Week 8

The Lords day, week 8!

Thoughts on Romans 15 & 16:

- Romans 15: those who are in Christ are expected to be like Christ. So we bear with one another because Christ did not live to please Himself we are not to live to please ourselves! Paul was also the apostle to the gentiles, which should not have been a surprise to the Jews! It was all over the OT. It’s also here that Paul tells us of his plans to visit Rome and also to collect an offering to pay for his missions. Next time there’s a missionary visiting your church, pray for them and consider supporting. They follow in his footsteps. 

- Romans 16: Paul’s final greetings! We see how many people he greeted personally and considering this is the 1st century, no phones, cars, email, and yet he was aware that all these people were there, I find that amazing. Paul’s last warning was about division, we too must hear his words. There are trivial things we should not divide over, but then there are matters that we may not be able to be in regular fellowship over but still consider each other brother and sister and then those that we cannot, where division is the only option. Paul’s warning is not peace at all costs, read his other letters and you’ll k ow that, but peace as far as we are able. 

God bless and I hope you enjoy the Lords day in fellowship with His body and for His glory.

Monday, week 8!

Thoughts on Genesis 28-31:

·       The story of Jacob his wives and the birth of the 12 tribes of Israel, I've read this multiple times but here's what stuck out to me today. The total wickedness of the human heart. From the start Rebekah tricks her husband Isaac into sending Jacob away so that his brother Esau won't kill him for lying to dad and stealing his birthright. Then he leaves, falls in love with Rachel and is tricked by her dad Laban into marrying Leah the younger daughter. Who then forces him to work another 7 years in order to marry Rachel. Then Jacob and Laban deceive each other in order to both make out with he best of the flock and in Laban's case he is trying to keep Jacob working his land so that he can benefit off of it. The deception goes both ways, and then Rachel steals her fathers god, so she was an idolater to top everything else off and lies and gets away with it. All of this finally coming an end because God won't allow Laban to punish Jacob. Whew... enough to make your head spin, right? But here's the thing, do you really think you aren't as deceitful and wicked as Jacob, Rebekah, Laban, Rachel and Leah? Because you are and so am I. If our stories were written there would be just as much wickedness told about us so please don't think self-righteously here. 

·       What's seen in this story, which is a historical narrative, is the wickedness of man, and the grace of God. God had a plan, and repeatedly we see God working for His glory and our good to bring His plan together. Through this family, all the nations would be blessed. These people are in the lineage of our Lord and Savior. No matter how wicked you are God will have His way, and what we often do that is evil and wicked, God means for good. The good news though is that God saves us from our wickedness and evil deeds, calling us out of a life of sin and into a life of holiness. We are all Jacob, Laban, Rachel, etc... But by His grace we don't stay that way, and one day who we are now will be completely overshadowed by who God causes us to become. Surrender to the process... 

I hope you enjoyed your Lords day celebration yesterday, and that you are all off to a great start to your week. God bless.

Tuesday week 8!

Thoughts on Judges 12-16:

·       Judges 12 - Jephthah slaughters the Ephraimites and doesn't allow any of them to survive! Judges is a cruel book, it's a picture of a different time and from our point of view it's hard to understand what's going on and how God could be sovereign over all of this. But this just shows more about our hearts than it does Gods. Because the wickedness is in the heart of men, and the reason it was so cruel is because of the people and God is working all things together even in the slaughter of the Ephraimites. Who were one of the tribes of Israel! 

·       Judges 13 - 16- Do you remember reading about Samson as a kid, wasn't he always painted is this hero who was duped by Delilah? At least that's what I had remembered, but then you read these chapters and it's like... Wait a minute, he's no hero! He was a murderous adulterer. In chapter 14 he goes out and strikes down 30 men in order to cover his bet and by the way, the Spirit of the Lord was with him! Then he tries to claim his own innocence when he goes after the Philistines again, and it causes the woman he was supposed to marry and her father to be burned to death. Then he blasphemes God, "shall I now die of thirst" what is that about? Chapter 16 starts with him visiting a prostitute, which I'm pretty sure was left out when I was a kid, and then him sleeping with another woman who was not his wife. On top of all this I can only deduce that he wasn't to bright either, how many times is she going to ask you where's your strength? Only to end up being woken up by Philistines attacking you before you get the point Samson? But then Samson is used to bring destruction to the Philistines in the end. What's going on here? Do you see the Barbarism? The wickedness? I hope you do, and I hope that it points you to the great mercy and grace of our God. You and I are absolutely no better than Samson, no better than Delilah, or the Philistines, or anyone else in this story. As a culture we are just as barbaric only we have ways of doing it without getting our hands dirty. We are just as immoral, only we cover it up by looking to the secular world for our laws. Because they say it's good, we say... it's not that bad. No, it is that bad. We are that bad, and we don't need another Samson, because He was just as bad as you and I. We need Jesus, and we can be grateful that God sent Him, and that God saved us because apart from Him Judgement would be all that we have to look forward to... 

I apologize for the long post, but for some reason today this just hit me pretty hard. God bless.

Wednesday, week 8!

Thoughts on Psalms 21-23:

- Psalm 21- the Lord is Lord of Kings. So this is David writing but notice how he attributes everything to God. It’s God who blesses, God who appoints, God who bestows splendor and majesty, God who will destroy enemies, even Kings must bow the knee to God. The only power we should trust in, is Gods power. 

- Psalm 22- there are two things that stick out here, first is it’s the same author, David, but a very different tone. From trust to despair! Just goes to show the human element in Gods word. Completely inspired yet inspired through human authors who had similar experiences to those like you and me. We are praising today and crying out, where are you Lord? Tomorrow! Secondly, this psalm takes a turn in verses 14-18 where we see a messianic tone. Is this about David, or Jesus? I’d say both, David was writing about himself and perhaps how he felt, but the Spirit was foretelling of what would happen to the Son of David!

- Psalm 23- all I’ll say about this is that it’s actually not a psalm about death, it’s about the Christian life. This like is lived in the valley of the shadow of death but God feeds us, leads us, disciplines us, grows us in righteousness, refreshes us, and all this is happening while surrounded by death! But we should fear no evil, for He is with us!

Have a great day, God bless!

Thursday Week 8!

Thoughts on Job 15 & 16:

·       Quick refresher on where we are, Job is called righteous by God, and is a servant of God who loves the Lord. Satan has received permission to inflict suffering on Job's household and self and as such has killed off his family, all of his fortune has been lost, and now he is extremely sick on what appears to everyone as his deathbed. Job does not curse God but he has begun questioning what's happening. His friends are with him, and attempting to help him but they mostly believe this is a spiritual problem. Job must have done something wrong, but Job for the most part proclaims his innocent. 

·       Job 15 - Eliphaz is now speaking, and we begin to see the accusations towards Job becoming more pointed. He tells Job, "you are doing away with the fear of God" that "his heart carries him away, "his spirit is against God" and ultimately that Job is "abominable and corrupt". This is his friend, but his motives are right, if he thinks Job has sinned against God and his only hope is to repent and confess then his words aren't so harsh. Eliphaz sees god the way most of us do, something happens in our life, God what did I do to cause you to bring this upon me? Funny how this works, think of it the other way around. You just got a pretty significant raise at work, do we go out saying, "look, I am so good and righteous that God gave me a raise at work!" Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Be wary of the Pharisee in each of us. 

·       Job 16 - Job maintains his innocence, but he does completely misinterpret what's taking place. From his point of view, he's done nothing wrong to bring this upon him, but God must hate him for allowing it to happen. Jobs attitude really isn't to much different from his friends, except he has a better understanding of Gods sovereignty. But now he sees God as partial. God doesn't punish for doing wicked and evil things, he just does it because he hates me! Look at my life, God must hate me to allow all this to happen. How many have been there? But God didn't hate Job, He loved him, and considered him the most righteous man on earth at the time. So what's going on? Well, it'll become more clear as it continues, but I'll say this for now to help, it's not about Job, and it's not about me, and it's not about you. Why do we have these thoughts? because we are so self absorbed the idea that there's more to this world than my pain or pleasure is hard for us to escape. So even a person as righteous as Job, shows himself to be the most important person in his own life, "God hates me, God is pouring out his wrath on me and giving me over to the sinners, the ungodly... me, me, me, me...."

This past weekend I spoke on the sovereignty of God in our Suffering, if you are a child of God, He doesn't hate you, and though He slay us, yet may we praise Him, yet may we call on HIs name. Gods plan is bigger than my life or yours. That he would use any of us to carry it out is the real mystery. God bless and have a great day! 

Friday, week 8!

Thoughts on Isaiah 40-44:

·       The key to understanding Isaiah is Jesus. The key to understanding all of the OT is Jesus, if you know Jesus it makes more sense. Then you also want a good commentary, I recommend the NIV Application Commentary if you are going to study Isaiah. But for our morning reading Jesus is enough for us to get something out of it. 

·       Isaiah 40 - The word of God stands forever, and our God is an awesome and powerful God. These are the themes of this chapter. God is the creator and over all things, the creation is nothing in comparison to Him. God must be everything for human beings to enjoy life. If we become the center of our world we will always struggle, if our relationships become the center they will fail, if our kids, they will resent, on and on the list goes of false gods we tend to put over and above God. He is everything, and everything belongs to Him, including you and me, and so He is free to do as He pleases with us. 

·       Isaiah 41 - But this great and powerful God who must be at the center of everything is also with His creation and with His people, so have no fear. 

·       Isaiah 42 - 44 - Just about every passage here is messianic, pointing us to Christ, to the Redeemer, the true Israel, the Savior, and yet the nation of Israel won't see Him, many others will turn to other Gods, though He is God, He and the Father are God, but there is only one God... Do you see the trinity here? Look at Isaiah 44:6... He is the one who will Redeem the people of God, we cannot redeem ourselves...

Jesus is the key, the chief cornerstone, the One who makes sense of both the Old and New Testament. It's all about Him and He is the one we are ultimately searching for in the scriptures. He teaches us how to apply Gods law, which is still good and true, He teaches us that salvation is only found in Him, that He is the one we were created by, through, and for... Always Only Jesus... 

Saturday, Week 8!

Thoughts on Matthew 20-22:

·       Matthew 20 - This starts with a parable that needs to be taught today to our young people. "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" There are those in our world that would say no, the government should get to choose, the government should get to take more away from you and then they should get to determine where it goes... Then there are those in the church that would tell God no, He shouldn't either. We should get to decide for ourselves, we should be in control, let us be the ones who choose... But in both cases those who say such things speak against God. If God has blessed you materially then you should be able to do as you please with what he's given you, but recognize that it all belongs to Him ultimately and what you choose to do with it does matter because He will judge. But who God chooses to give to is also up to Him, and who God saves is up to Him, and when He saves them is up to Him, whether it be on a persons deathbed at 99 years old or as a toddler first hearing the gospel and being given a new heart of flesh. It all belongs to Him!

·       Matthew 21 - The cleansing of the temple is often a portion of scripture that Christians act like doesn't exist. But it does, and Jesus was angry at the money changers for what they did to the house of God. Jesus is angry today when we attempt to use the church for material gain, or celebrity status, when we are more concerned with growing our own kingdom than we are growing His, and the day will come where He will flip those tables too. 

·       Matthew 22 - The parable of the wedding feast is the only one that I'm going to discuss today because it's what hit me hardest in my time reading. Consider the man without a wedding garment... There are those among us without wedding garments, they sing with us, they participate in worship, they attend our groups but all the while they don't know the Groom and are not a part of His bride. Their hearts have not been made flesh and the saddest part of this is that with many of them, it comes down to the fact that they still don't even know the Gospel. Now, I am getting away from the text a bit, because in context it does say clearly, many are called, but few are chosen. God does the choosing, but we are to do the calling, and today I think a big part of the reason why we have so many churches mixed with non-Christians and Christians is that churches are doing a horrible job of doing the calling. People are going to hell thinking they are saved because they simply are a part of a church. I have been reminded of this more recently as I listen to testimonies completely void of the gospel. When did you become a Christian? I ask, oh I don't know, church just started making me feel good, I like what the pastor had to say and how it made me feel about myself so I kept coming. No conviction of sin, no repentance and faith, no trusting in Christ and clinging to Him alone for my salvation, there's no wedding garment!!!! Please, friends, if you belong to churches like this, then at least do your part and preach the gospel to those around you, make sure they hear it, make sure they are responding to it, make sure they are wearing the proper garment.