Category: Bible

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The scripture for today, October 15, is Deuteronomy 10:15 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

Cover-Kindle-small“Yet the Lord set his affection on your forefathers [Abraham, Isaac, Jacob] and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants [Jews], above all the nations, as it is today.”

Mankind has spent millenniums trying to figure out how to be perfect so we can deserve heaven.

God gave us that opportunity the first several thousand years of mankind. Some people of the world he left alone to figure out on their own how to be perfect; they developed many kinds of religions. But to the Jews he sent the Law of Moses containing over 600 intricate laws which, if kept perfectly, would make them perfect. In both cases, no one could be perfect.

Then, when mankind was willing to admit we cannot be perfect, God sent Jesus to us to live that perfect life that we finally acknowledged is impossible for us to live. Now, all we have to do is follow Jesus and be IN Jesus (Galatians 3:27) for the forgiveness of our sins, and God will consider us perfect too.

God sets his affections on all of us. What a plan! Oh, how he loves us.

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The scripture for today, October 14, is John 10:14 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

Bkgd-desert-rainbow“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me ~ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father ~ and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

How amazing that Jesus is willing to follow us when we do not follow him, and bring us back to his protective fold. He died while doing just that.

Yet we continue to leave him and his instructions that would keep us safe, and we wander into thistles, near cliffs, into pits. This requires more work for Jesus. Yet we do it anyway. Catch me if you can! We may laugh, but he weeps because he knows the danger we are headed for.

How much grief do we give our spiritual Father, our spiritual Big Brother, our spiritual family? If they are not laughing over what we’re doing, perhaps we should not be either.

God, forgive us when we wander from You.

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The Scripture for today, October 13, is 1st Corinthians 10:13 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

Cover-Kindle-small“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful: He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

What are we tempted to do or not do on a regular basis in our everyday life? Let us look at the source of our everyday temptations ~ Satan. Do we really want to be Satan’s slave?

Romans 6:16 explains it this way: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey ~ whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

Perhaps if we look at our everyday temptations and remind ourselves of the source, we will have the courage to stand up and say, “No more! I am not your slave, Satan! I will win over you! God told me so!”

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The scripture for today, October 12, is 2nd Corinthians 10:12 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

000-BOOK 1-STAR SONG-PRINT COVER-Small“We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”

But that is how most of the Christian world is run. We go to a church and do what they do to get their approval. Or we go one step above what the others do to get a little more approval. Or we go one step below what the others do, and say we’re not “so bad.”

What we do must be compared with what Jesus did. Jesus went everywhere doing whatever was necessary to spread the Good News. Instead of saying, “Well, our congregation never did that before, so it must be wrong,” we must say, “Jesus did it, so I will too.” Instead of saying, “Well, brother or sister so-and-so in our congregation is worse than me, so why object to me?” we must say, “Jesus did not do those things, so I will not either.”

Who are we comparing ourselves ~ our works, our fancy doctrine, our faith ~ with? Never compare with others; always compare with Jesus. He is our perfect example.

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The scripture for today is Psalm 10:11 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

0-Cover-KINDLE“He says to himself, ‘God has forgotten; he covers his face and never sees.’ “

Most of us believe in God in some form. And we believe that God knows what we do. But do we sometimes bury our belief in God in our subconscious mind so we can go around and do things we know are wrong? Do we believe we won’t get caught, and we can slide into heaven doing whatever we want?

In other words, do we justify our favorite sins? Or do we justify our sins of omission ~ good things we should be doing, but are not ~ under the excuse that we don’t have time to do good to others?

God loves us more than we can ever imagine. He never forgets us. The only things he doesn’t approve of are things that will ultimately hurt us and which he calls sin. Therefore, we can conclude that pleasing God is ultimately, at the end of all things, pleasing ourselves.

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The scripture for today, October 8, is Romans 10:8f as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

Cover-Bible Women-Createspace“But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

The word is in our mouth through confession of our faith in Jesus, and in our heart for truly believing it and not just saying it.

Some say we are not saved by works, and it is true in the sense that we cannot go around doing so many good works that God will feel obligated to take us to his home. We can never be good enough because we sin and those sins need to be washed away.

In the sense that we do not have to do anything to be saved, it is not true. After all, Jesus himself said faith is a work: “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent’ ” (John 6:29).

To many faithful Christians there are times in their life that faith is indeed hard work. They are beset with so many problems that they begin to wonder, “Does Jesus really care, like he claimed?”

Let us continue to work at our faith. You will have your ups and our downs. sometimes your faith will be strong and sometimes weak. But remember, even when you doubt God, God never doubts you.

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The scripture for today, October 7, is Joshua 10:7f as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

0-BOOK 2-DREAM MAKER-COVER“So Joshua marched up from Gilgal with his entire army, including all the best fighting men. The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you.’ “

We today cannot imagine a good God condoning violence, let alone promoting it. But think back. Mankind was quite barbaric in the centuries and millenniums before Christ. God never runs very far ahead of mankind, or else mankind would not understand, would get discouraged and then not even try to follow God. By the time Jesus came, God was saying, “No more violence.”

In this scripture for today, God was telling Joshua to attack people in the Promised Land ~ Canaan. This brings up another question: Why would a good God allow one group of people to kill off another group of people? God told Abraham centuries earlier, “In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (Genesis 15:16).

In Leviticus 18:24, 28, God warned the Jews through Moses, “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled….And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.” So God warned the Jews that, if they got at bad as the previous people in Canaan, he would drive them out too.

Further, in Old Testament times, God often punished people immediately. Why punish them? Partly to get them away from the good people. And God used armies of believers to do the punishing for him.

Today God does not expect us to do the punishing. Romans 12:19 says, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay’ says the Lord. On the contrary, If your enemy is hungry feed him….Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Thank God, he has taken the terrible task of vengeance away from us. We can just forgive our enemies and hand things over to God to take whatever steps need to be taken. In the mean time, we can read the Old Testament and learn that God takes notice when people are doing bad things to us. God does take care of us.

God does love his children.

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The scripture for today, October 6, is Jeremiah 10:6 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

Header-Jesus' Hands In Clouds“No one is like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power.”

The word “name” here is from the Hebrew word for “renown” ~ shem. This same word is sometimes translated fame. Sometimes we say someone “has made a name for himself” to indicate s/he has become successful and possibly even powerful.

The Lord is known to this prophet (Jeremiah) as being more mighty and powerful than any being in existence.

Do you see the Lord this way? Not in a general sense, but a personal sense? Think back over your life. In what way has the Lord used his power to cause certain “coincidental” things to occur in your life just at the right time?

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The scripture for today, October 5, is 2nd Corinthians 10:5f as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

00-COVER-Thumbnail“Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.”

This is about the 40 years that the Jews wandered in the wilderness between leaving their slavery in Egypt and beginning a country for themselves. They believed their way was better than God’s way. They kept God at a distance.

Events in the Old Testament are there as examples to us. Do we keep God at a distance? In that case, God keeps us at a distance. God treats us the way we treat him. The early Jews did not want to listen to God, so God did not listen to them. Do we want God to treat us the way we treat him?

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The scripture for today, October 4, is Romans 10:4 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-BOOK 5-FLOOD GATES-Cover-Print“Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

When Jesus nailed the Law of Moses to the cross (Colossians 2:14) it came to an end. Thank God. There were over 600 commandments in the Law of Moses, not just the “ten commandments.” They were tedious. Try reading Leviticus and see if you can keep every commandment in it.

Jesus was the only one who ever kept the Law perfectly (Hebrews 4:15). Once that occurred, he could be the Perfect Lamb of God without blemish, and he could be sacrificed on the altar of the world (the cross) in our place ~ take the punishment for our sins.

And with his death came the introduction of a New Law covered in the New Testament. Read the New Testament in its entirety. It is not tedious. It is beautiful. Let us not try to dip back into the Old Law and bring back showy worship practices done back them. He put it to death and gave us a new and wonderful and simple law of grace and love.