Tag Archives: Psalm 90-91:16

Daily Bible Study

April 23, 2015 Bible Study — The Kingdom Of God Is Near

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

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Proverbs 13:24-25

    I am not a parent, but I have observed the truth of this proverb time and again. Parents who love their children discipline their children. I have seen many parents with different discipline styles. The key factor in those parents who did a good job raising their children was that they were consistent in their application of discipline. They did not discipline out of anger. They did not fail to discipline because it wasn’t worth their time. They made it clear through their actions that they imposed the rules they had because they believed those rules were best for their children.

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Psalm 90-91:16

    Today’s reading contains 2 psalms. The first one reminds us that our life is short. We have but a few years to do God’s will. It reminds us to pray that God remind us of how short life is so that we will use our time wisely.
    The second psalm reminds us that if we turn to God for safety we will not need to fear anything, neither terrors in the night, or attacks by day. When we trust and obey God, He will protect us from all harm. God promises to rescue those who love Him and protect those who trust Him.

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Luke 21:29-22:13

    At the end of yesterday’s passage Jesus described a time of great destruction and trials that was to come. His prophecy was primarily concerned with the coming destruction of Jerusalem (which happened in A.D. 70). However, His conclusion to that prophecy which begins today’s passage shows us that there is more to this prophecy than just that. He tells us that when we see the signs He spoke of, we will know that the Kingdom of God is near. So, when we see the nations in turmoil and people terrified by what is coming upon the earth, we should rejoice because it means that God’s Kingdom is near.
    Even more importantly, as we see these things going on we must not allow the day of the Lord’s return catch us unaware. There are several ways in which that might happen. We might allow the worries of this life weigh down our hearts, or our hearts may become dulled by drunkenness and carousing. Rather than allowing that to happen let us keep our hearts and minds sharp in service to God. Otherwise we may get caught unawares when that day arrives. Above all let us pray for the strength to escape the coming difficulties.

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Judges 1-2:9

    Joshua failed as a leader in one key respect. He did not train up a leader to take his place when he died. It was the resulting lack of leadership which allowed the people of Israel to move in among the pagans living in the Promised Land rather than waiting until they were driven out to move in. Since they were living among the pagans, they adopted some of their practices and worshiped their gods. Rather than insisting that those who wanted to live among them worship God, they began to live among those who worshiped other gods. This is an important reminder that if we begin to water down God’s commands before long we will be following the commands of other gods.

Daily Bible Study

October 22, 2014 Bible Study — Never Be Ashamed To Tell Others About the Lord

For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have been convicted over the last few weeks 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.

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Proverbs 26:1-2

    No one expects a fool to be honourable any more than they expect snow in the summer. It happens on rare occasions, but people are always surprised when it does. Curses can be real, but those who are undeserving of a curse will be no more effected by it than a sparrow will land on a moving person’s head.

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Psalm 90-91:16

    Let us remember that our lives are short. We do not have much time to serve the Lord, so let us not waste what time we have. If we seek to do the Lord’s will, He will make our efforts successful.
    This psalm speaks to me with what is going on in the world today. If we make Him our shelter and rely on Him for our safety, we need not fear anything in this world. In a world where diseases such as Ebola are once more spreading, where war and chaos are spreading, and where economies seem about to crash, the psalmist tells us this:

Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.

The Lord is my shelter, my place of safety. He is my God and I will trust in Him.

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2 Timothy 1:1-18

    Often times we see those who have come to Christ after being lost in sin, drug addicts, convicted criminals, low-life’s of various sorts, as the greatest witnesses for Christ. However, Paul commends Timothy for the faith imparted to him by his mother and grandmother. Timothy was able to serve the role he had in the early Church because he was raised in a godly household. Those of us who were raised in Christian families and came to our faith as a result bring necessary skills to the Church. Let us use those skills to further God’s will, just as those who experienced the complete devastation of sin use their skills for that purpose. Whatever background we have, God has used it to mold us into the people we are, people He wants to use to accomplish His purposes.
    We have been given a spiritual gift. Let us seek to fan into flames the gifts which the Holy Spirit has given us. These gifts will help us to proclaim the Gospel to those we encounter without shame. Perhaps the hardest part of what Paul tells us here is that we should never be ashamed to tell others about Christ. God will give us the strength to face and embrace any suffering which may result from us doing so. We will face ridicule and worse when we publicly declare our faith, but let us embrace that as evidence that we have been judged worthy of sharing in the suffering of Christ. Rather than trying to avoid persecution and suffering for our faith, let us embrace the opportunity to show our love for God, relying on the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to see us through.

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Jeremiah 39-41:18

    When Jerusalem fell, just as Jeremiah had predicted, Jeremiah was given a message for the man who had rescued him from the death certain Jewish courtiers had planned for him. Because that man, Ebed-melech, had trusted God and acted to protect Jeremiah, God protected him when Jerusalem fell, even though he had been a high official in Jerusalem and the Babylonians slaughtered most of those.
    The Babylonians offered Jeremiah a place in Babylon where they would care for him. However, Jeremiah chose to stay in Judah and continue to minister to those Jews who remained. One of those who had led guerrilla forces against the Babylonians killed the governor Nebuchadnezzar had set over the land. His actions suggest that he intended to set himself up as the next king of Judah. The other former guerrilla leaders banded against him and gathered the people together to decide what to do. They were afraid of what Nebuchadnezzar would do when he heard that his governor had been killed.

Daily Bible Study

October 22, 2013 Bible Study — I Know Whom I Have Believed

     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 in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

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Jeremiah 39-41:18

     As Jeremiah had warned, Nebuchadnezzar returned with his army and sacked Jerusalem. King Zedekiah attempted to flee the city at night, but he was captured along with all of those with him. Because he had been afraid to follow Jeremiah’s advice to surrender to Nebuchadnezaar, Zedekiah suffered the fate he feared. Part of Zedekiah’s fate was to watch the execution of his court officials. We are told, however, that Ebed-melech, who had rescued Jeremiah from those officials seeking his death, was spared and kept safe. We see here the difference in the fate of those who followed God’s commands vs. those who refused to do so.

…

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2 Timothy 1:1-18

     This passage is one of great encouragement to me. I strive to follow the command which Paul gave Timothy. I will fan into flames the spiritual gifts which God has given me. God does not put His Spirit in us so that we can live timidly and in fear. Rather, He gave us a spirit of power, love and self-discipline. This spirit, which God has given us, moves us to tell others about Christ without shame or fear. God has saved us and called us to live a holy life, not because we deserve such treatment, but because He planned to do so from before He created the universe.
     In this passage Paul wrote the words which inspired the hymn, “I Know Whom I Have Believed.” The words of this song touch my heart and brings me to tears of humility and joy every time I hear or read them:

I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.
Refrain:
But “I know Whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.”


Each successive verse begins with “I know not…” I confess that there are many things I do not know. But, as this passage, and the refrain of the song point out, there is one thing I do know. I know that I have believed in a God who is more than able to guard and keep safe that which I have entrusted to Him. I have no need to fear condemnation and damnation because I have offered myself up to God and asked Him to transform me into His image. I know that, while I am unable to live up to His standards, He is able to transform me into His likeness, and He has promised to do so.

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Psalm 90-91:16

     The psalmist reminds us that God does not see time the way that we see time. Our lives are but a moment to God, yet He sees everything we do. There is no place we can go to sin where He will not see it. We need to recognize that our lives are short and we have only a short time to honor and glorify God. If we do, He will make us glad all of our days.
     The psalmist entreats us to find refuge in God, to rest in His shadow. If we do this we will not fear anything. The psalmist tells us the following:

Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor the arrow that flies in the day.
Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
…
If you make the Lord your refuge,
if you make the Most High your shelter,
no evil will conquer you;
no plague will come near your home.

God promises that He will rescue those who love Him and protect those who trust Him. This is such a wonderful promise. Our lives may be short, but if we spend them honoring God, He will keep us safe and give us joy for all of our days.

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Proverbs 26:1-2

     A fool is as unlikely to get honored as snow is to fall in the summer. In addition, giving an honor to a fool is as disruptive as rain during harvest.
     The more interesting proverb is the second which tells us that if someone curses us, and we do not deserve the curse, it will not come to rest upon us.

Daily Bible Study

April 23, 2013 Bible Study — Does It Matter Why Judas Betrayed Jesus?

     Well, I am several days into my second year of this blog. Some days, I can tell that I see things in the passage I am writing on that I never saw before. Other days, all I get out of the passage is a reaffirmation of things I get every time I have read it. The story of the widow’s mite yesterday is a great example of this. I did not see anything new in the passage, but it still challenged me and led me to new resolve to make sacrifices in order to give to the Lord’s work.
     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.

Forsythias next to a mailbox
Forsythias next to a mailbox

Judges 1-2:9

     I begin the book of Judges today. After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked God which tribe should first attack the Canaanites to clear their land. God told them that Judah should go first. The warriors of Judah asked the tribe of Simeon for help clearing their land, promising to help clear Simeon’s land when they were done. Together the two tribes drove out all of the Canaanites living in the hill country of the land allotted to both tribes. However, the Canaanites living on the plains had iron chariots and they were unable to drive them out. A similar pattern emerged as the other tribes renewed their drives to take control of their allotted land. The tribes conquered much of the territory but failed to completely drive the existing residents out.
     God sent a messenger throughout the land of Israel, challenging the Israelites for their failure to drive the peoples out of the land and making treaties with them. God told them that since they had made treaties with the people living in the land, He would no longer drive them out ahead of the Israelites, rather those people would remain as a thorn in the side of the Israelites. Their gods would be a constant temptation to the Israelites.

Magrat in stalk mode
Magrat in stalk mode

Luke 21:29-22:13

     Jesus tells us to be alert, to not let carousing, drunkenness, or the worries of this life dull our love for Him or cloud our minds. The Kingdom of God is near and we should pray that we remain strong enough to escape the coming horrors and to stand before God. Jesus tells us in this passage that “Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.”
     Every day Jesus went to the Temple to preach and in the evening He went out to the Mount of Olives to spend the night. The religious leaders were plotting how to kill Jesus without triggering a riot. In the middle of their plotting, Judas approached them with an offer to help them arrest Jesus when the people were not around. The religious leaders were delighted at this offer and promised to pay him for doing so. The passage gives us no insight into Judas’ motives. Which in itself tells us something important, God does not care why we do evil. It is not our intentions that matter, but our actions. If I do wrong for the best of motives, it is still wrong. You can never accomplish good ends by evil actions.
     As the Feast of Unleavened Bread arrived, Jesus sent Peter and John to make preparations for Jesus and the disciples to eat the Passover meal. He gave them explicit instructions on how to find the person who would allow them to use his guest room. I used to read this as Jesus sending them to meet someone who He miraculously knew would allow them to eat in his guest room. However, a year or two back, I realized that Jesus’ instructions read like directions given to someone to meet at a prearranged place. I believe that Jesus had prearranged with the owner of the room for Jesus and His disciples to eat the Passover meal there.

Freshly planted catnip, before Magrat gets to it
Freshly planted catnip, before Magrat gets to it

Psalm 90-91:16

     The psalmist tells us that God has been there ruling all since before there was time. He tells us that to God, a thousand years pass as a few hours of the night to us, hardly long enough to notice. God sees our sins, even those we think we have kept carefully hidden, they are in plain view to God. Our lives are short and even our best years are filled with pain and trouble. It is only through recognition of how brief our lives are that we can learn wisdom and even that comes solely at the hand of God.
     It is God who makes us glad through His unfailing love. The source of our happiness and joy are the works of God’s hands. As God shows us His power, we experience joy. It is only as we find favor with God that our efforts will be successful. When we strive to do God’s will, He will make our efforts successful. We do not accomplish anything, not even God’s will, through our own skill and power, it is God who makes our efforts successful.
     In the next psalm, the psalmist tells us that God will be our shelter. IF we place our trust in God we do not need to fear the traps that are set for us, nor the terrors of the night, nor the disaster at midday. If we but open our eyes we will see how the wicked are punished. IF we make God our refuge, no evil will be able to conquer us. He will order His angels to protect us wherever we go. Let us always remember that God keeps His word and He says:

“I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
15 When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.”

Another close-up of Magrat
Another close-up of Magrat

Proverbs 13:24-25

     Those who love their children will discipline them, failing to discipline your child is a sign that you do not truly love them. I do not have children, but time and again I have seen how the children of those who apply stern discipline with consistency are confident of their parent’s love. But those whose parents cannot be bothered to discipline them are constantly seeking reassurance that they are loved.

Daily Bible Study

October 22, 2012 Bible Study

     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.

A Selection from God’s Pain-By-Numbers Collection

Jeremiah 39-41:18

     King Nebuchadnezzar returned and conquered Jerusalem just as Jeremiah had prophesied. King Zedekiah attempted to escape in the night, but was captured. King Zedekiah was forced to watch as his sons and the nobles of Judah were executed. King Nebuchadnezzar then had King Zedekiah’s eye’s gouged out and took him to Babylon as a captive. This was the result that Jeremiah had warned King Zedekiah about if he did not surrender to Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar then sent his captain of the guard to release Jeremiah from prison and to provide his needs.
     Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah as governor over the people he left in Judea and took his armies back to Babylon with most of the captives. Jeremiah chose to remain with Gedaliah rather than go to Babylon. Shortly after this Gedaliah met with the leaders of the armed bands that were in the countryside of Judea. Gedaliah promised them that Nebuchadnezzar meant them no harm and would leave them in peace if they did not rebel against him. Many of those who had fled Judea when Nebuchadnezzar began to besiege Jerusalem returned when they heard the news that Gedaliah had been appointed governor. Some of the leaders of armed bands learned that Ishmael, the leader of one of the bands, was planning to kill Gedaliah. They attempted to warn Gedaliah, but he did not believe them. Ishmael followed through on his plan and killed Gedaliah. In addition, he took captive the people who had been living under Gedaliah’s protection and started to lead them back to his camp outside of Judah. The other armed bands united and chased down Ishmael and his followers. They killed all by Ishmael and eight of his followers, freeing his prisoners. The people then began preparations to leave for Egypt because they were afraid of what Nebuchadnezzar would do when he heard that Gedaliah had been murdered.

Trees Fallen Across a Mountain Stream

2 Timothy 1:1-18

     Once again Paul starts out his letter by emphasizing the fact that he prays for the recipient(s) frequently. By this standard, do we spend enough time in prayer? I do not know about those of you reading this, but I do not. Paul then goes on to encourage Timothy to fan the flames of the spiritual gift he has been given. We have been given a spirit of power, love and self-discipline, not a spirit of timidity and fear. We should never be ashamed to tell others about our faith in Christ, nor should we be ashamed of those who are suffering for their faith. We should be prepared to experience the same suffering, knowing that God will give us the strength to endure whatever suffering he sends our way.
     We should accept the suffering that comes our way because God saved us and called us to live a holy life. God did not do this because we deserved His attention, but because that was His plan from the beginning. We should rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to guard and remain faithful to the truth which we have learned.

Psalm 90-91:16

     Let us remember how brief our lives are, how short the time we have to do God’s work on this earth. In that short time, let us remember that God is our refuge and place of safety. He will those who love Him and protect those who trust in Him. He will answer us when we call Him and be with us in our troubles. Let us turn to the Lord for all of our troubles in the confidence and faith that He will turn them into blessings.

Proverbs 26:1-2

     No one expects a fool to behave honorably and fools are rarely honored. I believe that there are those with the power to supernaturally curse others, but those curses will not take effect against those who are undeserving of such curses.