I want us to note something in today’s reading. Job is a righteous man, remember what we read God Himself said about Job in a previous reading,
“There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (1:8)
Here is why that statement has such significance to me as I did today’s reading of Job 7 & 8.
Job was:
And yet even with all of this Job has a distorted view of God:
“What is man that You magnify him,
And that You are concerned about him,
18 That You examine him every morning
And try him every moment?
19 “]Will You never turn Your gaze away from me,
Nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
20 “Have I sinned? What have I done to You,
O watcher of men?
Why have You set me as Your target,
So that I am a burden to myself?
21 “Why then do You not pardon my transgression
And take away my iniquity?
For now I will lie down in the dust;
And You will seek me, but I will not be.” -Job 7:17-21
Job sees God as the aggressor against him. Job thinks God is the one that harms people when they do wrong. Job thinks that God is punishing him for some great sin. Job thinks God is TORTURING him…yes torture, “why have you set me as Your target?”
Yes the friend in chapter 8 has the same distorted view, in fact the friend has some prosperity gospel distortion as well (8:5-7) “Job if you just make things right with God He’ll make you rich again.” Foolish…but we don’t expect more from the friends of Job.
But from a…
…we’d expect a right view of God.
But no, Job STILL has a distorted picture and understanding of God.
So what does this teach me and maybe you?
I didn’t know what I was going to get out of Job 7 & 8 it turns out I was blessed beyond my expectations!
Thank you Holy Spirit for teaching me!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 18-22
The three Psalms we read today show the up and down journey of the Christian walk. If you ever have moments of exultation one day and moments of doubt the next and then ponder if you are the only one of such highs and lows…the answer is you are not alone.
All three of these Psalms in some way address wickedness.
Sin is largely forgotten about in our modern culture. Yes we have momentary aspects of sorrow over sin, but there is not this pathos and angst against the wickedness of the world as we see in the Psalms by and large. I could say it is because we are more desensitized than David or the other writers of the Psalms, but that is more of an excuse than anything. After all David wasn’t even allowed to build the temple as he was a man with too much blood on his hands from all the wars he waged. Yet he did not delight in violence he understood that this too was due to wickedness, “And the one who loves violence His soul hates.” (11:5b)
Sin is largely forgotten about in our modern culture, maybe these Psalms can remind us of just how much the Christian heart should oppose the wickedness in this world.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Job 7 & 8
I hope each one of you were able to plow through the distribution of land chapters…
It was a slog, but I hope you made it to the end because chapter 20 became very interesting!
The six cities of refuges.
Six thoughts I noted as I read about these six cities:
These cities so intrigued me I did a little more research—
No place in the land was more than a day’s journey from one of these cities. All six of these cities are mentioned again in the next chapter, since they also were Levitical cities. Despite their importance here and in the Pentateuch, however, they do not appear again in the Old Testament.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Psalm 9-11
In my devotional time today as I read through Genesis 12-15 I picked-up on an idea I had never seen before,
“Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.” 14 It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels.” (12:10-16)
Of course to our modern sensibilities this story is HIGHLY offensive. No decent man would ever put his wife in this situation. No chivalrous man would ever risk his wife’s reputation for his own life. No loving husband would willingly share his wife with another man. But can we maybe concede that this story wasn’t so offensive in Abraham’s day? Can we concede that this story wouldn’t have the shock factor in the day that Moses wrote it as it does now? Can we concede this isn’t even the most shocking story in regards to a “righteous” man and his treatment of women in the Bible? (Just wait ‘till we get to Genesis 19:4-8).
With all that those concessions verse 17 struck me like it has not before…
“But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.”
I read this text not as God was punishing Pharaoh because of the potential or due to the sin he was committing with Sarai, in other words not as a consequence focused primarily on pharaoh. I read it this time as, “But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues (and then I substituted another meaning for the Hebrew word used for because) “care” of Sarai, Abram’s wife.”
In other words I saw this text suddenly condemning not just the sin but the overall treatment and view of women in that culture. Could it be that God was defending Sarai and her rights because in that culture at that time, no one else would, not even her husband?!? Can you see that? Am I off base?
So that is the largest point that struck me in my study today.
There are several other wonderful lessons, the humility of Abraham in his dealings with lot (13:9); his lack of greed in order to protect the reputation of God, “you will say I made Abram rich.” (14:23); and of course Abram’s righteousness by faith displayed in his trust in God’s promise (15:6).
Oh one other thing I just remembered as I read through my notes again written in the margins in regards to Abraham’s humility with Lot. He gave Lot the choice of the land, his desire was peace and he would trust God to take care of him with whatever land he ended-up in, and here was my thought, I wish conferences, churches would have the same attitude. Who cares who is in which territory, there are plenty of people to witness to and we shouldn’t be so territorial, we should trust God to provide the members and resources for all of us, just as Abram trusted God to bless both he and Lot! Of course one could argue well the whole point they separated was to create boundaries and avoid the fight. So maybe in a town of 500 we need to decide on one church but in a county of 1 million we should probably trust there is room enough for all of us to intermingle.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Joshua 16-20
Just in case you are wondering, the snow has begun!
In today’s posting I want to focus solely on the first 6 verses of chapter 7.
“The law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he (she) lives.” (7:1)
You and I are obligated to keep the law perfectly until we die. The law is a contract with humanity only nullified through the power of death. There is no other way out. Now there are luckily two ways to die, there is the death that all humanity will experience if Jesus does not come in our lifetime, the physical death at this point we are no longer obligated to keep the law because we can’t…we’re dead. Now if you live your entire life in this type of relationship to the law you will die a guilt ridden, miserable, desperate person. Luckily though there is another death that gives us a way out of the demands of the law. The death of self…many Christians call it “being born again.” In order to be “born again” you have to “die to self” if you’ve never been in a church this is all very churchy language. The basic point is this, inside of all humanity is sin, the root of sin is selfishness or self love, or self absorption. The only way to get rid of self is to allow someone else to be in control, for the Christian this someone else is God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit; when we give control of our lives to Jesus then this is what Christian are referring to when they say “I must die to self.” This means when I want to lust I remember that Jesus tells me to lust in my heart is to commit adultery and therefore rather than doing what I want I ask Jesus to give me the power not to lust. When I want to get revenge against someone, I remember that the inspired scriptures said, “do not seek revenge” and therefore rather than doing what I want I ask Jesus to give me the strength to not seek revenge. Really we could use any example. I’m dying to self because rather than doing what “I want” or what my sinful nature wants (see 7:15-24) I allow Jesus to do what He wants in me. Well the law condemns all those things “I want to naturally do” and so I am constantly failing at keeping the law perfectly. But when I surrender to Jesus, I through His power keep the law. Not because I have to but because I want to.
Which is where verses 2 & 3 come in of chapter 7—
“For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.”
Here is how I read this Paul is telling us before Jesus we are married to the law and being married to the law is like being married to a spouse that no matter how hard we try we find we are never quite good enough! We aren’t clean enough, pretty enough, loving enough. Eventually we are going through the motion of marriage not out of a “right” spirit but because that is simply what we must do. But then there is a death and we meet someone else and we marry this someone else and we discover that where we come up short which seems to be everywhere this spouse “helps us out” they don’t condemn (Romans 8:1) because we are ONE with them. We now strive to keep the law not out of obligation to try and be good enough, but because we are in love. (7:5, 6)
But maybe the greatest verse of all in these first 6 is verse 4,
“Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.”
This verse tells me that I deserve that I was made to have the “great” marriage with Jesus! It’s not something I earn, it is something I was made for!
I am glad to be married to Jesus. I want to be a law keeper. I want to obey. I want to be perfect. Not unto salvation but because of my salvation, my new life, my new love, my perfect love in Him!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Genesis 12-15
With a huge snow storm bearing down on today and tomorrow might be the last two posts you read on here for a few days…I’ll still be writing, but one of the latest maps I saw on www.weather.com showed the areas that were LIKELY to lose power. Guess what? My house is right in the heart of that area, so if the power goes out and I’m stuck in my house I won’t have a way of posting my writings. If that happens you’ll have several to read in one day sometime next week. Please pray for our area, people seem to panic with the prediction of snow…yesterday we got an inch and the reports were about how snarled traffic was. Having lived in Ohio, Nebraska, and Michigan I’m slightly amused by this, but I know it is truly stressful for folk and so please pray that everyone remains safe and calm.
Now to Matthew 5-7…WOW! I can read these chapters a thousand times and they are ALWAYS a blessing. These chapters of course are Jesus’ most famous discourse while He walked this earth, the Sermon on the Mount. I could spend a whole week easily just blogging through these chapters, but for my sake and yours I am going to limit myself to four points to share with you about what struck me in my reading today.
Four points from today’s reading, we could have had 40 points! What were some of yours?
Tomorrow’s Reading: Romans 7-8