I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or my understanding of them, please leave comments.

     The war between those loyal to the house of Saul and those loyal to David began with a battle of champions where twelve men were chosen to represent each side. All twelve pairs killed each other. The following day the two armies engaged. David’s army was victorious. As Abner, the commander of the house of Saul’s army, is retreating he is pursued by Asahel, the brother of Joab, commander of David’s army. Abner tells Asahel to turn aside and go against a lesser man because he does not want to kill Joab’s brother. Asahel refuses and Abner kills him. At nightfall, Abner is able to regroup his men. When Joab and his men overtake them, Abner proposes a truce and Joab accepts. Abner then withdraws with his army. The war continues for some time with the house of Saul becoming weaker and David’s forces becoming stronger. Then Ishbosheth, Saul’s son whom Abner had made king, offends Abner. In response, Abner goes over to David. Abner meets with David and agrees to call an assembly of the leaders of Israel to declare David king over all Israel. When Abner leaves David to arrange the assembly, Joab intercepts him and kills him for Abner killing Joab’s brother at the start of the war. David mourned for Abner and expressed his inability to control Joab and his remaining brother. As I studied this looking for lessons, I learned an interesting thing that I have never picked up on before. Joab is David’s nephew, which further explains David’s inability/failure to do anything about Joab acting against David’s instructions on multiple occasions.

     Today we have the account of Jesus washing the disciples feet. Many people point out that this is an example that we should serve those around us, even those we consider “beneath us.” This is absolutely true. However, I noticed something in this passage that I had never seen before. Jesus tells Peter that he must allow Jesus to wash his feet or he will not belong to Jesus. I see this as instruction that we must allow others to do for us. Yes, we should willingly serve others, but we must also graciously allow others to serve us. Elsewhere, Jesus says that in the Kingdom of heaven those who serve are greater than those who are served. This passage is both a message that we should serve others since Jesus served His disciples by washing their feet and a message that we should allow others to serve us. This passage is a message against the two ways that people set themselves up as better than others. The first, and the one that is most obvious, is when we expect others to meet our needs and refuse to lower ourselves to meet the needs of others. The second is more subtle, it is when we are always willing to do for others and actively try to help those whose needs are greater than our own, but never allow others to help us. Jesus is telling us with His rebuke of Peter that the latter is just as bad as the former.
     Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray Him. The interesting thing here is that, even after Jesus gives one of the disciples a sign as to who it will be, none of them understand what is going on. A lesson I take from this is that we should never accept without further thought that someone will act in a godly and trustworthy manner. I know that on several occasions I have dismissed behaviors that should have been warning signs because I thought that someone was a godly person. On at least one of those occasions perhaps, if I had called them on it, they would have turned from the path of sin they were following. This is a difficult subject for me to get my thoughts expressed because I believe that we should give people the benefit of the doubt in most cases. I think my real concern here is where we get led into sin when we allow another, whom we have previously judged to be godly, to influence us to actions we would otherwise consider wrong and avoid. Even this does not accurately express the idea I am trying to get across. Usually when I find myself expressing an idea so poorly, I do not post my thoughts at all, but today I am going to leave this up in the hope that someone else will read it and leave a comment that better illustrates the lesson I think I see here.

     The path to joy is through integrity. If we live our lives with integrity and refuse to compromise with evil, we will find joy. Let us hide the word of God in our hearts that we might not sin. But once we have done this let us declare His laws so that all may know what we believe. I wish to make the endings of these two stanzas of this psalm my prayer:

     I have been involved in a discussion about prayer on an Internet forum. This proverb tells us much about prayer. Those who are wicked are far from God, if they wish to hear God, they will need to come closer to Him. In order for them to do so, they will need to give up their wickedness. As we pray, and genuinely attempt to hear what God has to say to us, we will move closer to Him and thus away from our wickedness. However, the key here is the willingness to give up our wickedness and the genuine desire to heat what God has to say. As we listen to God and move closer to Him, He will listen to our prayers and grant our requests as those requests become better aligned with His will.
     The second of today’s proverbs tells us that having a positive outlook on life leads to better health. There is definitely a positive feedback loop here. As we have a more optimistic, upbeat view, our health improves. As our health improves, our outlook tends to be more positive and upbeat.