Monday, June 25, 2012

June 25-Jul 1


Monday: Genesis 25
Tuesday: Judges 21
Wednesday: Psalm 50
Thursday: Isaiah 54
Friday: Zechariah 5
Saturday: Acts 18
Sunday Titus 3

12 comments:

Unknown said...

thinking about Esau today... his impetuousness, self gratification, where his choices led him. they turned him into an angry, short tempered man, self consumed man whose relationships suffered. I think he must have learned a few lessons with age due to the way he received Jacob upon his return later in life, but oh to learn those lessons early. The Life Application Bible says to direct your anger at your poor choices towards changing your life, and not towards other people or situations.

It says "Common sense isn't all that common. In fact, the common thread in many decisions is that they don't make sense. Esau's life was filled with choices he must have regretted bitterly. He appears to have been a person who found it hard to consider consequences, reacting to the need of the moment without realizing what he was giving up to meet that need."

which led to anger over choices, and the following comment.

"Your greatest need is to find a focal point other than "what I need now." The only worthy focal point is God. A relationship with him will not only give an ultimate purpose to your life, it will also be a daily guideline for living. Meet him in the pages of the bible."

Denise said...

Judges 20
“In reporting the events in Gibeah, the man conveniently left out the fact that he had handed over his concubine to satisfy the mob’s demands. He wanted justice for the threats made against himself rather than placing any value on the life of the woman or holding himself partly responsible for her death. How easy it is to give only partial facts or twist events to remove our own culpability when we are seeking to shift blame to someone else. This incident reveals the depths of perversion and violence that develop when a culture abandons God’s ways.”

Denise said...

I love your comments from yesterday PC. I am feeling selfish and grumpy today and your reminder that our relationship with God is what is most important was appreciated. This was emphasized as I pulled my Bible out from UNDER my pile of things to do.

Unknown said...

"In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes." v25

this is the problem with patterning our lives after our own worldview of right and wrong... we lose the plumb line. The anchor. The foundation and compass for right living. Only God is righteous. Only God can give us the guide book for righteous living. If we try to get there any other way we will fall short, and completely miss the mark. This is my concern with people "meditating" and reading self help books but not spending time regularly in the Word. Only God's word can lead us to truth and teach us to walk in righteousness.

Unknown said...

Psalm 50:14 "make thankfulness your sacrifice to God... 23giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me."

beautiful. how often do we see God as one who is so demanding of us. What He wants is for us to have a right spirit so that we can experience true joy. He doesn't want our worship for His benefit, but for ours. He doesn't want us to serve others because of what that does to the OTHER person, but because of what it does to US. All of the things He asks of us are for the "renewing of a right spirit within us."

Unknown said...

Isa 54 what a beautiful chapter.

v10"for the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken.' says the Lord who has mercy on you."

one of the verses I claim in prayer for my children, v 13 "I will teach all your children and they will enjoy great peace."

The only way to peace is peace with God. The only way to peace with God is knowing Him and understanding His will and character and eternal truths. The only way to know Him is to spend time with Him. "All I have on earth is you and you are all I desire." May this be true of myself, and my kids to follow.

Unknown said...

zech 5. This chapter requires some study in order to understand. I want to go and look at the study notes on it later, but this morning I just went off on my own ponderings based on v11.

"To the land of Babylonia where they will build a temple for the basket. And when the temple is ready, they will set the basket there on its pedestal."

Something was vaguely niggling at my brain about that verse but I couldn't put my finger on it. I thought about it and thought it about it and it has something to do with culture (Babylonia), temple (worship) and pedestals (idols). I don't know how to form it into clear words, but I will try. First culture and worldview. We all worship something (this temple building). Mark Driscoll says we can tell what we worship but what we spend the most time thinking about, what we give the most time to, and what we spend our money on. There may have been more, but that's what I remember from a few years past sermon. Made sense when I thought about it. So in our culture we worship things like income, food, entertainment, appearance, to name a few for starters. We build temples to those things, and we spend our time there, and those things get placed on pedestals in our lives and take the place of devotion reserved for God. The things in themselves are not wicked... the wicked is the amount of attention and devotion we give to them if and when that attention and devotion crowds attention and devotion to God right out of our lives.

Denise said...

Zech 5
Your comments helped me to understand this chapter PC. Makes sense. Although I was wondering how much time devoted becomes "worshipping" - yes, to the point of crowding God out, I understand that. My first thought for my work break was to check FB, glad I chose to read my Bible instead! Perfect example!

Unknown said...

yeah, I warned you I was going to have a hard time formulating it into words. Of course there are things we HAVE to give lots of time to and that doesn't necessarily make them idols, but when you look to where your thoughts are quick to go, your money is quick to go, and your free time is quick to be given to it is a good analysis of where you are putting your values in life.

I just went back to search for that sermon in case anyone was interested, I highly recommend it.

http://marshill.com/media/1st-corinthians/resisting-idols-like-jesus

Unknown said...

Acts 18:25 "He (Apollos) had been taught the way of the Lord and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he only knew about John's baptism."

This verse stood out to me. Apollos was a good student of the the scriptures, and he understood the message of repentance that John preached, and shared it enthusiastically. He was doing the best with what he had been "given". But there was so much he didn't know! How true of each of us, we passionately receive one message, having our eyes opened to it's truths and importance, but so important to keep a meek and humble attitude of all that has not yet been revealed to us!

Lois said...

So many good examples of people being sensitive to the Holy Spirit and working together in harmony

Lois said...

I was referring to Acts 18, by the way.