Oh how I wish I could pretend to be profound, but truly I am not. I am out of understanding within some of these chapters of the book of Job. I am grateful to know I am not the only that has struggled through them though. My wife, Christina, was reading through the Bible not long ago and she said Job was a struggle to get through.
It is scripture. It is God-breathed (inspired) but where I am at right now I do not find an opening.
So here is what I want to share with you. Since this is more than just an exercise in discipline, these are truly my daily devotionals and time with God, when I can’t get anything out of what I am reading, say I am in Job then I go to another place in the Bible. I don’t want to leave the Word without getting a word for my heart so to speak. I would encourage you to do the same. Don’t get frustrated or worn out, today I went back to what we read yesterday, Psalm 25 and agin it blessed me…it is truly one of those psalms that can be a daily blessing. There will be chapters in Chronicles & Numbers that we will read in the future…the genealogies…I know on those days I am going to have to go to another place in scripture to have the Lord speak to me. That is okay. And we should do that rather just again treating this as a dry exercise “we have to get through.”
Job 17 & 18 didn’t speak to me today, so I went somewhere else in the Word to allow God to still reach me. What about you? Did Job minister to you, or did you go elsewhere also?
Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 45-50
All three Psalms today were wonderful, but the 25th Psalm especially ministered to my heart!
We may at times forget when we read the Psalms that they were in fact songs. I was reminded of this when I read Psalm 25 tonight. As I read I suddenly realized this Psalm began to minister to me when I was just a little kid and my dad would put on our soft Friday night Sabbath music, which often included the Maranatha Singers.
So rather than me writing today let us be blessed with the song of Psalm 25 and may the music help you commit it to memory that it may be a continual prayer of your life!
The final line of the book of Judges tells us all we need to know to understand the disturbing stories found throughout the book of Judges, but especially in these last 5 chapters,
“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” -Judges 21:25
The truth about humanity is also revealed in this last verse of Judges, if we choose to do “what is right in our own eyes” not in God’s eyes, but in our own we will end-up in absolute moral decay.
Even in the first two chapters in the story of Micah with his idols, the Levite Priest, then the Danites that people can even say they are doing things in the name of the Lord, there can be religious trappings, or the semblance of worshiping God but that just because this is the case does not mean that God is truly being honored. In fact in verse 6 of chapter 17 we see the exact same sentence as we see at the end of the book of Judges,
“every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
Even as supposed worship of God is going on with a true “Levite” really it is that which goes according to man’s will and not according to God’s.
In the last days this will take place once again. There will be worship, supposedly even true worship (Revelation13), but ultimately it will be humanity,
“doing what is right in their own eyes.”
Judges gives us a glimpse of what truly happens when we do what is right in our own eyes.
May we each one surrender our wills to Jesus right now…today…so that we will not be fooled by the false worship in the last days and so that we will not be fooled into worshiping our ways and what humanity says is right.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Psalm 24-26
In today’s reading the treachery of Jacob’s sons (Gen. 34:1-31) I believe is an example of the “church” taking a good thing of God and using it for evil.
In the story found in today’s reading the sons of Jacob use circumcision to seek revenge. But at other times in church history, we’ve seen churches sell “forgiveness,” in fact this still happens. We know of churches that expect a financial offering when a prayer is prayed, in order for it to be “heard.”
But I also think of my own denominations history, we took and some still do take the beautiful doctrine of the sanctuary and turned into a tool to breed fear and thus encourage submission to a certain belief system.
We’ve maybe at times taken our knowledge of the Sabbath and rather than using it to teach the beauty of the character of Jesus we’ve taught it as, “see we’re right and you’re wrong.” So the Sabbath has been a tool of arrogance.
It is sad that we (collective church throughout history) repeat maybe not in such dramatic ways, but still repeat the sins of Jacob’s sons. Misusing God’s gift for our ultimate end!
This story can be read and we can be shocked and move quickly by it, or we can pause and ask, “have I done the same?” and if the answer is “yes” let us repent in our hearts and then thank Jesus for grace.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Judges 17-21
Human worship is not just a problem in Hollywood or Washington D.C. it is a problem in the church as well and this is one of the issues Paul addresses in these first couple chapters of his letter to the church in Corinth.
It seems division has arisen in the church based on which church members are connecting themselves to Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, and some were getting it right, “I am of Christ.”
Paul points out the foolishness of this argument with two quick rhetorical questions,
“Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ” -1 Corinthians 1:13b,c
This should end such a silly debate.
Unfortunately this debate continues, it looks different, none of us anymore say, “I am of Doug Batchelor” or “I am of Dwight Nelson” or “I am of Ted Wilson” “Randy Roberts” or whomever, but it still continues.
But we show a similar internal reality as the church in Corinth when we buy hook-line-and-sinker whatever these individuals may say not because they are good teachers or because we have tested what they’ve said for ourselves, but simply because they agree with our “traditional” line of thinking.
We all have our favorites, including myself, but let us never be of anyone but Jesus!
Jesus who was crucified for us!
Jesus whose name we were baptized in!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Genesis 32-35
This is probably not new to any of you, but for some reason I saw the parable that begins chapter 20 in an entirely different light than I had previously.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. 5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did]the same thing. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ 7 They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.10 When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ 13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last.” -Matthew 20:1-16
I’ve always looked at this parable in three ways:
While all three of these points I believer are true.
It hit me tonight I believe the main point of the parable is a rebuke against salvation by works.
Why are the early servants grumbling, because they worked harder and they are under the misconception that the reward is due their “works.” They don’t realize that salvation is based on Jesus being generous (gracious).
Jesus isn’t rebuking hard work, he’s rebuking those that think this should “earn” them something.
A second parable that struck me in this reading,
“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ 29 And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They *said, “The first.” Jesus *said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.” -Matthew 21:28-32
Jesus is not saying it is better to have the greed of a tax collector or participate in the immorality of a prostitute. He is saying it is better to be those things and really come to Jesus than to be a “Christian” and never really come to Him in your heart.
Folk that truth strikes me. It reminds me to keep watch over my own heart, but it also encourages me to pray for the pew sitters that have never truly come in their hearts fully sold out to Jesus!
I was blessed by today’s reading I hope you were too and if there are insights you saw that I missed or want to comment on mine feel free to leave a comment!
Tomorrow’s Reading: 1st Corinthians 1 & 2 (we finished Romans we’re now onto a new Pauline Epistle)