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.

     After the plague and as the Israelites camped beside the Jordan river across from Jericho, God commanded Moses to complete a second census of all the men of Israel 20 years old and older. So, Moses completed this count. The number of men among the Israelites 20 years old and older at that time was 601,730.

     While Mary and Joseph were speaking to Simeon and elderly widow named Anna came up to them and thanked God for the child Jesus. Anna spent all of her time in the Temple worshiping God with fasting and prayer. She then told all of those she knew who were waiting and praying for the coming of the Messiah about the child Jesus. Simeon and Anna give us models to pay attention to. They both spent a large amount of time worshiping the Lord in fasting and prayer. They both listened to the Spirit and were dedicated to doing what it told them. They told those they met about God’s actions in the world.
     Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. This tells us one very important thing. While Jesus’ parents were not wealthy, they were, also, not impoverished. They could afford to go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve, his parents went to Jerusalem as usual. However, this year when they started home, Jesus was not with them. They did not realize that He was not with the group until the end of the first day (they thought he was elsewhere among those they were traveling with). They returned to Jerusalem to look for Him. It was three days before they thought to check at the Temple, where they found Him listening to the religious teachers and asking them questions. Everyone who heard Him was impressed by His understanding.
     When His parents finally found Him, Jesus asked them why they were searching all over, didn’t they know to look for Him in His Father’s House? Alternate translations say “be about His Father’s business.” When people are looking for us, do they find us doing our Father’s business?

     The psalmist writes of a time of struggle for God’s people, a time when every thing seems to be going wrong. God was angry with them and allowed them to experience division and troubles. He tells us that God has raised a rallying point for His people in the face of attack. Reading this I am reminded of the selection of the new pope. As the Cardinals were gathered to select the new pope, many commentators were saying that they needed to select a pope who would make the Catholic Church “relevant” and help it to adapt to the modern world. Every couple of years, there is a new wave of people who tell the Church (whether the Catholic Church, some other denomination, or the Church in general) that it needs to adapt to the modern world. But that is not what God tells us. God tells us that we need to adapt the modern world to Him. If Christians want to be relevant to the modern world, they need to rally to the banner that God has raised for us. That banner does not change, just as human nature has not changed. If we rally around God’s banner and stand for God’s will, we need not fear the attacks of the world, modern or not. God will fight for us and those attacking us will go down to defeat.

     If you offer security for another’s debt, be prepared to pay. If you cannot afford, and/or are not willing, to cover someone else’s debt, do not offer to guarantee that they will repay it.