Greetings from the London Heathrow Airport…
Today’s reading is Isaiah 12-17
Right in the midst of this reading is one of the most illuminating passages on the character of Satan and what is his ultimate end.
“They will all respond and say to you,
‘Even you have been made weak as we,
You have become like us.
11 ‘Your pomp and the music of your harps
Have been brought down to Sheol;
Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you
And worms are your covering.’
12 “How you have fallen from heaven,
O star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who have weakened the nations!
13 “But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
15 “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit. 16 “Those who see you will gaze at you,
They will ponder over you, saying,
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms,” –Isaiah 14:10-16
Verses 10-12 seem to be parallel to verses 15 & 16.
These five verses speak of a humiliating result which is in great contrast to the desire and focus of satan’s heart which are seen in verses 13-14.
Notice in just those 2 verses (13 & 14) all the times the pro-noun “I” is read…
Five times in the NASB! Five times!
Notice too where all sin originates…we can be tempted by outward issues, but ultimately sin will result when something happens in our heart, just as it happened in satan’s heart, “You have said in your heart…” (14:13)
Here is the ultimate reality of sin folk. It starts in our heart w/ “I will…” and always ends with “you will be thrust down.”
Sin has NO UP value! None!
See you back in the States!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Matthew 5-7
I share one point with you from today’s reading that just moved my heart. Job has a wrong conception about what is taking place in his life,
“For the arrows of the Almighty are within me…the terrors of God are arrayed against me.” (6:4a/c)
He sees this all as an attack from God.
Which then is what makes Job’s faith even more amazing,
“But it is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” (6:10)
In spite of all his suffering and pain he remains steadfast and true.
One other thing I like even though Job sees this as an attack of God against him, he won’t accept that it is due to some evil in his life and he won’t allow his friends to say such either,
“Now please look at me, and see if I lie to your face. Desist now, let there be no injustice; (the injustice is the way his friends are accusing him) Even desist, my righteousness is yet in it.” (6:29)
A quick post tonight. We’ll see you tomorrow…I’m going to bed…can’t wait to get home tomorrow! It has been a blessing to learn some things here in Croatia and to be a part of the discussion regarding one of the most important justice issues of our time, caring for the Syrian Refugees but to hug and kiss my wife and kids will be a sweet blessing!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 12-17
Since this endeavor to blog the through entire Bible in 2016 is in a part a personal journal then I should be honest. Should I not? And if I am being honest I will tell you there are days I read and there is not a great deal that resonates within me. There is always some nugget, but not always the big “aha” moments. I have to be honest this mornings reading through Psalm 6-8 was one of those days. In fact I’ll share another little insight into me, while some peoples favorite portion of scripture are the Psalms, for me they are not typically what stirs my soul. Maybe because I am not a musician? Maybe because I learn best with story? I am not sure why. I could try to force something, I know how to do that, I am after all a preacher and unfortunately we are able to do that, but I want this blog to be an honest reflection of my daily devotion. So with honesty I only have two things that I wrote in my Bible with today’s reading, and here they are…
“Return, O Lord, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your lovingkindness.” -Psalm 6:4
I wrote in my margin,
“Always remember! Not my merit, but the lovingkindness of God that saves me.”
I am like all the rest of Christianity I struggle with trying to work my way into God’s good graces and because of this I believe God always helps me to see the reminders in scripture that point out that flawed thinking.
The second item I wrote in the margins was next to the Psalm 8 which begins with,
“O Lord, Our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth.” -Psalm 8:1 (anyone else start singing the Sandi Patty Song?)
And when I read the 8th Psalm I thought of the Ten Days of Prayer that our church just completed. Every night we would start with praise to God and while we tried…I wrote in my margin,
“I wish we (Adventists/North America/Me personally) knew how to praise God in this way.”
Those are my thoughts this morning. Maybe some of you resonate more with the Psalms, I would LOVE to hear from y’all!
Tomorrow’s Reading: Job 5 & 6
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…
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