable, no matter how powerful we are, or how careful we have covered our tracks.

     I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for almost a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. 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 hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.

     After David had taken Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah, as his wife, the prophet Nathan confronted him. Nathan told David a parable about a rich man who steals a poor man’s lamb to feed his guests rather than butchering one of his own. When David becomes furious at the rich man and vows to punish him, Nathan tells David that he is the rich man. Nathan tells David that his own family will rebel against him because of his sin. David admits to Nathan that he has sinned against God. Nathan tells him that God has forgiven him and will not take his life for his sin, but that the child will die.
     The child of David and Bathsheba became deathly ill. During its illness, David fasted and spent the night on the floor rather than a bed, begging God to spare the child’s life. His advisers pled with him to eat, but David refused. After seven days the child died, but David’s advisers were afraid to tell him, fearing that since he behaved this way while the child was sick, he might do something even more extreme when he learned of the child’s death. David noticed them whispering, realized what had happened and asked them if the child had died. When they confirmed that the child had died, David got up, washed, dressed and ate a meal. His advisers did not understand his reaction. David told them that while the child lived, there was the possibility that God would listen to his plea and heal the child. However, now that the child was dead, it would not return to him. He then said something that should be a comfort to all parents who lose a child. That while his child would not return to him, some day he would go to it.

     Jesus told His disciples that the time was coming when those who killed them would think that they were doing the work of God, but that is because they do not truly know God or Jesus. Jesus went on to say that while they were grieved that He was leaving them, it was for their benefit because if He stayed the Holy Spirit would not come. There was more that Jesus wanted to tell them, but they were not ready to hear it. However, the Holy Spirit would bring further understanding to them (and us). The Spirit will reveal to us things that go further than what Jesus taught, but which are consistent with what He taught.
     Jesus tells them that shortly He will be taken from them and the world will rejoice while they mourn. However, after a little while, He will return to them and their sorrow will turn to joy. No one will be able to take that latter joy from them. Once that has happened, they (and we) will be able to ask the Father for things in His name and the Father will give it to them. We will not need Jesus, or anyone else, to ask the Father on our behalf. As long as we are asking the Father to do His mighty works so that Jesus and the Father may be glorified, the Father will grant our requests because the Father loves us because we love Jesus and believe that He came from the Father.

     The psalmist continues to extol the virtues of following God’s commands and promises to strive to follow God’s instructions. There is a line here that I want to make a prayer that I keep in my mind:

     God detests the proud and will punish them for the sins they commit in their pride. Let me have the appropriate humility before God and man.