Greetings from Croatia, I am for a few days as a part of an ADRA European Refugee Summit. What do I have to do with refugees in Europe? Well I happened to preach a message on this topic on a Sabbath the Director of ADRA, Jonathan Duffy was sitting in the congregation, and one thing lead to another and here I am to present that same message to this crowd. I do this tomorrow morning and so I covet your prayers.

And now to our continued journey through the Bible in 2016. Today’s reading is Joshua chapters 11-15.

Once again in the first few chapters of this reading we see an abundance of war. If you have not already I would encourage you to go to my last post on Joshua here to read my thoughts in how I relate to all this blood shed.

Honestly these chapters are mainly war records, 31 kings conquered. And inheritance records, etc..

There were however a couple points/lessons that caught my eye.

First it is mentioned several times within this reading,

“Only the tribe of Levi he did not give an inheritance…”

Why?

“the offerings by fire to the Lord, the God of Israel, are their inheritance, as He spoke to Him.” (13:14 also see 13:44)

This laid the foundation for Paul’s statement in regards to those who are working in ministry (1 Corinthians 9:3-18) that they aught to make their living through what is “collected” as a result of the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:14) i.e. the generosity of the people. I like this system and I am grateful to God for it, I am not to get rich off an inheritance but simply to trust in the Body of Christ, His church, to sustain me and my family.

Second, in chapters 14 and 15 Caleb son of Nun is mentioned several times. In chapter 15 verses 13 to 16 even though it just looks like a general record of inheritance, that his inheritance is singled out and several lines are dedicated to what he did with that inheritance without saying it shows the value of this man! If you don’t know why he is held in such high-esteem? Well 14: 7, 8, 14 gives reference to it, but the full story is in Numbers 13 & 14. We’ll read about it sometime this summer in our reading plan, but you may want to read it now to understand the significance of this focus in Joshua 14 & 15.

Let us all be Caleb’s,

“He followed the Lord God of Israel fully.” (14:8, 14)

Tomorrow’s Reading: Psalm 6-8

I pray each of you have had a wonderful Sabbath! I am writing to you as I prepare to make a quick trip to Croatia. In fact by the time most of you read this I will be somewhere over the Atlantic. Please keep me in your prayers…I believe I have Internet where I am staying and so I will still be writing so please keep reading!

Some points from the reading that caught my attention:

Meat eating doesn’t begin until after the flood, this should maybe tell us something about meat eating…though it is not a sin to eat meat, it was not one of God’s original plans and did not come into being until it was absolutely necessary due to sin.

We discover the God’s intended meaning for the rainbow in today’s reading,

“I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.  It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (9:11-15)

This is what God thinks of when He sees the rainbow.

In chapter 11 we read of the root of sin…SELF…

“They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (11:4)

Then The Lord comes down from heaven and does something VERY gracious!

He confuses the languages of humanity!

Why is this gracious?

“The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” (11:6)

God wasn’t worried about the good things they could do as one people with one language. God knew that if “nothing would be impossible for humanity” we’d ultimately destroy each other and our own selves with the “anything” that would lead to evil.

So God confusing the languages protected us from ourselves.

What seems harsh is actually an act of grace!

All our physical roots are in Babel (11:9), unfortunately the roots of Babel’s sin is in all of us as well. So I thank God by my language that may be different from yours, I am reminded of God doing anything necessary to try and save me and you from our own sin.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Joshua 11-15

“Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5:1)

One of the evidences of justification is “peace with God” which in the Greek this word means, “the peace of Christianity, the tranquil state of an individual assured of their salvation through Christ,”

The fact that I’ve met so many that are unsure of their salvation leads me to believe that many don’t understand “justification.”

So how do we receive justification so that we can have peace, assurance of salvation?

Here are texts to help you understand what YOU must do for the work of justification…

1. “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” (5:6)
2. “But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (5:8)
3. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (5:10)
4. “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.” (5:18)
5. “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.” (5:19)

Do you see what YOU must do for justification? NOTHING! It is a divine act done on our behalf…solely and completely.

I want to point something out, verse 18 reads

“even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to ALL men,”

but then verse 19 reads,

“so through the obedience of the One the MANY will be made righteous.”

Why is one verse “ALL” & the other is “MANY”?

It is because some will not accept the work of justification that has already been done for them on their behalf. They’ll reject what already has been done for “all” thus making it that only “many” will be made righteous.

I read this in a CNN/Money article this week,

“Roughly 114 lottery prizes worth $1 million or more went unclaimed in 2015.”

There are 114 millionaires out there that don’t know it because they never went and accepted the prize.

There are millions of justified out there that don’t know it because they never have gone to Jesus to accept the “prize.” How very sad for both groups, but especially the unknowingly justified.

Chapter 5 is justification (to be made right). Chapter 6 is sanctification (to be made holy/pure).

“Should we keep sinning?” is the question asked twice in this chapter. Paul’s answer, “May it never be!”

And again many think sanctification is their own personal work to do, after all the Bible does say,

“ Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” (6:12-14)

Based on this text sanctification seems like a very hard work I must do…but praise God Paul already gave us the answer…or showed us the way of sanctification early in the chapter.

“Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,” (6:3-5)

Did you catch that? That text to me is saying, the same power that raised Jesus back to life out of the physical grave is the power that will raise me out of my sins, the power that will make me pure and holy.

Again all sanctification depends on from me and you is submitting to allow God to do this work on our behalf.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (6:23)

It is a free gift. But a free gift must still be received and still be opened to have any value.

Those are my thoughts for today. I pray each of us will receive the prize of justification that was already completed for each of us at the cross, and that then we’ll open the gift of sanctification which is done through the life giving power that brought Jesus out of the grave and into eternal life.

Oh and by the way…notice Paul puts justification ahead of sanctification (chapter 5/chapter 6)…I receive the assurance of salvation and then I say, “Lord have Your way in me…make me clean!”

Don’t get the cart before the horse!

Tomorrow’s Reading: Genesis 8-11

The messages of both John (3:2) & Jesus (4:17) include appeals for repentance. There is NO WAY around it the true call and the true response to following Jesus includes repentance, which means sorrow over sin (internal change) and living differently (external change).

John wasn’t against baptizing the Pharisees and Sadducees, he was against them getting baptized because it was the “in thing” to do (3:7, 9) When I got baptized as an 8^th grader I only did it because that is what everyone did. That is wrong and it seems that is what John is implying these two groups are doing and John wants it clear, you get baptized your life must change, your life must bear fruit.

The three temptations of Jesus are always very fascinating to me here is my take on the three:

1. The temptation to satisfy our physical needs (4:3)
2. The temptation to satisfy our pride (4:5).
3. The temptation to take the short cut and avoid the hard work (4:8).

The last temptation I see differently than I used to. I used to think this temptation was about giving Jesus power. But Jesus was going to get the power one way or the other. I now see this temptation as Satan trying to get Jesus to avoid the hard work, to take the easy way out, to avoid living the sacrificial life to get what was already rightfully His.

I think Satan tempts many of us in this same way. Heaven and eternal life have been promised to us and Satan tries to tell us, “You can get there without having to really make this sacrifice or that sacrifice.” “God doesn’t really expect you help there or serve here.” NONSENSE! Jesus took the long view and not the easy route and I’m glad He did because now as I take the long view I can get the Promised Land too.

One of those long view journeys Jesus calls us to participate in is to be fishers of men (4:19).

Witnessing to my neighbor, my co-worker, strangers is the natural outflow of truly following Jesus!

And my last thought: In some parts of the world we embrace the ministry of supernatural healing in our church, we need to embrace it more in the North American Division of the Church. Why? Because it was a MAJOR component of Jesus’ ministry (4:23, 24) oh and Ellen White’s too, how many times was she miraculously healed? Many!

Those are my thoughts on Matthew 3 & 4

Tomorrow’s Reading: Romans 5 & 6

There is much to learn and much to write about from these five chapters of Isaiah. If you have the time it would be good to read Isaiah with a good commentary next to you. It will help with the history and the symbolism that will then help with gaining even deeper blessings. But for the purposes of this blog and to strive for brevity I will share just a couple of thoughts I had as I read.

First of all did you notice all the rich prophecies pointing to Jesus, 6:14; 9:6, 7; 11:1-5 just to name a few.

I really love what I see as the faith of Ahaz in chapter seven. In 7:10 & 11 The Lord tells Ahaz to ask for a sign. Ahaz refuses to ask for one. At first I thought, “well he’s in trouble now, but then just one verse after his refusal he tells us of the sign of Jesus. So I went back and read from the beginning of chapter seven again down through verse 16, and I saw it…

In Isaiah 7:4, 5, 7 God makes a promise to Ahaz,

“Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands…Because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah has planned evil against you…It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass.”

This is why Ahaz didn’t need a sign, God had already made a promise and Ahaz trusted God at His word. Just a quick question I put before myself maybe you could ask the same, “In God’s words there are so many promises, do I trust those or do I still ask God to sometimes “prove” Himself?”

In 8:19 there is the question is asked,

“Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?”

And I wrote in my Bible, “Wouldn’t this include people praying to the saints?” –Just a thought…

I love the promise/prophecy of the Gospel expansion in 9:1-7! And I prayed for the United States and for the DC/Baltimore Suburbs that it would be true for us that “There will be no end to the increase of His government of the peace.” Jesus keep this promise in our land too! No end to the increase!

10:1, 2 is an indictment to the greed of history…including today!

I am fascinated by the concept of remnant and so I really appreciated 10:20-22. One of the descriptors of remnant here are people that “truly rely on the Lord.” And there is also this warning, “For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, ONLY a remnant within them will return.” Here it is clear it doesn’t matter what group is associated with the truth or the Biblically stated people with the remnant truth, some of those folk still won’t be remnant. We must rely upon the Lord truly!

There is more remnant info in chapter 11, some fascinating stuff.

But I will end my comments for now and encourage all of us to “TRULY rely on the Lord” this day and every day from this point forward.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Matthew 3 & 4

Today’s post is actually an anonymous guest post. My friend who has been battling physical sickness at a level that is beyond my comprehension for the last 2 1/2 to 3 years sent me the message you’ll read below based on their reading of today’s passage. I chose to share it with you because to me it reveals the beauty of the Bible. The passages of Job 3 & 4 which may be discouraging to many, maybe even distressing give some going through struggles like Job HOPE! Yes today’s passage believe it or not can be a message of HOPE. Read the following and see what I mean:

“It’s funny that today’s reading was Job 3. Yesterday I had one of those days where I feel really discouraged. And I see it when I read Job, he’s just so tired, he doesn’t want to deal anymore and wonders why he’s there, what the point is, probably feels like he’s accomplishing nothing (we don’t know how long he was going through this, do we?), probably wonders if he’ll ever feel better. So we see Job having “one of those days” too. When I have those moments, I feel guilty like I should be stronger all the time, I don’t want anyone to know about how much I am struggling.  This passage is a reminder to me that when that happens (when I have a bad day and wonder how much more of this I can take), I don’t have to feel bad about those feelings! And then chapter 4 reminds me of how blessed I am by the friends and family I have who love me and offer support and prayers all the time. And when I come across those friends who tell me I’m sick because of my sins, I can remember Job and realize I’m in good company :)”

What I believe in my heart and what I find so beautiful is that when God inspired a passage like Job 3 & 4, a passage I don’t really understand and I wonder what is the point of this text in the scriptures, it’s okay that I don’t understand it because God didn’t inspire it for me in my present situation. He inspired it for my friend and others in similar situations. That is the beauty of the scriptures, there is a word of HOPE for everyone in every situation!

Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 7-11