Stay faithful to your wife/husband. You will be rewarded for doing so by the love you receive in return. Do not turn from your spouse to an immoral person. The pleasure from immorality cannot compare with that to be had with a faithful spouse.
Today we look at the rest of the psalm which Jesus referenced from the cross just before He died. The part I read and commented on yesterday expressed great despair. However, today’s portion expresses great faith and hope. Despite the terrible situation he finds himself in and the despair he feels, the psalmist tells us that he will proclaim God’s name, that he will praise God among the assembled people. This is not the statement of a person who is abandoned by God.
The psalm starts out with the statement, “My God, my God why have You forsaken me?” But then in verse 23 it tells us to praise the Lord because:
For He has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned his back on them,
but has listened to their cries for help.
Those are not the words of someone abandoned by God, and they are words Jesus wanted us to think of as He hung on the cross dying. So, no matter how dire our situation is, let us always remember that God will not ignore our suffering, nor will He turn His back on us. He will listen to our cries for help and we will praise Him in the assembly.
The disciples asked Jesus who is greatest in the kingdom of Heaven? I think it is clear they were asking which of them was the greatest, or what individual they should strive to emulate. So, they were looking for an answer like, “John the Baptist”, “Moses”, or “Abraham”. Instead, Jesus gave them a completely different answer. He told them that if they wanted to get into the kingdom of heaven, they needed to become like little children. They needed to stop thinking about who would be the greatest and accept a lowly position in the kingdom of heaven. The message here is that if we want to get into Heaven we need to not seek to be great in the kingdom of Heaven. Rather we need to be willing, and eager, to be servants.
After God told Moses to return to Egypt to lead the Israelites Moses asked God, “But what if they won’t believe me?” In response to this question, God gave Moses three miracles he could perform to demonstrate that God had spoken to him. However, Moses was not done. Next he complained that he was not a good public speaker. To which God replied that just exactly did Moses think had given people the ability to speak. God promised Moses that He would give him the words to say when he spoke to the people and to Pharaoh. With all of his excuses used up, Moses came right out and asked God to send someone else. Every time I read this I think, “I’m not that bad…Am I?” Really, how often do we do the same thing? We tried once years ago and things didn’t work out like we planned, so now, when God calls us to do something we reply, “Please send someone else!” Every time I read this, I tell myself I won’t do that the next time God calls me. Maybe this time I will keep that promise.
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. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day, or more. in advance. My work schedule has recently changed, meaning that I may not have time every day to complete these. As a result, I am trying to get several days ahead. I hope this does not negatively impact the quality of these posts (if that is possible). If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
After God told Moses who to tell the people of Israel that He was, Moses was afraid that they would not believe that he had spoken to God(I believe there was an element of fear that people would ask him why they should worship this God that no one else worships). God gives Moses some examples of things he can do in order to demonstrate God’s power. Moses then complains that he is not a very good speaker and suggests that God send someone else. God tells Moses that He gave people their mouths and thus the ability to speak. God will be with him and will give him the words to say. Finally, Moses has run out of objections and just flat-out begs God to send someone else. God is angry and tells Moses to go, but He will send his brother Aaron to be his spokesman just as Moses will be God’s spokesman. Reading this is a good reminder that even Moses had trouble accepting God’s call to ministry.
Moses was finally convinced by God to answer the call which God had given him and began the journey back to Egypt with his wife and son. Meanwhile Aaron left Egypt to look for Moses and met him on his way. Moses told Aaron what God had said to him and the signs which God had given him to demonstrate God’s power. Together they went to the elders of the people of Israel, where Aaron told them the message God had given Moses and Moses showed them the signs God had given him. Moses and Aaron then went to Pharaoh and asked him to allow the people of Israel to make a short trip into the wilderness in order to offer sacrifices to God. Pharaoh responds by asking who God is and that he will not let the people go to worship Him. Pharaoh then orders life made even more difficult for the people of Israel and the people of Israel blamed Moses and Aaron.
This is an important lesson for us when God calls us to some ministry. When Moses and Aaron started following God’s call to deliver the people of Israel from Egypt, things did not get better right away. In fact, things got worse, and the people they were trying to help turned against them. But Moses and Aaron did not give up. They continued to follow God’s call and performed the ministry to which they were called. Let us do likewise.
Jesus told His disciples that to get into the Kingdom of Heaven they needed to change and become like little children. I have heard various things about what He meant when He said that. However, something just hit me that I have never heard said. Jesus told the disciples this in the context of them asking who was the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven (I think from the way it reads they were asking which of them was the greatest). One does not think of a child as an authority. Rather others tell a child what to do. Jesus is telling His disciples that they need to stop seeking to be the greatest and to be the one in charge. They need to accept that others are in charge and do what they can to help. Those who are the greatest are those who do not seek greatness. It is not the great leaders, whether spiritual or otherwise, who are the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather it is those who quietly serve others while receiving little or no recognition.
Today we finish the psalm which Jesus referenced while He was on the cross and about to die. Yesterday I discussed the absolute despair which the psalmist expressed in the beginning of this psalm and which Jesus must have felt as He hung upon the cross. Today, we discover that when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me,” He was not expressing that He was abandoned by God. He was merely expressing that He was feeling abandoned. However, when we read the rest of the passage which He was referencing, we discover that He was also expressing His absolute faith that God would rescue Him.
When Jesus made that cry He was also referencing today’s portion of the psalm. In this section, the psalmist declares that he will proclaim God’s name among the assembled people. He calls on those who fear the Lord to praise Him. The psalmist tells us that God does not ignore the suffering of the needy. God does listen to their cries for help. Because of God’s action, the poor will eat and be satisfied. All who seek the Lord will praise Him because of His great and mighty power. Even in the midst of His despair on the cross, Jesus was telling us that this was true. I pray that God give me the ability to have such faith if I am ever in a position of such despair.
The proverb writer warns us not to spread our sexual love around. He tells us that doing so is like drawing our drinking water from a source close to where dirt, trash and excrement are dumped. The writer reminds us of how much greater the joy of keeping one’s sexual love for only one partner. I will rejoice in the wife of my youth (well, in my case, not so much youth, but the only wife I have). She is indeed a loving deer and a graceful doe. I am still captivated by her love and her body.
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 hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
Moses was not done questioning his ability to carry out the task that God had assigned him. God told Moses the throw his staff on the ground, where it immediately became a snake. God then told Moses to grab the snake by its tail. Now, I know that you should never grab a snake by its tail, it will twist around and bite you. I am quite confident that Moses knew this as well, but he reached out and grabbed it anyway. God then gave Moses two more signs to perform to prove that he was sent by God. However, Moses was still not done questioning his fitness for the task. Now that his other objections had been met, he tells God, “But I’m not very good at talking in front of people. I don’t speak well.” God responds by telling Moses that He is the one who gives people the ability to speak and to hear and to see. He will be with Moses and help him speak, teaching him what to say. Moses still asks God to send someone else. God at this point was angry with Moses. God told him that his brother Aaron was a good speaker and at that moment was on his way looking for Moses. God would tell Moses what to say and Moses could tell Aaron, who would speak for him. It is heartening to see that Moses was so much like I am when it comes to responding to God’s call. Now if only I could be more like Moses.
So, Moses returned to Egypt. In the meantime, God appeared to Aaron and inspired him to go into the wilderness to find Moses. When they met, Moses told Aaron all that God had told him and together they returned to Egypt and spoke with the leaders of the Israelites. Once Aaron spoke to them and Moses showed them the miraculous signs they were convinced that God had sent Moses and Aaron. After speaking to the Israelite leaders, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, Pharaoh told them to be quiet and get back to work. Pharaoh then made the job demanded of the Israelites harder. There is an important lesson for us here. When God begins to work to relieve us of the hardship we have cried out to Him about, it often gets worse before it gets better. When the people of Israel cried out for relief from the suffering they were experiencing in Egypt, God sent them Moses. But when Moses arrived, the immediate effect was that Pharaoh increased their workload and things got worse.
The disciples came to Jesus to ask who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples were looking to find out what they had to do to become the bigwigs in the Kingdom. Jesus told them that the ones who truly counted in the Kingdom were those who did not consider themselves anything special. If we want to be important in the Kingdom of Heaven we need to become like a child. For that matter, if we even want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven we need to become like a child. We must learn to trust God the way that a child trusts his parents. I am not sure what all Jesus was telling them when He said this, but at least part of what He was talking about was the naive innocence of childhood, the way when we were children we readily believed what we were told. Jesus then goes on to warn against causing these innocents who believe in Him to stumble. He says that it will happen, but those who cause it would be better off to be tied to a rock and tossed into the sea. Jesus goes on to give us the parable of the 100 sheep where one wanders away. He tells us that the shepherd will expend enormous effort to find the one that wanders away. In the same manner, God will act to bring those who are innocently mislead back to Him.
Jesus then gives us the model for dealing with Church discipline and for how we should confront those who claim to be followers of Jesus who sin. He tells us that if we see someone sin, we should go to them privately and talk about what we observed. If they respond, that is great. If not, take two or three witnesses with you, so that there are independent witnesses to the conversation. If they still do not change, place the matter before the assembly of God’s people. If they refuse to listen to the assembly, treat them as a tax collector or a pagan. I think if we look at this we see a little more to this than what is on the surface. Why should we first go privately? Well, I think there are two reasons. The first is so that we do not embarrass them in front of others. But the second is to give the person an opportunity to explain why they did what we understood to be sin, perhaps we misinterpreted what we saw and the action was not a sin after all. This is also the reason for bringing the witnesses the second time, perhaps other people will hear the person we are confronting differently than we did. At every stage of this process there should be an openness to the possibility that the person being confronted was not sinning. That does not mean that there is debate about what constitutes sin, just that very rarely do we actually witness someone committing a sin unless we are committing the same sin. An example I like to use is this. There is a strip club I used to drive past every day. Now if I drove past and saw the car of someone from my congregation in the parking lot (and perhaps even saw them), it would be my duty as a brother in Christ to speak to them about it. However, it is possible that the reason they were there was because their car broke down and that was the closest place to get it off of the road. When I confront my brother in Christ about a perceived sin, I should be open to the possibility that I misinterpreted what I saw.
Today is the second half of Psalm 22, the psalm which Jesus referred to while on the cross. The first half was a description of despair and suffering. It was a cry to God for deliverance by someone who felt abandoned by God. The second half of the psalm has a completely different feel. Today in the second half we read the account of someone who is confident that God will save them from their trials. Here the psalmist is praising God and extolling the fact that He responds to the needs of those in desperate straits. Despite the desperate situation that Jesus was in on the cross, when He cried out “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” this was not just a cry of despair. It was also a declaration of faith in God because the psalm Jesus was calling upon ends with by saying that future generations will declare that God has done it. Before that the psalm declares that God has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one, but has listened to his cry for help. Jesus, on the cross, was declaring that God had listened to His cry for help. Let us remember that He will listen to our cry for help as well.
