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.
Today’s passage contains a series of commands that God gave the people of Israel. Some of them are ones with which we are completely familiar:
Do not lie.
Do not deceive one another.
Others are less familiar, but just as important:
Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.
Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.
Then there are a few that I do not quite understand (although I have theories about them):
Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.
Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.
All in all we can learn a lot from the commands in this passage. Things that would yield a vast improvement in our society if they were taught today:
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.
Some Pharisees came and questioned Jesus’ teachings. They asked Him for a sign from Heaven to prove His authority. Jesus responded that He would not give them a sign (yet He continued to perform miracles until the end of His ministry). This passage reminds me of when atheists today ask for proof that God exists. They will rarely if ever tell you what constitutes “proof” and then reject any proof you present. I believe that was the sort of situation Jesus was presented with here. He had been performing miraculous healing and feeding large numbers of people with small amounts of food, but these Pharisees wanted some other sign. They wanted some sign that they could not reject, yet had rejected the miracles He had already performed.
Jesus left that area with His disciples in a boat. The disciples forgot to bring food with them. While they were in the boat, Jesus warned them to beware the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. They thought He said this because they had forgotten to bring bread. Jesus then reminded them of the feeding of the five thousand and of the four thousand to show them that He was not talking about food. His comment about the yeast of the Pharisees is the other side of his parable about the Kingdom of God being like yeast. Someone can teach things that seem good but contain just a small bit of false teaching which will corrupt their entire message.
Mark recounts a story about a blind man that Jesus healed. Jesus touched the man once and he was able to see, but not clearly. Jesus touched him again and his sight was fully restored. Sometimes that is how it is with us. We are touched by God and start to see how He works in us and the world, but our vision of His will is cloudy. If we seek to follow His vision, He will touch us again so that our understanding of His will becomes clear.
Jesus asked His disciples who people thought He was and then who they thought He was. Peter said that Jesus was the Messiah. After this declaration, Jesus began to teach the disciples that He would die and be raised after three days. Peter, thinking Jesus was getting depressed, rebuked Him for thinking that way. Jesus told Peter that he was not seeing things from a godly perspective but rather from his own interests.
Jesus tells His disciples that they must take up their cross and follow Him. This would have been a very serious statement to His disciples. One took up one’s cross when the Romans were taking one out to be crucified. Considering that it was not long after this that Jesus was crucified, the author would certainly have included the suffering Jesus was about to undergo in what he understood this to mean when he wrote “take up their cross and follow me.” Jesus went on that if we attempt to save our lives we will lose our souls, but if we are willing to lose our lives in His service, we will save our souls. He completes this teaching by saying that if we are ashamed of Him and His teaching in front of men, He will be ashamed of us before the Father on judgement day.
Do I truly long for God? Do I seek with all that is in me to stand in His presence? When I seek God with all of my being, I overcome depression and am no longer downcast. When depression and fear rise within me, then I will put my trust in God. I will praise His name, the One who is my savior. God directs His love towards me and His song is within me. When I place Him at the center of my thoughts, depression flees from me and I experience joy. Others may look at my trials and ask “Where is your God?”, but I know that in His time He will make Himself known. I will put aside depression, seek God and praise Him.
Those who accept discipline and correction will improve their behavior and make their lives better. Those who refuse to listen to what others think they did wrong will constantly repeat the same mistakes.