# daily_notes

day_number: 01/01
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
What God did at creation, He can do at any time in re-forming our lives into a new creation. Those baptized into Christ are "a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). This process of making us new means that the creation of life, the huge expenditure of energy out of God which happened at the natural creation, is ongoing in our lives today. God created matter. All that exists was made by Him; and by faith we believe that things which now exist were not made from what already existed apart from God. The Genesis record of creation, however, emphasises how God brought order out of chaos. He brought this present world of beauty and order out of a darkness that brooded upon a sea, and from an earth that was "without form and void", the Hebrew images behind the words implying ‘a chaos’. The present world was created by a re-organization of things which existed in some form before. This means that when our own lives, or the collective life of God’s people, appears to be in chaos- then we can in faith reflect that God has brought beautiful order out of chaos, and He can likewise powerfully bring order to what seems hopeless.


day_number: 01/01
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Ps. 1:5 "The wicked shall not stand in the judgment" may have a literal fulfilment at the day of judgment. We will all naturally fall before Jesus then (Rom. 14:11), but the righteous will be stood up (Lk. 21:36), perhaps by an Angel, in the same way as Daniel had a foretaste of the day of judgment and was stood on his feet and reassured of God’s acceptance by an Angel (Dan. 10). Those who come to the judgment will be those who are responsible to God, who have known His ways; yet the wicked amongst them will be swept away like the chaff (:4), which is the judgment which will come upon the kingdoms of men, the Gentile world at large (Dan. 2:35,44). They will share the judgment of this world with which they chose to identify in this life of opportunity to serve God (1 Cor. 11:32).


day_number: 01/01
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Joseph could have told others of her situation, and made her a "public example", or put her through the "law of jealousy" of Numbers 5. But exactly because Joseph was truly "righteous", he didn’t do that. He was sensitive to her- as we should be to others who are caught up in situations beyond our full understanding.


day_number: 02/01
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
"Sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it". There is a doctrine of a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), whereby we really can be made new people. This is a ladder to reach to the stars. We can overcome sin, bad habits and thought patterns; sin may seek to get us, but we can rule over it. We may well think that we can’t; the way was set, the die cast, the destiny mapped out, the genes determined; our background, upbringing, life path was as it was, and so we are as we are. But we can be made new. Sin need no longer have dominion over us, as Paul says in Romans 6; or as early Genesis puts it here, "you shall rule over [sin]". We are not debtors to sin (Rom. 8:12)- sin is not inevitable. But most people fail to see beyond the very limited horizons of both their nature and their immediate life.


day_number: 02/01
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
Ps. 4:4 "Be angry, and don't sin" is applied to us by Paul in Eph. 4:26. He interprets it as meaning that anger is not in itself wrong, but because it can so easily lead us to sin, it is better to not go to sleep whilst angry. This kind of daily self-discipline is vital in the spiritual life; the Psalms often comment upon the importance of how we start and end each day.


day_number: 02/01
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
They were the "offspring of vipers" (Mt. 3:7), descendants of the snake spoken of in Gen. 3:15. There will always be opposition between those in Christ, the descendant of the woman, and the descendants of the snake. We will be temporarily wounded by them, but we will triumph in the end.


day_number: 03/01
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
"The length of the ship will be three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits". The ark was not designed for sailing, it had no means of self propulsion, nor self-steering. We likewise are led by the Spirit, and once we surrender to that, our path is not of our own device nor direction. The ark represents Christ, entering Him by baptism (1 Pet. 3:19-21). Once there, we're in God's hands. 300 x 50 x 30 is the same proportion as the human body- significant in that the ark is understood by Peter as being a type of the body of Christ, into which the believer enters by baptism.


day_number: 03/01
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
Ps. 7:8 "Judge me, Yahweh" shows that David didn't fear the day of judgment, but rather he eagerly looked forward to it, as we should. He was secure in his relationship with God, and so that day wasn't a day of terrible uncertainty ever before him- and neither need it be for us.


day_number: 03/01
text:
If a candle is put under a bucket, it will go out (:15). If we don't publically witness to our faith, we will lose it. We can't be secret Christians.


day_number: 04/01
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
"Yahweh said to Noah, Come with all of your household into the ship". Noah and the seven had to leave behind their homes, land and families. They were promised just the bare necessities of life in the ark- just as we are assured of in Christ. His entire family consisted of his three sons. He therefore had no daughters and it would seem that his sons had no children. This tiny family size must be significant- for in those long lived ages, most women would have likely had over 50 children. It was the small, broken and despised who were chosen of God. It seems that Noah's daughters in law only started bearing after the flood. Or it could be that he had other children and grandchildren, who were judged wicked. There would've been a huge division within the family over whether to support the salvation project or not; of the kind that continues to this day.


day_number: 04/01
chapter_number_to: 10
text:
Ps. 10:7,8 are verses clearly about the "wicked" who rebel against God; and yet before we shake our heads too disapprovingly, remember that they are quoted about us all  in Rom. 3:14. For at some times and in some ways, we are all this wicked- if we examine ourselves properly.


day_number: 04/01
text:
Don't be conscious of your good works. Do them and forget them (6:3). Those accepted into God's Kingdom will honestly not remember the times they fed the hungry (Mt. 25:37).


day_number: 05/01
chapter_number_to: 10
text:
"For God made man in His own image". As James 3:9; the fact humans are made in God's image means we should perceive the value and meaning of persons, from not killing to holding the door open for people... Defacing God's image earns death. In what ways can we destroy the image of God in others apart from by killing them? Any form of dehumanizing surely does the same. Because we are made in God's image, we should therefore not kill other humans (Gen. 9:6). James says the same, in essence, in teaching that because we are in God's image, we shouldn’t curse others. To curse a man is to kill him. That's the point of James' allusion to Genesis and to God as creator. Quite simply, respect for the person of others is inculcated by sustained reflection on the way that they too are created in God's image.


day_number: 05/01
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
In Ps. 13:2,6 we see how David could have sorrow in his heart and yet rejoice in his heart because he knew that God was listening to his prayers and would one day answer. This is the almost schizophrenic experience of all believers.


day_number: 05/01
text:
The day of judgment will be like a storm which shakes us to the core and reveals who we really are. True spiritual progress is slow- like bashing away at the rock of our hard hearts. Quick spiritual progress is likely to be a building upon sand.


day_number: 06/01
chapter_number_to: 12
text:
The impression can be given that Abraham was a giant of faith, and as "father of the faithful", thereby requires colossal responses of faith from us who are his seed. But the reality was that Abraham didn't respond as he might have done, just as we don't; and God by His grace led Abraham to respond simply because He wished to save Him. God told Abram to leave Ur, his family and relatives (Gen. 12:1). The requirements were to leave Ur and to leave his relatives- and neither of these requirements were fulfilled much by Abraham, but rather by God working to enable them to be met. That this call refers to Ur not Haran is made clear in Acts 7:2-4: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said unto him, Get out of your country, and from your family, and come into the land which I shall shew you. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran: and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land". The impression is given of immediate, obedient response. But in fact it was his own father Terah who took him and the rest of the family out of Ur. He didn't break with his family- he went with them. Presumably he didn't obey the call to leave them as an individual; so God arranged that Abraham at least obeyed the requirement to leave Ur, and later worked to ensure he left his family. It was God who caused him to wander from his father's house (Gen. 20:13)- not his own strength of obedience to the call to individuate before God. God likewise works but by bit to make us obedient to His call- if we are at least willing to hang in there with His program to save us.


day_number: 06/01
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
Atheism was almost unheard of in early Israel. Yet the faithless 'believer' who quietly within his heart thinks as if there is no God... is effectively as atheistic as the most hardened scientific atheist of our times (Ps. 14:1).


day_number: 06/01
text:
Jesus surely only appeared to be sleeping, in a small boat about to sink. But as in our lives, He appears silent only to bring us to the point of realizing our desperation for Him.


day_number: 07/01
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
Abraham gives Lot the choice as to what land he would like to live in. Lot was the orphaned nephew of Abraham- such magnanimity would've been unheard of in those societies, for the elder to give the junior dependent such a choice. The elder in the relationship would've chosen the best for himself, and that was that. Abraham's unusual attitude in this matter was a direct outcome of his faith in the promise that the whole land really would one day be given to him. If we have the faith of Abraham... we won't fight for our corner in this world. It'll be so much easier to 'let go' as Abraham did, and take an attitude to material wealth and possessions which is radically counter-cultural in our societies. The way that Lot lifted up his eyes and looked around the land is matched by the way in which God then bids Abraham to likewise lift up his eyes and view the very same territory which Lot had just chosen (:10,14)- and was told that the land which Lot had chosen, along with all other land, would be Abraham's eternally. When God told Abraham at this point "all the land which you see, I will give to you, and to your offspring forever" (:15), He was alluding to what He had initially told Abram back in Ur: "Get you out of... to the land that I will show (the same word as "see" in :15) you" (12:1). It was as if God was saying: 'Well Abraham, this is it. This is the land I told you about'- and yet the best of it has now been given to Lot! The whole thing could have seemed some kind of cruel, just as many of our life experiences do. Abraham had given up all, made a long and dangerous journey, to receive a land from God- and when he arrives there, the best of it is given to his younger relative. But God's purpose was to focus Abraham's faith upon the fact that he would eternally inherit this land. And so it is with many of the twists and turns of our lives which can appear nothing but cruel fate to the unbelieving observer.


day_number: 07/01
text:
In Ps. 17:2 we are invited to see our coming before God's throne in prayer as a foretaste of the judgment day, when we shall in reality come before His throne. The positive answer to our prayers now- the sentence going forth from the court of Heaven in response to God having as it were judged them- is therefore an encouragement of our final acceptance in that day.


day_number: 07/01
text:
Jesus cured and forgave a person because of the faith of third parties, "seeing their faith" (:2). If our faith can influence the eternal destiny and wellbeing of others, then we should be making every effort for them, in prayer and practically. Either our efforts and prayers can be a factor in others' salvation and blessing, or they are not. They are. So we should give our lives to prayer and care for others.


day_number: 08/01
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
The common Hebrew word for 'to see', especially when used about God's 'seeing', means also 'to provide' (Gen. 16:13). When Hagar said "You God see me", she was expressing her gratitude for His provision for her. The fact God sees and knows all things means that He can and will therefore and thereby provide for us in the circumstances of life; for He sees and knows all things.


day_number: 08/01
text:
"I will give thanks to You, Yahweh, among the nations" (Ps. 18:49). God's intention was that Israel should be a missionary nation, the light of the Gentile world. But generally they failed to perceive this; David was one of the few who did, because his Psalms often speak of telling the Gentile nations how great God is. He came to this simply from the colossal desire he had to praise God as widely and far as possible because of what God had done for him personally by grace. We should be likewise motivated to take the Gospel to the world around us, on the basis of simply having to tell others the wonderful things which we personally have experienced from God.


day_number: 08/01
text:
"Proclaim upon the housetops" is alluding to 1 Sam. 9:15,25, where God speaks "the word of the Kingdom" in Samuel's ear, and then he speaks that word to Saul on the housetop. The Lord is saying that in essence, we are all in Samuel's position; we hear the word of this world's salvation, the word about "the Kingdom" as it was for Saul, and that very fact is in itself the imperative to overcome our natural reservations and share it with those for whom it is intended- even if, as with Saul, we consider them unlikely and unspiritual hearers.


day_number: 09/01
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
Blessings of many children, a specific seed / son who would bring glory and blessing, and a name change... are all frequently found in records of wedding blessings. In making those promises to Abraham, in mixing the letters of His Name with that of Abram... Yahweh was entering a marriage covenant with Abraham the impotent, the childless, the humanly hopeless. And He does the very same for each of us who are baptized into that same Name and become recipients of the very same promises (Gal. 3:27-29). What was weird and so counter-instinctive was the token of the marriage covenant. Abraham was to mutilate his male generative organ as a sign that God would generate him a great seed and family. Our response to what God has promised us requires us to likewise respond in a counter-cultural and counter-instinctive way.


day_number: 09/01
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
David felt that he had been given eternal life in the sense that the covenant blessings had an eternal quality to them (Ps. 21:4,6). And yet he often speaks about death as the end of conscious existence. We have here an Old Testament equivalent to Christ's teaching that we can now have eternal life (Jn. 6:54); we will die, in hope of resurrection to eternal life, but we can live now the kind of life which we will eternally live. Hence the parables of the Kingdom of God teach about how life can be lived right now.


day_number: 09/01
text:
Whoever is least in the Kingdom of God in the future will be greater, spiritually, than John the Baptist was in his human life. We learn from this that there will be degrees of reward in God's Kingdom- one star will shine brighter than another (1 Cor. 15:41), some will rule over ten cities, others over five (Lk. 19:17-19). Do we have the spiritual ambition to want to shine then as much as possible? If we love and seek God's glory, then we will want to extend it as far as possible, reflecting it as far as we can.


day_number: 10/01
text:
The prayers and loving spiritual concern of the faithful really can have an effect on the salvation of our weaker brethren. Abraham's prayer that Sodom would be saved if ten righteous were found there was unanswered; but God knew the real spirit of his prayer, that Lot should be saved, and that God's justice should be upheld in not destroying the righteous with the wicked. It was this which God recognized and answered, even though Abraham had not specifically verbalized those thoughts in prayer. Our true spiritual love for our brethren will likewise be heard in these last days.


day_number: 10/01
text:
Ps. 22:8 is quoted against Christ on the cross (Mt. 27:43). We are encouraged by the New Testament application of this Psalm to Christ to see the whole Psalm as giving a unique window into the thoughts of God's Son in His time of dying.


day_number: 10/01
text:
The kingdom of God will be established literally on earth when Jesus returns; but the essence of the Kingdom is that God is King and that is true today. The sphere of His rulership and authority in the lives of His people can be understood as His Kingdom (:28).


day_number: 11/01
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
Abraham "Lived as a foreigner". This is alluded to in Heb. 11:9, which says that Abraham lived in the promised land as a foreigner. He is our example and spiritual father. His characteristics are to be seen in those who have been baptized into Christ and thus become Abraham's seed (Gal. 3:27-29). Although this earth where we live has been promised to us, it's our eternal inheritance which we will receive at Christ's return, yet we now live in our own land as if we're foreigners.


day_number: 11/01
chapter_number_to: 25
text:
The more we live daily life in harmony with God's will, the more we will perceive that all His ways, His workings, both over history and in our lives, reflect His grace. We will not see Him as hard and unreasonable (Ps. 25:10).


day_number: 11/01
text:
From tiny beginnings- reading a Bible, picking up a tract, meeting someone 'by chance'- we will come to eternity. We will be a refuge for others then. We will look back on this life and it will seem so disproportionate- that we got 'there' from 'here' (:32).


day_number: 12/01
chapter_number_to: 23
text:
The Abrahamic blessing is defined as forgiveness of sins and salvation (Acts 3:26,26). We become "in" the seed by baptism into Christ, who is Abraham's seed (Gal. 3:8, 27-29). All that is true of Christ becomes true of us, if we are in Him. We all wish to be a blessing to others- we see people suffering from their sins, physically damaged by earthquakes, war, famine, and we wish to get out there and help them; yet we are limited by our life situation. By being in Christ, we can be a blessing for others by bringing them to the blessing of salvation and a place in God's Kingdom on earth.


day_number: 12/01
chapter_number_to: 28
text:
So often the Psalms speak of the need to "wait" for God. We assume His response must be immediate, but the 'gap' between our prayer and His response is necessary, for the sake of the development of our faith. It maintains that appropriate distance which has to be between God and man at this stage.


day_number: 12/01
text:
The food was mediated through the disciples; just as His salvation of others is mediated to them through our hands. Note the similarities with how Jesus 'broke bread' at the communion service. The way Jesus prayed with open eyes looking up to Heaven reflects His good conscience with God. Can we do that?


day_number: 13/01
text:
Abraham's servant spoke his prayer out loud. In the private, online worlds in which we live, it's no bad practice to say our prayers out loud, however quietly. This verse is surely alluded to by Jesus when He taught that we should pray knowing that God knows our needs before we ask Him (Mt. 6:8)- before we've finished our prayer, the answer has sometimes come along.


day_number: 13/01
chapter_number_to: 30
text:
David seems to be reflecting upon some life threatening illness he suffered after his sin with Bathsheba (Ps. 30:2,3,6); the title of the Psalm shows he wrote this as he was preparing for his son Solomon to build the temple, towards the end of his life. He is reflecting how he had fallen into sin as a result of assuming that he could never fall from the spiritual place he felt he was at. Whilst we should be confident that if Christ returns today we shall be saved by grace, we cannot assume that we shall always be where we are now spiritually, and we should always maintain a keen sense of the eternity we may miss if we turn away.


day_number: 13/01
text:
Jesus perceived that the crowd were hungry. Jesus is the same today as He was then (Heb. 13:8). He's just as perceptive to our needs as He was then.


day_number: 14/01
chapter_number_to: 26
text:
In Gen. 26:11 the Abimelech kings appear far more gracious and honourable than the Abraham family who wandered in and out of their territory; the way Abimelech threatens his own people with death if they touch Isaac or his wife, after Isaac had been deceitful to him, is an example. Yet it was not the nice people of the world, but this wandering, spiritually struggling family whom God loved and worked with.


day_number: 14/01
text:
"You have known my soul in adversities" (Ps. 31:7). God as it were gets to know us when He sees us in crises. Although He knows all things, we reveal ourselves to Him by how we feel and respond in those times.


day_number: 14/01
text:
In Mt. 16:11 we see Jesus' frustration with His followers' lack of understanding. We should so seek to understand Him, for clearly it's pleasing to anyone who loves us that we understand them.


day_number: 15/01
text:
The way Esau lifted up his voice and wept in Gen. 27:38 is picked up in Heb. 12:17 as a warning to all those who would fritter away their spirituality for sensuality- for they will weep in the same way at the day of judgment, aching from the pain of what might have been. Esau was a type of those who will be rejected at the final judgment- they will beg with tears for a change of mind, but it will be too late. None of us will stand before Christ indifferent- we will all desperately wish for His blessing, and therefore our commitment to Him in this life should likewise be total.


day_number: 15/01
text:
Ps. 32:1,2 is a soliloquy, David talking to himself as he meditated upon God's forgiveness of his sin with Bathsheba. But it is quoted in Rom. 4:7 with a subtle change of pronoun; "blessed is he" (:1) is changed to "blessed are they". Thus David's sin with Bathsheba and in murdering Uriah her husband becomes representative of all our sins, and we have received the same amazing grace which David did, seeing that there was no legal way out of what he had done- he deserved only death.


day_number: 15/01
text:
Jesus was very sensitive to not making people spiritually stumble (:27). Even people whom we would consider as disinterested in His Gospel.


day_number: 16/01
chapter_number_to: 29
text:
God made unconditional promises to Jacob even though at that time Jacob had not accepted Yahweh as his God (Gen. 28:21), thus showing His grace. God in Christ has potentially forgiven every person their sins and promised them salvation- all they have to do is accept Him in faith. God takes the initiative in grace- He doesn't give us His promises as a 'Well done' for our showing faith in Him. He has taken the initiative and it is for us to respond. Jacob there in his unbelief, or agnosticism, with Angels ascending and descending upon him, was in fact a type of Christ (Jn. 1:51).


day_number: 16/01
text:
God's grace is realized and effective in our lives according to our belief in its extent (Ps. 33:22). It is we and not God who are limiting what is possible. If Abraham had prayed for Sodom to be saved for the sake of just the one righteous man there (Lot), perhaps he would've been heard; the man who thought the Lord's ability to heal was limited by His power was taught that the opposite is true, in that all things are possible but are limited by human faith (Mk. 9:22,23).


day_number: 16/01
text:
Conversion has various levels (:3). The disciples had been converted, but there was a higher level of conversion- to become like children. Baptism isn't the end of our conversion- it's part of the process.


day_number: 17/01
text:
Jacob's sleeping with his wives' maids was contrary to the one man: one woman ideal of Genesis. But God tolerated it and used the children conceived as the founding pillars of His people Israel; He worked through the weakness of people rather than turning away in disgust and disappointment at their failures. God does the same with us, and we ought to have a similar hopeful patience in dealing with people who fail.


day_number: 17/01
text:
"The righteous cry, and Yahweh hears" (Ps. 34:17). This parallels David's statement that he had cried and Yahweh had heard him (:6). Again he looks out of his own issues and sees them in the wider context of God's people; He has delivered them historically, so He will deliver us; if He delivers us, He will deliver His people in the future, and so we can reason from our personal testimony to persuade them to trust Him as we have. The Psalms are songs, and David was using them to share his faith with others.


day_number: 17/01
text:
The young man said he had kept the commandments from his youth. That's youthful arrogance! But Jesus loved him (Mk. 10:21) rather than condemning his obvious arrogance and self-contradiction.


day_number: 18/01
text:
Jacob talks about Yahweh as "the God of my father" (Gen. 31:5). Jacob only spoke about Yahweh as his personal God towards the end of his life. At this stage he was still relating to Yahweh as the God of his father rather than seeing the personal reality of God as his personal God. Today God works in the same way, to transform for us the God of Sunday School Christianity into our personal Father.


day_number: 18/01
text:
"I bowed down mourning, as one who mourns his mother" (Ps. 35:14). David speaks in the context of his love for Saul despite the endless persecution he received from him, and here alludes to his famous lament over Saul at his death (2 Sam. 1). A man mourning for his mother, rather than a woman for her mother or a father for his son, is a carefully chosen similitude. For a man's mourning for his mother features the bitter regret that 'I didn't appreciate her as I should've done'. And this was how David felt for Saul at his end. In this we see a most unusual level of love and sensitivity. And yet even that is but a dim reflection of the colossal love of God and Jesus for us, and their sensitivity to us and appreciation of our feeble spirituality.


day_number: 18/01
text:
Those who don't serve Christ are standing around doing nothing- no matter their intellect and full diaries. It was only the old and weak who were not taken by anyone to work. But they wanted to work- so they stood there all day in the hope someone might be desperate enough for workers that he would take them. God is desperate for workers, and we who are called to Christ in these last days are those weak workers. Like those called at the last moment in Lk. 14:23 are the street people and desperate. That's us.


day_number: 19/01
chapter_number_to: 33
text:
The Hebrew words translated "take (away)" and "blessing" in Gen. 33:11 are exactly the same as in 27:35,36, where Isaac laments that Jacob had taken away Esau's blessing, and Esau repeats those same words. Now Jacob is saying: 'I have experienced the true grace of God, I stand forgiven before Him, I saw His face in His representative Angel , I therefore have all things, so I don't want that physical, material, temporal blessing I swindled you out of'. This is why Jacob pointedly calls Esau his "Lord" in the record. He was accepting Esau as the firstborn. Because God had dealt graciously with him, he felt that he had "all things". All he needed was God's grace, and he had that. Rev. 21:7 appears to allude to Jacob by saying that he who overcomes [by wrestling?] shall inherit "all things". We are all to pass through Jacob's lesson; that material advantage is nothing, and God's grace is everything. Truly could Jacob later say, after another gracious salvation, that there God had been revealed to him [RV] in the experience of grace (35:7).


day_number: 19/01
text:
"There the workers of iniquity are fallen" (Ps. 36:12). The obvious question of the Bible student to the statement "there" is "Where?". And the context seems to provide no answer. But David was imagining in his own mind the final destruction of the wicked at judgment day, as he often does in the Psalms. "There", in his mind's eye, he sees them fallen and without resurrection to eternal life. And this gives him perspective on his sufferings at their hands. We too can usefully play 'Bible television' and try to imagine the scene at judgment day. Whether we get all the details correct or not isn't so important; the exercise provides huge perspective for us in our present life experiences.


day_number: 19/01
text:
The crowd were so fickle. A few days later they would cry "Crucify him!"; and 6 weeks later claim to have accepted the preaching of Peter. Fickleness is part of our nature; what God and Jesus desire, as we do in any relationship, is stability, loyalty to the end, faithfulness.


day_number: 20/01
chapter_number_to: 35
text:
So true to our experience, even after the night of wrestling Jacob slipped back at times into the old way of thinking. His pathetic bleating here is a case of this: "I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house" (Gen. 34:30). Just note all those personal pronouns. God had promised to go with him, and the whole tenor of all the promises was that there would come a singular seed from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who would become a great house, or nation. But in the heat of the moment, all this went out of the window. Our faith in the implications of God's promises to us- we who through baptism have the same Abrahamic promises made to us- can likewise easily become obscured by the immediate pressures of this world.


day_number: 20/01
text:
Just as Israel were provided with basic bread, water and clothing for their wilderness journey towards the promised land, so God has promised to provide us with such basic necessities. We can take colossal comfort from this, although it so easily becomes obscured by our materialistic society, bent as it is on acquisition. The fact that most of us are no longer agriculturally self-sufficient likewise tempts us to doubt this promise. Having this assurance, we can 'afford' to be generous (Ps. 37:25,26), not just rising to it occasionally, but as a characteristic of our lives, the very spirit by which we live ("all day long").


day_number: 20/01
text:
The coin had Caesar's image on it and therefore should be given to him (:21). Our bodies are what has God's image on it, and we should give them to God.


day_number: 21/01
text:
The fact there were kings in neighbouring Edom before there were kings in Israel (Gen. 36:31) shows the accuracy of the later record that the Israelites wanted to have a human king so as to be like the nations around them (1 Sam. 8:5,20). Genesis 36 often mentions the various kings of the tribes surrounding the Israelites; it must've been unusual for a nation like Israel to have no king. The reason was that God was their true King. We too have no visible human leadership, the Lord Jesus is the head of the church and our God, the King of His people, is in Heaven and not on earth. But like the world around us, we can like Israel wish for a human, visible leadership. Yet this is a rejection of God as our true King.


day_number: 21/01
text:
The consequence of sin is that it separates and isolates the sinner, as David found after his sin with Bathsheba, which resulted in the breakup of his family and his son conspiring to kill him and take over the kingdom (Ps. 38:11). Some may sin and apparently not experience this isolation; but they feel it internally. That sin isolates the sinner, literally or psychologically, is designed by God; for it is in that isolation and self-analysis that the sinner has the opportunity to reconnect with God on a deeply personal level.


day_number: 21/01
text:
We can both enable and hinder others from entering God's Kingdom (:13). Causing others not to enter the Kingdom by our words, actions or example is one of the most serious sins. The Pharisees were a very small group, but the Gospel records give much time to describing Christ's interaction with them- for legalism and discouraging others from entering the Kingdom is such a serious sin, which we can so easily commit.


day_number: 22/01
text:
It must have taken Joseph quite some courage to explain the dreams to his brothers; hence we read: "He dreamed... and told it". Jesus at age 30 must've had the same courage when He began His ministry. This is our struggle, to tell forth the things revealed to us.


day_number: 22/01
chapter_number_to: 40
text:
In Ps. 39:4-6 David reminded himself of man's mortality in order to steel himself against the temptation to talk wrongly; he realized that sinning with the tongue can lead to losing our hope of eternity, and so he reminded himself of this in the face of the upcoming meeting he was going to have with people who would tempt him to misuse his tongue. We can do the same.


day_number: 22/01
text:
Mt. 24:14 implies that the return of Christ to some extent depends upon our taking the Gospel to all the world. It must be preached for a witness to the world- not all will respond, but all nations will hear. The advent of the internet has enabled this. We should all be using it for this.


day_number: 23/01
text:
Tamar is listed in the New Testament genealogy of Jesus as one of His descendants. Yet like many in His genealogy, she was somewhat non-standard- she had acted as a prostitute. The Lord Jesus had so many strange people in His gene bank, yet He never sinned. We can't therefore blame our sins on our ancestry or background situation.


day_number: 23/01
chapter_number_to: 43
text:
"The day of evil" in Ps. 41:3 ultimately refers to the day of judgment. In that day we will be as the poor who beg us for grace in this life; we should therefore be generous to them, even if their poverty, like our spiritual poverty, is ultimately the result of their own poor decision making and sin.


day_number: 23/01
text:
Each of us have different abilities given us to use in His service (:15). We all have something. Pray that God shows you what abilities He has given you, what is His hope and expectation for you.


day_number: 24/01
chapter_number_to: 40
text:
Joseph running for the door in Gen. 39:12 is the visual image picked up in the New Testament and held before us as an example: "Flee fornication" (1 Cor. 6:18); "flee youthful lusts" (2 Tim. 2:22). Potiphar's wife is therefore set up as the embodiment of our own lusts. To have done this she must have been totally obsessed and infatuated. As with the likes of Delilah, we wonder what a miserable life she lived after this incident until she came to her Godless, bitter and unfulfilled last breath.


day_number: 24/01
text:
Ps. 44:3 "They didn't get the land in possession by their own sword" alludes to how Jacob's final words were a claim that he had taken possession in the land by his own sword and bow (Gen. 48:22). Note how :4 says that it was God who gave Jacob his victories. Jacob was a faithful man who will be in the Kingdom, and yet he didn't achieve perfection, and died with weakness and misunderstanding on his lips. Without encouraging complacency, we can take comfort that we will not of ourselves attain moral perfection and will die with some weaknesses and spiritual blind points; and yet still be saved by God's grace if we abide faithful to Him in our hearts. But in this case it is for us to learn the lesson of Jacob's failure- the Psalm goes on to teach us that our inheritance of the Kingdom will be by grace and not by our own sword and strength (:6).


day_number: 24/01
text:
Mt. 26:15 suggests that Judas' motivation was largely financial. Hence his throwing down of the pieces of silver in disgust at himself. So many have betrayed Christ for the passing wealth of this world.


day_number: 25/01
text:
The chief butler speaks of his "sins" in Gen. 41:9. He felt he had committed a very serious sin in allowing the busyness of daily life and his demanding job to make him simply forget Joseph's need and tragedy. Perhaps an intensive plural is being used here- as if to mean 'my very great sin'. To forget others' need due to the busyness of our lives is a great sin.


day_number: 25/01
text:
A spiritual man will perceive beauty in a woman in relation to how far she has separated from the things of the world (:10) and is separated unto God's things (Ps. 45:11).


day_number: 25/01
text:
Pilate appears to genuinely want to save Jesus, and to be the victim of manipulation. Yet history records that he was a conscienceless man who murdered people at will, having no respect at all for justice nor the value of life. The 'contradiction' is only explicable by the strange effect which Jesus' righteousness, love and perfection can have on even the hardest character and most damaged conscience. For the example of Pilate shows that everyone has a conscience, and our preaching of Christ can reach to it.


day_number: 26/01
chapter_number_to: 43
text:
We wonder why Joseph so yearned for his brother (Gen. 43:30). Benjamin had been only four years old when Joseph disappeared, and Joseph was now 39 or 40. Ask a 40 year old if they have passionate feelings about their kid brother who they last saw when he was only four years old... and you won't get many who have such strong emotions as the Hebrew text here suggests. The fact Joseph felt like this indicates a love for his brothers and his family; when most men who suffered as he did would have forgotten about them and moved on, developing their own family. So Joseph's passion for Benjamin is reflective of his passionate love for those who had so hurt and damaged him. It is a huge example to us, as well as a most encouraging window onto the love of the Lord Jesus for us.


day_number: 26/01
chapter_number_to: 48
text:
"Jacob whom He loved. Selah" (Ps. 47:4). We are to meditate ("Selah") upon the fact that God so loved Jacob, and was and is the God who was Jacob's God. There are so many references to Jacob in the Psalms. Jacob was spiritually weak for much of his life, and was led by God to a final spiritual maturity, although Jacob responded very slowly and weakly to this leading over the decades of his life. The Psalms encourage us that our God is the God who stuck with and dearly loved Jacob. Abraham showed more faith and spirituality than Jacob, but God is more frequently referred to as Jacob's God rather than Abraham's.


day_number: 26/01
text:
The doubt and unbelief of the disciples is a strong theme in all the resurrection accounts. Yet these are transcripts of the preaching of the Gospel by the apostles. They were emphasizing how they had had difficulty believing these things, and had been incredibly slow and dumb to grasp what had happened. And on this basis their appeal for others to believe had more power to it. Admission of our weakness gives our witness far more credibility and power.


day_number: 27/01
chapter_number_to: 45
text:
In Gen. 45:4 the brothers slunk away from Joseph's physical presence, as the rejected will at the final judgment (1 Jn. 2:28 Gk.). This suggests that those accepted at the judgment seat will go through all the emotions of the rejected; they will realize that rejection is what they deserve. Those who judge (condemn) themselves now in their self-examination will not be condemned then. No wonder both Joseph and the Lord Jesus will need to persuade their brethren that actually, it's all OK, God's love is greater than the barriers created by our sins.


day_number: 27/01
text:
It may seem obvious that money can't buy a place in God's Kingdom, but whilst everybody would agree to that statement, effectively those who trust in wealth to the exclusion of faith in God are saying just this. The price of redemption is far more than money- it was ultimately in the blood of God's dear Son (Ps. 49:8).


day_number: 27/01
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
It's an amazing thought that a righteous God praises sinful humans like us (Rom. 2:29). He does this on the basis that we are covered in Christ's righteousness and therefore can be presented faultless before Him (Col. 1:22; Jude 24).


day_number: 28/01
chapter_number_to: 47
text:
In Gen. 47:9 Jacob speaks of his life as a "pilgrimage", using the same word used about Abraham and Isaac (17:8; 28:4; 36:7; 37:1). Thus he showed his connection with them; they became in spiritual not just emotional terms the centre of his thinking. Jacob speaking of how his life had been a "pilgrimage" shows that he realized that this life was only a series of temporary abodes. The same word is translated "stranger" with reference to the patriarchs' separation from the tribes around them (17:8; 28:4; 36:7; 37:1). Jacob's attitude that the things of this life were only temporary, that we are only passing through, is identified in Heb. 11:10-16 as an indicator that Jacob shared the faith of Abraham and Isaac. And this must be our attitude as we pass through this life.


day_number: 28/01
text:
"Call on Me in the day of trouble" (Ps. 50:15). This is the sacrifice which God wants. Rather than us giving things to God, He wants us to trust in Him, to turn to Him before turning to anything else.


day_number: 28/01
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
The Psalm being quoted in Rom. 4:7 is David's reflections about his sin with Bathsheba, and he is reflecting how he personally is blessed with the blessing of forgiveness by grace- seeing there was no sacrifice prescribed to cover the sins of adultery and murder which he had committed. The change of pronoun from "he" in the Psalm [referring to David personally] to "they" shows that David's situation is typical of that of us all. He was 'every man'; his forgiveness and salvation by grace, and his humble response in praise and zeal to God and people, becomes our pattern.


day_number: 29/01
chapter_number_to: 50
text:
"My sword and with my bow" (Gen. 48:22) indicates that Jacob's old self-reliance was still not totally gone; he sensed that through his own effort he could bring about the fulfillment of God's promises for him. In this area, the weakness of Jacob remained. These very words are alluded to in Josh. 24:12 and Ps. 44:1-6, where the Spirit says that the land was given to Israel not on account of their bow and sword. Although Jacob can look forward to being in God's eternal Kingdom, he died with some weaknesses, just as we do; and we have to accept this fact in our coping with irritating or immature fellow believers. In some spiritual areas both they and we will never quite 'get there' in this life.


day_number: 29/01
chapter_number_to: 52
text:
In Ps. 51:13 David vowed to respond to God's gracious forgiveness of him by preaching to others. Our motivation for witness should be our own very personal awareness of having received forgiveness and grace which we never possibly deserved.


day_number: 29/01
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
Paul didn't just decide to write about baptism in Romans 6; the classic exposition of baptism which we find there is within a context. And it's not an appeal for people to be baptized- it's written to baptized believers, appealing for them to live out in practice the "in Christ" status which they had been given as a result of their baptisms. If we really feel the result of our baptism, we will not "continue in sin". Martin Luther used to overcome temptation by taking a chalk and writing baptizatus sum- 'I am baptized'. We simply cannot continue in servitude to sin.


day_number: 30/01
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Visualize the scene when Moses was "full forty years old" (Acts 7:23). The Greek phrase could refer to Moses' birthday- perhaps it had been arranged that when Moses was 40, he would become Pharaoh. Heb. 11:24 says that he refused and chose to suffer affliction with God's people. Imagine Moses at the ceremony when he should have been declared as Pharaoh, the most powerful man in his world... standing up and saying, to a suddenly hushed audience, voice cracking with shame and stress and yet some sort of proud relief that he was doing the right thing: 'I, whom you know in Egyptian as Meses, am Moshe, yes, Moshe the Israelite; and I decline to be Pharaoh'. Imagine his foster mother's pain and anger. And then in the end, the wonderful honour would have been given to another man, who became Pharaoh. Perhaps he or his son was the one to whom Moses was to come, 40 years later. After a nervous breakdown, stuttering, speaking with a thick accent, clearly having forgotten Egyptian... walking through the mansions of glory, along the corridors of power, to meet that man, to whom he had given the throne 40 years earlier. He had a choice between the riches of Egypt, the pleasures of sin for a season, and choosing rather to suffer affliction with God's people and thereby fellowship the reproach of Christ (Heb. 11:24-26). He probably had the chance to become the next Pharaoh, as the son of Pharaoh's daughter; but he consciously refused this, as a pure act of the will, as an expression of faith in the future recompense of the Kingdom. We too must 'come out' for our faith no matter what it costs.


day_number: 30/01
chapter_number_to: 55
text:
The mental suffering David describes in these verses was largely because of the words of his enemies (Ps. 55:3); words really can make people feel like dying and lead them to suicidal thoughts. Words can never be treated as 'only words'; they have a real power, and therefore we have a deep responsibility for our words. We must remember this, living as we do in a society which judges behaviour far harder than it does 'mere' words. No threat in this sense is ever an 'empty threat', because words are of themselves so destructive.


day_number: 30/01
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
We have been adopted, and yet we await full adoption as God's children when Jesus returns (Rom. 8:15,23). This is an example of the 'Now but not yet' paradox- we in one sense are saved, in another sense we await the physical revelation of that salvation when Christ returns.


day_number: 31/01
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
In Ex. 4:24 we see how God's intentions can be changed by the actions of a third party, in this case Moses' wife. Later, God intended to destroy all Israel, but Moses interceded for them, and God relented. Moses was inspired to do this by his experience at this time; and his Saviour was a Gentile woman [an unbeliever, or weak in the true faith] whom perhaps he should never have married. Moses was being taught that he too for all his weakness could be used by God to save others.


day_number: 31/01
chapter_number_to: 57
text:
Tear bottles were kept by mourners at funerals; they put their tears in a bottle which they then kept in memory of the deceased. But David says that his tears are in God's bottle (Ps. 56:8). The idea was that your tears went into your bottle. But David was so intimate with God that he perceived that his tears were in fact God's. The intimacy David achieved with God is absolutely possible for us too.


day_number: 31/01
text:
The questions we ask about the justice of God aren't appropriate for us to ask. We will only be concerned about them if we have failed to accept Bible teaching about our low status- for we are just dust, or clay, which God is working with. If we accept this is all we are, questions about His justice, let alone implied criticisms of Him, are inappropriate. Bible characters have argued with God and been angry with God, but ultimately the 'answer' is simply that it is not for us to know these answers, because we are but dust (:20). It's like a small child insisting that the workings of a car are explained to them. They wouldn't understand even if they were told, the concepts are far beyond them.


day_number: 01/02
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
"I am Yahweh...  I will bring you... I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you" (Ex. 6:6). The three "I will"s clearly allude to 'I will be who I will be / who I was and have been'. This assurance of salvation was and is part of God's most essential characteristics bound up with the very essence of His Name. Those who bear that Name should therefore be able to say that they are assured, at this moment, of final salvation. For this is so much part of God's purpose and essence.


day_number: 01/02
chapter_number_to: 59
text:
There is a time to keep silence, but if we don't speak out for the abused at times we are paralleled with those who are proactively abusive (Ps. 58:1). So much evil happens because 'good' people do nothing.


day_number: 01/02
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
In Rom. 11:2, Elijah prayed "against Israel". But Elijah didn't specifically ask God to destroy Israel. He simply told God of what he felt Israel had done to him. But God saw the real request and motive that was behind the words he prayed. God reads our prayers likewise- the Lord Jesus searches our minds and relays our spirit to God, as He intercedes for us in prayer (8:26,27). This is a comfort to those who feel they can't find the right words in prayer; and a warning, that we can't impress God with words, for He sees to the real feelings that are behind them, and understands these feelings as our prayer.


day_number: 02/02
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
The life of Moses was in three clear sections. Forty years in Egypt in the opulence of Pharaoh's court, forty years leading sheep in the wilderness, forty years leading Israel in the wilderness. Our lives too are arranged by God, although we only perceive it after many years.


day_number: 02/02
chapter_number_to: 61
text:
Being given a cup of wine to drink is a double symbol; it speaks of either our eternal blessing (1 Cor. 10:16) or condemnation (Ps. 60:3). The communion service is therefore designed to bring us up against the two possible futures which there are for us; blessing or condemnation. We therefore drink either to our blessing or to our condemnation (1 Cor. 11:29). It is therefore a powerful aid towards self-examination.


day_number: 02/02
text:
Rom. 12:17 "As it depends on you" implies that we cannot always be at peace with others; Jesus and Paul weren't. But the frictions and separations must always be the choice of the other party, and not ours.


day_number: 03/02
text:
The record speaks often of how Pharaoh hardened his heart ["his heart was stubborn" carries this idea], and yet also of how God hardened Pharaoh's heart (10:1). God confirms people in the mental attitude they adopt. He's not indifferent. Hence the colossal importance of human thought and action- God is waiting to confirm us in the way we choose to go.


day_number: 03/02
chapter_number_to: 63
text:
"God alone" (Ps. 62:1). The Hebrew word translated "alone" also means "one". The fact that God is one isn't merely a numerical statement. Because there is only one God, we are to trust Him alone. In life's crises we are to turn to God alone, quite simply because there is only one God. Our belief in the unity of God isn't merely a theological position, it has huge practical meaning- especially in a world where there are so many attempts to replace trust in God, be it through insurance policies, clever lawyers, smart doctors or roadside rescue services.


day_number: 03/02
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
We are to live as if now "in the day" (Rom. 13:13). "The day" refers to the time of God's future Kingdom in Rom. 13:12. We should live now as if we are in the Kingdom. In this sense we 'have eternal life' in that we live right now the kind of life which we will eternally live.


day_number: 04/02
text:
God's demands upon Pharaoh grew in Ex. 10:25- now he had to give them animals too. The further a person goes away from God, the harder God makes it for them- because He confirms people in the hardness or softness to Him which they choose.


day_number: 04/02
chapter_number_to: 65
text:
We wonder how "all mankind" will be in awe at the judgment of some Israelites in David's time who abused him (Ps. 64:9). The fact is that they will be resurrected and judged, and the judgment will in some sense be public, before all (Rev. 16:15). It will be an amazing teaching mechanism, seeing the lives of billions of people played back and analyzed, and observing the condemnation of the wicked. It will prepare us for entry to God's eternal Kingdom, understanding His principles and grace in a way which we have perhaps not risen to in this life- even though His judgments are in His word and are even now made manifest.


day_number: 04/02
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
Jesus 'carried our infirmities' on the cross (Rom. 15:1; Is. 53:4; Mt. 8:17). We are being asked to do for others what He did for us there. This makes the crucifixion far more than something to be gazed at from a distance. He there becomes the daily inspiration for us, here and now, in our lives. The spirit with which He met death is to be ours in life today.


day_number: 05/02
chapter_number_to: 12
text:
In Ex. 11:3 we read that "The man Moses was very great". Yet it is also written that "the man Moses was very meek" (Num. 12:3). Putting the two passages together we have the clear lesson that he who humbles himself is made great; and in this, Moses was not only a type of Christ but also a pattern for all who would go through the pattern which the Lord Jesus set before us: of humbling ourselves now that we might be made great in due time.


day_number: 05/02
chapter_number_to: 67
text:
Often the Psalms invite the Gentile world to join with Israel in their praise of God as their saviour (Ps. 66:1,2,5). Israel were intended to be a light to the Gentiles around them, and to bring them to faith and covenant relationship with God. They failed in this, for the most part, despite these faithful Psalmists who sought to do so through the medium of producing songs which they hoped would penetrate into the surrounding nations. The great commission bids each of us to take the same message into the Gentile darkness around us.


day_number: 05/02
text:
"Immediately" is an idea which often occurs in the early chapters of Mark (1:10,18,20,21,28,29,42). The impression is created of a hectic, exhausting time for Jesus with everything moving at high speed.  When we're in those situations, remember that He knows how it feels.


day_number: 06/02
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
In Ex. 13:17 we see how God is sensitive to our weaknesses in the path He chooses to lead us towards His promised land. The fact the people did later wish to return to Egypt (Num. 14:4) was therefore inexcusable; God did not test His people more than they could reasonably endure, just as He will not with us (1 Cor. 10:13).


day_number: 06/02
text:
God sets the lonely in families (Ps. 68:6). He did this when He brought His prisoner people out from Egyptian bondage. The numbering of the tribes after they had crossed the Red Sea implies that every Israelite had a family group. Those who were alone were therefore placed within families. The community of God's people today, who have likewise passed through the water of baptism as Israel crossed the Red Sea, should likewise be characterized by inclusiveness and a binding of individuals together in a new spiritual family in Christ. Cliques based around existing families or friendship groups mustn't be allowed to stop this unique unity occurring- for it is this mysterious Christian unity which is powerful enough to convert the world if it is lived out as it should be (Jn. 17:21).


day_number: 06/02
text:
The man was healed because of the faith of his friends (:5). To some extent we can save others, obtain their forgiveness or bring about their betterment in this life. As this is the case, we should give ourselves to prayer and caring practical effort for others; for we really can make a difference to the salvation of others.


day_number: 07/02
text:
Pharaoh's men ran into the Sea themselves in hot pursuit of Israel; but God confirmed them in that desire, so in a sense He cast them into the Sea. There is strong emphasis on the image of God throwing or casting the Egyptians into the Red Sea (Ex. 15:1,21); God confirms people in the way they wish to go, in the heart they wish to have.


day_number: 07/02
text:
"For the zeal of Your house consumes me" is applied to Jesus in Jn. 2:17; so many verses in this Psalm are relevant to Him. Verse 8 refers to His estrangement from His half brothers and natural family (Jn. 7:5). "The reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me" is referred to Christ in Rom. 15:3, and is therefore applied to us who are in Him- in that we are to be so concerned with others' salvation and welfare that we can rise above the experience of personal reproach and insult, rather than being obsessed by it and paralyzed from being of service.


day_number: 07/02
text:
Jesus alone went up into the mountain and then sent word to His followers to come to Him. They had to make quite some effort to come to Him. He thus filtered out those who really wanted to come to Him from those who were merely inquisitive. He does the same with people today.


day_number: 08/02
text:
Jewish tradition interpreted Ex. 16:18 as meaning that the stronger, fitter people gathered more and shared it with those who were weaker and couldn't gather so much, resulting in them all having the same amount of manna. Paul quotes this tradition with approval in 2 Cor. 8:15, using it to argue that rich Christians should give to those who are poorer. Those who refused to obey this command found their manna was corrupted by morning- teaching that unless we share our manna or wealth (as 2 Cor.8:15 interprets it) before the morning of the Lord's coming, we will incur His wrath.


day_number: 08/02
chapter_number_to: 71
text:
David wanted to remain alive so that he could continue his work of teaching and preaching God's grace and salvation to others. This too should be our purpose of living (Ps. 71:18).


day_number: 08/02
text:
The word of God is a seed (:14)- we are born again by it, it has the power of life within it (1 Pet. 1:23). The Bible is on one level black print on white paper, words on a screen; but it is so very much more, unique amongst literature to the point that it shouldn't really be classified as 'literature' in the secular sense. God's word gives life to people. It should be our meditation all the day as it was for David (Ps. 119:97).


day_number: 09/02
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
The rock that was struck represented Christ (1 Cor. 10:4)- water came out of His side when He was 'struck' in crucifixion. Paul says that the rock followed them- in the sense that the water from the smitten rock followed them as a gushing river. This speaks of the constant refreshment and life available from Christ in our wilderness journeys. Yet despite the wonder of that provision, the people still murmured, made a golden calf, wanted to return to Egypt- they failed to perceive the wonder of God's constant presence, just as we can.


day_number: 09/02
text:
These are David's prophetic desires for his son, and yet clearly they have reference to the Kingdom of Christ rather than Solomon, even though the Psalm has a limited fulfilment in Solomon. The promises to David in 2 Sam. 7:12-16 stated that the son of David would also be son of God, and David would eternally live in the presence of his great descendant, who would reign eternally from David's throne. It seems that David came to see these promises as having hope of fulfilment in his son Solomon, although the New Testament is clear that their main fulfilment is in Christ (Lk. 1:31-35). Thus David lost his focus upon the future Messiah because of his obsession with his son Solomon; and Solomon was damaged by this in that his spirituality and works for God were a living out of parental expectation. At the end of his life he turned away to other gods and according to Ecclesiastes, lost all hope of a future Kingdom of God on earth. This Psalm however remains a wonderful prophecy of Christ's future Kingdom, based around the land of Israel and His rulership in Jerusalem.


day_number: 09/02
text:
The healed man was told to go and witness to his family, but instead he went around the ten cities of the Decapolis preaching (:20). Often when a command is given to preach, God's people don't obey it fully. The command to go and teach the Gentiles wasn't obeyed by the apostles initially- they only went to the Jews. Those told not to tell others of their healing often did. And do we obey the call we have received to share the good news as God wishes?


day_number: 10/02
chapter_number_to: 20
text:
The eagle tries to teach its young to fly independently by casting them out of the nest and flying beneath them to catch them if they fall, as well as the draft from it's own wings keeping them in motion. God wants His people to fly independently, not just be carried by Him (Ex. 19:4).


day_number: 10/02
text:
Asaph as a temple servant would have had access to the altar, which was plated with the censers of those sinners who had rebelled against God in the desert (Num. 16:38). There the earth suddenly opened and swallowed them up- alluded to in :18,19. Looking at those plates, he saw that finally judgment does come to the wicked, and even those who appear to die in peace will ultimately be judged. The apparent prosperity of the wicked and the way that they don't always receive judgment in this life simply deepens our faith in the reality of a judgment to come, at which the wicked will be resurrected and judged for their actions in this life. Seeing that God judges sin, and yet sinners don't always get judged in this life, forces us to this understanding- which is in any case presented specifically in the Bible. Asaph admits throughout the Psalm that his jealousy of the wealthy and prosperous sinners had eaten him up to the point of obsession and spiritual destruction; but he came to his senses by realizing the reality of future judgment. That basic doctrine should mean the same for us too.


day_number: 10/02
text:
Repentance means 'a change of mind' (:12). It doesn't as a word necessarily refer to stopping sinning- God is described as 'repenting'. We may be simply too weak to stop sinning; but we can repent in that we change our mind, we strongly repudiate our sins, we try not to do them, our deepest heart  is with the Lord and not with the flesh.


day_number: 11/02
text:
The altar represented Christ (Heb. 13:10). He is the place of refuge whither we may flee, who like the man of Ex. 21:13 have committed sins worthy of death and yet against our deepest will. Whilst we cannot justify all our sins by blaming them on circumstances, within some kind of 'situational ethic', it is also true that God recognizes that at times and in some ways we sin without deeply intending to.


day_number: 11/02
text:
This Psalm is a record of how Asaph reasoned with himself. The destruction of the temple by the Babylonians meant that he felt God had totally and permanently rejected His people; and yet he takes comfort in the wonders God has done for His people in the past (:13-15). As a member of God's people he felt that those historical wonders had in a sense been done to him too- hence he reflects that "Yet God is my King of old". In times when the apparent distance and silence of God is so unbearable, we have to remember what He has done for us and for His people in the past. We can also reflect that the ongoing wonders of creation, the sun's rising and setting, is a sign that God is in fact constantly active (:16,17), even if He's not active for us in the ways we desperately want.


day_number: 11/02
text:
Jesus could pray with eyes open looking up at the sky. Can we do this? He sighed (:34), like He groaned whilst healing Lazarus (Jn. 11:38). This may have been the intensity of His prayer- and even now He prays for us in Heaven with such groaning (Rom. 8:26). In this sense Jesus is the same today as He was then (Heb. 13:8). Or His sighing and groaning may have been the result of how deeply He entered into others' situations, and so longed for the pain of humanity to end. And He is the same with and for you this day.


day_number: 12/02
text:
Ex. 22:7 says that the thief must "Pay double". But Zacchaeus paid back four times what he had stolen (Lk. 19:8). The existence of God's law shouldn't inculcate a spirit of minimalism in us, doing the letter of the law and no more. Rather if we perceive the principles behind it, we will do far over and above what the letter of the law requires.


day_number: 12/02
chapter_number_to: 76
text:
"God is the judge. He puts down one, and lifts up another" (Ps. 75:7)- We shouldn't think that God isn't watching this world, and will only open the books and consider everything when Christ returns. The judgment is ongoing, right now we are standing before Him and He is judging; the future judgment day will be the revelation of the judgments He has already reached as He watched our faith and behaviour in this life.


day_number: 12/02
text:
Jesus even after His resurrection still has the capacity to feel ashamed (:38). We are made in God's image, and so shame on behalf of another is an emotion He also has. May we not cause Him shame today.


day_number: 13/02
text:
Ex. 23:4,5 are examples of how God's law differs from human laws in that it criminalizes internal attitudes. It was impossible to prove the sin of omitting to help your enemy's animal, nor enforce the law against it- because it would've been invisible to others. Yet the God who sees all stands in judgment upon our innermost thoughts and desires. Note too that sins of omission are just as bad as sins of commission; the man who refused to help the animal could've returned to his home that day feeling he hadn't actually committed anything wrong. But his sin of omission would've been noticed by God.


day_number: 13/02
text:
"I will appeal to this" (Ps. 77:10). The faithful have always known God as a God open to dialogue. Asaph feels that God has as it were forgotten His graciousness (:9), and so He appeals to God to remember how in the past He saved His people at the Red Sea, even though they were spiritually weak at the time. He thus appeals to God's consistent love for His people as a basis for requesting God to act again in gracious salvation. If God has acted with His right hand over history, why not now? There was no unquestioning submission to the Almighty God as required by Islam and some legalistic forms of Christianity; rather do God's people respectfully engage Him in dialogue and struggle with Him in prayer.


day_number: 13/02
text:
The man was unsure about the total abilities of Jesus. 'Do what's in your power to do' was his idea (:22). Jesus replies by saying that God's action in our lives doesn't depend upon Him, it depends upon us. If we can believe, then everything's possible. It is us and not God who have our finger as it were on the volume control.


day_number: 14/02
chapter_number_to: 25
text:
The candlestick represents the assembly of believers (Rev. 1:20). It was made of beaten work (Ex. 25:36), representing how all those in the true church will be beaten into a shape through which they can be lights for God.


day_number: 14/02
text:
Like a parent giving in to the unwise requests of a child just because they love the child, so God gave Israel the food they craved (Ps. 78:30). Yet giving in to lust or wrong desire doesn't make it go away; Israel were given their desire (:29) but their craving remained. In our battles with temptation, let us never reason that if we give in, the lust will go away. It's simply not true. The very experience of sin makes the next sin even easier and the voice of conscience yet weaker.


day_number: 14/02
text:
Trusting in riches is paralleled with having riches (:23,24). Having them is the same as trusting in them because this is the very nature of wealth. It's impossible to have it without trusting in it. Yet despite these grave warnings about the spiritual dangers of wealth, many Christians earnestly desire to have it!


day_number: 15/02
text:
The tabernacle represents God's dwelling place. He now no longer lives in any physical structure, but in the hearts of His people, who between them comprise His new dwelling place. We can however learn lessons from the principles behind the tabernacle construction. Great emphasis was placed on how the components were all interlocking- the curtains coupled together, the boards were joined by bars etc. It is by our unity and connection with each other that God will dwell amongst us. Christianity can't be lived in isolation- we need each other.


day_number: 15/02
chapter_number_to: 80
text:
"You cleared the land [of Canaan] for [Israel]" (Ps. 80:9). Potentially, God drove out all the nations in the land of Canaan so that the vine of Israel could grow there without contamination and be spiritually fruitful. But in fact Israel failed to drive out many of the tribes and they remained to be a spiritual thorn to Israel's spirituality. In potential, so much was made possible, just as it is for God's people today; but it requires us to go and realize that potential in faith.


day_number: 15/02
text:
They were amazed at His faith, but Jesus tells them not to just admire His faith, as people admire a picture or image of Jesus, but see that His faith and life is to be our pattern (:22). If He had such faith, then His followers also ought to.


day_number: 16/02
text:
Acacia wood was plentiful in the wilderness, but it is little more than brushwood; a surprising choice of material to be used in God's dwelling place. But His choice of us with all our weakness and dysfunction, the common, weak stuff of the wilderness, is no less surprising. The choice of acacia wood for constructing the tabernacle is one of several points in the whole enterprise where it seems a less than ideal material was chosen, from a construction point of view. This aspect emphasizes that God prefers to work with the soft, weak and broken in order to do His work (as also in Ez. 15:2-5).


day_number: 16/02
chapter_number_to: 82
text:
We have in Ps. 81:14 the amazing fact that God knows all possible futures; He knew all the things that would have happened if they had been obedient- and He often mentions this in the prophets. In this we have another window into the pain and tragedy of God. We mourn more for those who die young than for those who die in fulfilled old age, because we think of all that might have been. And so it is for God, to an infinitely greater extent. He planned even to give Israel fine wheat as well as manna, and honey as well as water out of the smitten rock (:16); but Israel would not. And yet God continues to plan all kinds of intricate and wonderful possible futures for each of us; and individually and collectively we as His beloved people so often don't enable them to happen because of our short term, faithless attitudes.


day_number: 16/02
text:
Mark emphasizes how "the crowd" were supportive of Jesus (11:18,32; 12:37; 14:2). But this same crowd were soon shouting "Crucify him!". We must battle against this same fickleness of human nature- to love and adore Jesus one moment, and deny Him the next.


day_number: 17/02
text:
"Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16) may be Paul alluding to how the High Priest had to have bells so that "his sound shall be heard... so that he will not die" (Ex. 28:35). This idea of the sound being heard is picked up in Ps. 19:3 concerning the spread of the Gospel. It's part of being a Christian that we witness to others.


day_number: 17/02
chapter_number_to: 84
text:
Just one day in God's presence would be better than thousands of days lived in this present world; and yet the wonder of it all is that we shall live eternally with God in His Kingdom (Ps. 84:10).


day_number: 17/02
text:
We learn from Mk. 13:34 that we are each "assigned tasks". Each of us has a specific part within the body of Christ. If you don't know what it is, what God's hope of you and expectation of you is, then pray to find out.


day_number: 18/02
text:
Eating the things with which the atonement was made (Ex. 29:33) points forward to the breaking of bread service. We can see in this echoes of the consecration of the priests; and we should realize each time we do it that we have been sanctified in order to proactively serve in God's house.


day_number: 18/02
chapter_number_to: 86
text:
"Mercy and truth" (Ps. 85:10). Somehow it seems that both individually and collectively we cannot achieve this fusion. We are either too soft and compromise and lose the Faith, or we are too hard and lose the spirit of Christ, without which we are "none of His" (Rom. 8:9). The result of this is that whenever God's Truth is revived, that community is in a sense born to roll downhill; after two or three generations the Truth is lost. Either they destroy themselves through bitter subdivision, or they compromise with error and lose the Faith. Perhaps it is God's plan that no one community should hold the Faith through many generations. But the challenge is of showing "grace and truth" in our thinking and judging, even though we cannot fully achieve it; and in the process we are led to appreciate more the beauty and wonder of the way in which these two concepts are linked together in the Father and His Son, and to yearn more to perceive and enter into the glory of God's Name, which totally incorporates these two humanly opposed aspects (Ex. 34:6,7; Rom. 11:22).


day_number: 18/02
text:
Peter should've seen the warning sign when the cock crowed the first time (:68). Did he psychologically ignore it; or did he resolve that next time he would not fail? He should've removed himself from temptation; but like us so often, he didn't. He, like us, thought he was stronger than he was.


day_number: 19/02
text:
The Law seems to have foreseen the difference between real and apparent prayer by warning that the true incense was to be burnt [representing prayer], but not any other kind of incense, or incense comprised of other kinds of ingredients. We must ask ourselves whether our prayers are the real thing, or just one part of our brain talking to another part of our brain which we call 'God'.


day_number: 19/02
chapter_number_to: 88
text:
It's an amazing thought that the words of our prayers enter into God's personal presence (Ps. 88:2). This was symbolized by the way the incense (representing prayer, Rev. 8:3,4) burnt in the holy place  permeated into the Most Holy Place.


day_number: 19/02
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
Jesus was so concerned for the spiritual welfare of Peter, the one who had denied Him. The risen Lord especially wanted the women to tell Peter that He was 'going before him' to Galilee (Mk. 16:7)- with the implication that even in his weakness and dejection, He wanted Peter to still try to follow Him and re-live the cross in his life. We who also deny Jesus can take comfort from this loving concern He has even for us. And we can learn to treat others who fail likewise.


day_number: 20/02
chapter_number_to: 32
text:
In Ex. 31:6 the wise were made more wise- an idea we often encounter in the opening chapters of Proverbs. God confirms men and women in the way they wish to go; if they wish to do His work and build up His dwelling place, He will confirm them in their natural talents and give them new ones.


day_number: 20/02
text:
"I have found David My servant" (Ps. 89:20). God is in search of man; this is a repeated theme of the prophets (Hos. 9:10; Dt. 32:1; Is. 50:2; 65:1,2; 66:4). So it's not us as it were reaching out to God; He is fervently reaching out to us, and we have to come to realize that. We don't so much as find God, as realize that He already is earnestly with us. And yet we of course feel that we are or have been searching for God, for the ultimate Truth. Yet God is searching for us; in conversion to Christ, God and man meet in a profound way; for there, in Christ, God finds us and we find Him.


day_number: 20/02
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
There were many serious moral and doctrinal problems in the church at Corinth. But Paul begins with the problem of their being divided. Division amongst believers is an awful sin which must be avoided at all costs (1:10,11).


day_number: 21/02
chapter_number_to: 34
text:
We are described in 2 Cor. 3:18 as also like Moses beholding the glory of God, in terms of His moral perfection as it is in the face of Jesus. As the physical glory reflected off Moses' face (Ex. 34:29), so the more we are in the presence of Jesus, meditating upon His character, the more that glory in a moral sense will increasingly shine off our faces. Paul uses the metaphor of looking in a mirror, until we find that the image in the mirror is no longer our face but the face of Jesus.


day_number: 21/02
chapter_number_to: 91
text:
Jesus was tempted to misinterpret Ps. 91:11,12 as meaning that whatever He did from whatever motives, God would somehow preserve Him (Mt. 4:6). Temptation is very subtle; for the believer, misusing God's words in order to justify whatever we feel like doing in the heat of a moment is a common form of temptation. This Psalm was encouragement to Joshua (see on :1), the Hebrew form of 'Jesus'; so it's understandable that Jesus would've been especially aware of these words.


day_number: 21/02
text:
1 Cor. 3:8 is clear that the labour we expend upon others will receive an eternal reward- unlike the labour we expend upon our secular lives, careers etc.


day_number: 22/02
text:
Paul wanted the Corinthians to think themselves into Israel's shoes. For then they would realize that as Israel had to have a willing heart to give back to God the wealth of Egypt which He had given them, so they were to have a willing heart in being generous to their poorer brethren (35:5 = 2 Cor. 8:12). And they would have realized that as "last year" they had made this offer (2 Cor. 8:10 Gk.), so the year before, Israel had received Egypt's wealth with a similar undertaking to use it for the Lord's cause. As Moses had to remind them a second time of their obligations in Ex. 35, so Paul had to bring it again before Corinth. And if they had seen these similarities, they would have got the sense of Paul's lament that there was not one wise hearted man amongst them- for the "wise hearted" were to convert Israel's gold and silver into tools for Yahweh's service (35:10 = 1 Cor. 6:5; 2 Cor. 10:12).


day_number: 22/02
chapter_number_to: 93
text:
A regular regime of morning and evening 'quiet time' with God is so important; spiritual life is really all about having the right habits (Ps. 92:2).


day_number: 22/02
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
On one level, our conscience is important. But even if our conscience is clear about something, this doesn't mean that we are therefore right (1 Cor. 4:4). We stand before God's judgment of us; at the last day, our conscience will not as it were jump out of us and stand there and judge us. We will be judged according to our response to the Word which Jesus spoke (Jn. 12:48); and in some matters our conscience is faulty.


day_number: 23/02
text:
In Ex. 36:6, Israel were extremely generous to God's work, whilst at the same time carrying with them the idols of Egypt and in their hearts wanting to return there (Ez. 20:7,8; Acts 7:42,43). We too can be externally supportive of God's work whilst in our hearts being far from Him; this is the nature of our human condition which we must battle against. God above all seeks our hearts and not our external works.


day_number: 23/02
chapter_number_to: 95
text:
David sees Yahweh as the God of revenge (Ps. 94:1), the one alone to whom vengeance belongs. Our response to this is to believe that truly vengeance is God's and therefore we will not avenge ourselves (Rom. 12:19). This applies to all the micro-level 'takings of vengeance' which we so easily do in our words, body language, attitudes etc., in response to the hurt received from others.


day_number: 23/02
text:
If we believe that the wicked will not be allowed into the Kingdom of God when Jesus returns, this should be comfort enough for us. This is the only judgment that matters, and so we shouldn't take them to human judgment in this life (:9). By refraining from doing so, we show our faith in God's judgment which is to come.


day_number: 24/02
text:
The language of buds, flowers and branches invites us to see the candlestick as a tree of life giving light in the darkness of the tabernacle, which had no natural light. The candlestick represents the local church in our times (Rev. 1:20); we as communities of believers are to be as the tree of life, offering eternity to a dark world; hence Prov. 11:30 likens the fruit of the righteous to the tree of life, which results in winning people for eternity.


day_number: 24/02
chapter_number_to: 99
text:
The "salvation" spoken of in Ps. 98:1-3 isn't God's saving of Himself, but His salvation of His people through Jesus [the Hebrew form of 'Jesus' means 'Yah's salvation']. It is our personal experience of that salvation which should be the witness which persuades the Gentile world to praise Him. It was God's intention that His salvation of His people from Egypt would have this effect; but Israel despised that salvation, in their hearts reversed it by constantly wanting to return to Egypt, and so they didn't declare His salvation and so the Gentiles didn't hear. We can't keep our experience of salvation to ourselves; we will declare it to the whole world if we really grasp the wonder of it all.


day_number: 24/02
text:
Whilst God through Jesus will save people, He has delegated this work to us. A believer can save another person (:16); this is a great encouragement to 'stick it out' in marriage to an unbeliever, and in preaching the Gospel.


day_number: 25/02
text:
God remembers to this day how much everyone gave of what material (Ex. 38:29), and has preserved the record in His written word. This is encouragement to us that no sacrifice for God's house is ever forgotten, but He eternally remembers it.


day_number: 25/02
chapter_number_to: 101
text:
The fact that God Himself created us, as His sheep, "and not we ourselves" (a comment applicable, in essence, to theories of atheistic evolution) should lead us to ecstatic singing of praise before Him (Ps. 100:3). Likewise 96:2,5, and so many other examples, invite us to enthusiastically praise God, simply because "the Lord made the heavens". God as creator results in joy and praise amongst those of His creation who recognize Him as creator.


day_number: 25/02
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
We are free to eat what we want; but our decisions must be overshadowed always by the concern as to what effect our example will have upon others less mature in the Faith. This is a principle we often need to apply in our decision making. 'I see nothing wrong with it... it's OK in my conscience' is a spiritually selfish attitude. Our examples have more influence upon others than we imagine. If our example causes another to stumble, then we have sinned against Christ and His death for that person is as it were wasted (1 Cor. 8:9,12,13). So what may not be a personal sin for us becomes sinful if it causes others to stumble.


day_number: 26/02
chapter_number_to: 40
text:
Sacrifice is necessary before we can enter God's presence. Sacrifice doesn't simply mean giving material things to God; it refers to giving up to God that which is personal and valuable to us. We're not involved with God simply in order to get from Him; in this case, spirituality would be purely selfish, as it is in many religions. Authentic relationship with God depends upon our having the spirit of sacrifice; not in the sense that we can only get to God if we give something, for that too would be too primitive and a denial of grace as the basis of our relationship with God. But His grace and the wonder of fellowship with Him cannot be accepted by us passively nor with indifference; our natural response, if we believe it, is to want to give to Him.


day_number: 26/02
text:
"Yahweh has built up Zion" (Ps. 102:16). He had not then done so (:13); the earlier part of the Psalm laments this. But the Psalmist believed in God's prophecies of doing so, and considered them as good as already fulfilled. Faith is all about adopting God's perspective, seeing future promises as if they have already been fulfilled, thereby enabling us to live the Kingdom life now in its essence.


day_number: 26/02
text:
Israel in slavery in Egypt represent us in the world, before baptism. When Israel went through the Red Sea, they had water on both sides of them and a cloud (also water) above them. In this sense they were surrounded with water- and so Paul saw it as a symbol of baptism. They came through the Red Sea and had to walk through the wilderness (our life in this world after baptism), feeding daily on manna (God's word, Jesus), until they came to the promised land (the Kingdom of God on earth when Jesus returns). Israel failed in the wilderness, they wanted to return to Egypt, and we must learn from their example.


day_number: 27/02
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
They were not to keep some animals specially for sacrifice; they were to take the sacrificial animals out of the herd (Lev. 1:2). We are to be living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1), not reserving just part of our lives for God. The Lord Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, and He was taken out of the common herd of humanity, not preserved specially for His work.


day_number: 27/02
text:
The Hebrew translated "benefits" is also translated "praise" (Ps. 103:2). The things God gives us are therefore imperatives in themselves to praise Him. Giving thanks before meals is a wonderful habit to get into. As we receive His gifts, or more to the point, perceive the receipt of them, the heart breaks forth into a deep thankfulness. This is the true praise.


day_number: 27/02
text:
Those rejected at the day of judgment will simply be sent back into the world to share the world's judgment (:32). If in this life we prefer to be with the world rather than with Jesus and His people, then we will be sent back into the world we loved when He returns.


day_number: 28/02
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Sins of ignorance still needed to be atoned for. Sin is a felt offence against God, whether or not we were aware of it at the time. If we accidentally step on someone's foot and they don't tell us about it until tomorrow, it doesn't mean that we didn't hurt them at the time. The sins we committed before baptism, in ignorance, were still felt by God and need atonement- which is available freely through being "in Christ". David asked to be forgiven for the sins he committed which he didn't know about (Ps. 19:12 cp. Ps. 90:8). We should pray the same. But this means we are asking for forgiveness for sin which we haven't specifically repented of. We should likewise forgive others for their sins which although we so clearly feel them, they themselves don't realize they have committed them. We can, if we wish, insist that we shall only forgive those who repent to us of their sins. But the problem with that approach is that as we forgive others, the basis we choose upon which to relate to them, so we will be forgiven (Mt. 6:12). If we trust we are forgiven for sins we aren't conscious of, even though they are very clear to God and felt by Him, then we ought to forgive others for their sins even when they don't perceive (at this point in their spiritual journey) that they have sinned.


day_number: 28/02
text:
"You make darkness" (Ps. 104:20). The rising and setting of the sun is a conscious expenditure of energy by God, rather than happening by some clockwork mechanism which God set up and then withdrew from. He consciously makes the grass grow (:14), and consciously feeds the animals (:28). Likewise the water cycle is not mere clockwork, unstoppable natural law; the rivers are sent forth consciously by God as they bubble over the rocks (:10). This view of creation means that it's easier to believe that the God who consciously does these things every moment can intervene in them at any time in any way; we aren't the helpless victims of a nature which has a life and will of her own.


day_number: 28/02
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
Love "Rejoices not in unrighteousness" (1 Cor. 13:6). Much 'entertainment' invites us to do just this; to enjoy viewing and hearing unrighteous things and take pleasure from them, although we are not literally doing those things. We are not to rejoice in sinful things but to focus our minds upon spiritual things.


day_number: 01/03
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
When Jesus presented Himself as the sin offering and invited His people to eat the symbol of it in the breaking of bread meeting, He was inviting us to see ourselves as a new priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5,9), no longer assuming some group of specialists would look after the spiritual concerns of others, but everyone, male and female, taking responsibility. This was a radical, difficult idea to accept for 1st century Jewish Christians, and it is hard for us today too, accustomed as we are to assigning responsibility to others rather than taking it ourselves.


day_number: 01/03
text:
God has arranged our lives according to a pattern; we have specific times in our lives for various situations (Ps. 105:19). Looking back at the Biblical record of Joseph and Moses, whose life was divided clearly into three periods of 40 years, we see this clearly; but it's of course harder to discern in our own lives as we are still living through it. But God is in control and has a plan for us, desiring only our eternal good in our latter end.


day_number: 01/03
text:
To speak in a foreign language for the sake of it, just to show off, wouldn't help anyone; they'd need someone with the gift of translating to translate back to their own language. The essence of what Paul is saying in this chapter is: 'Don't show off. Use whatever gifts you've been given to practically upbuild others, rather than abusing them to exalt yourself, to show off before others, to appear different and cool in the eyes of men'.


day_number: 02/03
text:
The blood represented the life (Lev. 17:11). The lesson was that life- both our own and that of others- is God's, and we shouldn't assume that we are our own masters. It is not for us to do what we wish with life- it is God's. Paradoxically, the person who thought they could eat blood, who thought that life was theirs, would lose their life. The only way to live eternally is to give our life back to God who gave it to us. In baptism, we die with Christ, giving our lives to God as He did, but this must be an ongoing principle in our daily living, as we live not to ourselves but to Him (2 Cor. 5:15; 1 Pet. 4:2).


day_number: 02/03
text:
David spoke in Ps. 106:5 of his desire to "see the prosperity of Your chosen". The Psalmist's desire for salvation wasn't merely because he or she wanted to live eternally. There was a desire to see all God's people glorying in salvation. Salvation is made possible in that God's people as a whole have been redeemed; there is such a thing as spiritual selfishness, desiring the Kingdom merely for what it means to us. But if we have the perspective of God's glory, we will desire the coming of salvation because all of us will be glorified. Hence Paul could say that the joy he would have in the Kingdom would be related to his joy that his brethren were also there (1 Thess. 2:19).


day_number: 02/03
text:
We will be given a new body at the resurrection- we will live eternally in a bodily form. All existence in the Bible is bodily existence. But there will be a connection between who we are now, and who we will eternally be- when we die, our character is like a seed which is sown, to rise again in resurrection. The personality and character we develop in this life are therefore of huge and eternal importance.


day_number: 03/03
text:
The careful obedience of Moses is emphasized (Lev. 8:9); by it he became a type of Christ who was totally obedient to God (Heb. 3:2,5). The early chapters of Exodus present Moses as not always obedient, often arguing back with God and trying to find ways around God's commandments to him. In this we see his spiritual growth. This growing acceptance of God's authority and eagerness to obey rather than find ways around His commandments should be a feature of our spiritual growth too.


day_number: 03/03
text:
They "Condemned the counsel of the Most High" (Ps. 107:11). This is one of a number of Biblical verses which suggest that we as it were stand in judgment upon God when we encounter His word. He overcomes every claim that His word is untrue and that therefore He is to be condemned (Rom. 3:4). That we mere humans should judge God the judge of all is an arresting concept; but this is what we are in effect doing when we consider His claims, His promises of saving us which are throughout His word.


day_number: 03/03
text:
It's possible to serve God without doing it in love (:14)- as Paul warns against in chapter 13. It's very important to do all we do consciously motivated by love; not because we 'have to', not for appearances, nor from habit and tradition.


day_number: 04/03
chapter_number_to: 10
text:
When the offerings are spoken of together, they are usually in the order of Lev. 9:22- sin offering, then burnt offering and then peace offering. Firstly we must deal with our sin; then dedicate ourselves to God, as spoken of in the burnt offering. Only then can we have peace with God and fellowship freely with Him, as exemplified in the peace offering.


day_number: 04/03
chapter_number_to: 109
text:
Ps. 109:8 is quoted about Judas in Acts 1:20. The disciples saw the similarities with Judas and then decided to concretely take action according to those similarities- they proactively decided to find someone to take his place as this verse requires. We need to use the Bible in this same way- see the similarities between our situations and Biblical precedents, and then act on them accordingly.


day_number: 04/03
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
One reason for our sufferings is so that the comfort we are given for them we may share with others who are suffering the same. But this will only be possible if we are meaningfully in relationship with others; and suffering has a way of making us self-centred. Paul understood this principle so well that he could write that his sufferings were so that he could comfort the Corinthians (2 Cor. 1:4,6).


day_number: 05/03
text:
The birds of Lev. 11:13-16 all hunt and eat other unclean animals, and many of them were totems of the idols believed in by the nations. Again the idea was to teach God's people the need to keep away from association with things which resembled sin, which would put ideas in the mind which tended towards sin rather than righteousness. This principle is so relevant today in connection with what we watch or read, for by presenting ourselves continually with sinful associations we are the more likely to ourselves fall into sin.


day_number: 05/03
chapter_number_to: 112
text:
We learn from Ps. 111:5 God is thinking about the covenant made with us all the time! And yet how often in daily life do we reflect upon the fact that we really are in covenant relationship with God... how often do we recollect the part we share in the promises to Abraham, how frequently do we feel that we really are in a personal covenant with God Almighty?


day_number: 05/03
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
When Moses spoke with the Angel, the glory on the Angel's face became reflected onto Moses' face, and he radiated it to others (2 Cor. 3:18). If we are in a personal relationship with Jesus, His glory, His personality, will be reflected from our faces to others; and moreover, we will become like Him. His face will become ours. This is why we should regularly read the Gospels and meditate upon Jesus as a person; simply knowing Him will transform us.


day_number: 06/03
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
Leprosy is symbolic of sin. But a person can appear to have leprosy when in fact it's only a surface level appearance of it; but only the priest, representing Jesus, can declare this. We must of course be careful not to excuse our failings as merely surface level sin; but when it comes to judging others, we must accept that someone can appear sinful to us but it's only a surface appearance; we must not ultimately judge whether a person will be saved or not, quite simply because we cannot do so. Only the priest, the Lord Jesus, can do so.


day_number: 06/03
chapter_number_to: 114
text:
Ps. 113:6,7 speaks of how the God who humbles Himself to behold the things in Heaven and earth, is the same God who "raises up the poor out of the dust". His grace at a cosmic level is reflected in the way that on earth He choses to work with the poor rather than the mighty. As we reflect on the 'Wow!' factor in God's calling of us, we need to learn this deeply- that we are the nobodies whom God has called and chosen. That Yahweh has the feature of humility was something totally and radically different to all conceptions of deities amongst the nations; their gods claimed to be proud and invincible, with none of the sensitivity to the lowly which is a part of humility.


day_number: 06/03
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
We are to come out from this world, and yet be a light to the world (2 Cor. 6:17). Our separation from them is therefore from their sinful behaviour. The command to separate is positive- we are to be separated from the world so that we can be separated unto God Himself; this is the meaning of the Hebrew idea of 'holiness'.


day_number: 07/03
text:
The leper was to continually live under the impression of the fact he or she had been healed and cleansed, just as we should. The fact the blood of Christ was shed for us personally should affect how we hear (hence the blood was put on the ear), what we do with our hands (the right thumb) and where we go with our feet (the right big toe). The process was repeated with oil (Lev. 14:16), perhaps foreshadowing the sanctifying work of the Spirit in the lives of those in Christ.


day_number: 07/03
chapter_number_to: 116
text:
"Those who make [idols] will be like them" (Ps. 115:8). We become like what we worship. The Gentile idols are often described in the Bible as "vanities"; we may not worship literal idols but we can easily give our hearts over to obsession with the many vain things which crowd this world and the internet. If we do so, we will become as lost and lacking in direction as they are.


day_number: 07/03
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
If we truly desire to be generous, then God will give us what is required to be generous with- He will give us yet more seed to sow, so that the harvest from it (both in terms of praise to Him from the recipients and of glory we will receive in the Kingdom) will be greater (2 Cor. 9:8-12). Jesus taught the same in Lk. 11:5-7- we will be given whatever we ask, if we ask for it in order to give to others that which they truly need but we truly don't have.


day_number: 08/03
text:
Like many of the commandments, there was a large element of personal choice in whether to obey commands like that of Lev. 15:16; intimate matters such as personal discharges were unknown to others. Under the new covenant, this is even more the case; attitudes of mind which make us unclean before God are known only to ourselves. The Law of Moses was the only legal code which had so many clauses which concerned matters which could never be publically demonstrated. God's intention even under the old covenant was to teach and inculcate personal relationship between God and His people. He did this by giving commandments whose keeping only He and the individual knew about.


day_number: 08/03
chapter_number_to: 118
text:
'Hosanna' is the Greek word for 'Save now!' (Ps. 118:25). This and :26 "Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh!" were quoted by the crowds in Mt. 21:9. They perceived Jesus as Messiah in the terms of this Psalm, but that same crowd were screaming "Crucify Him!" just days later. This is how fickle our nature is.


day_number: 08/03
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
We tend to spiritually compare ourselves against other people and conclude that we're not bad. But the standard of comparison must be with Jesus. He was of our nature, our representative, so that we can realistically do this (2 Cor. 10:12).


day_number: 09/03
text:
The two goats represent the death and resurrection of Christ. The scapegoat bounding away in relieved, joyful freedom symbolizes the genuine freedom and joy of forgiven sin which we can experience in Christ. It's clear that human beings are eager for a scapegoat, we seem wired with a psychological need for one, someone upon whom we can place our sins and thereby feel free from them personally. The scapegoat has been provided for us in Christ, and therefore we shouldn't seek to scapegoat others.


day_number: 09/03
text:
Psalm 119 often contrasts material wealth with the love of God's law (:36, 72, 127). So many sell their souls to employers, taking demanding jobs or second jobs so as to get more money than they need. And inevitably they have little time or mental energy for the things of God's word. Others lament their lack of wealth; but the simple truth is that the true riches are those of God's word.


day_number: 09/03
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
There are things we too repeatedly ask God for, convinced that our service of Him will be enhanced if He hears our prayer (2 Cor. 12:9). But the answer is the same for us as it was for Paul- the fact we have His grace and acceptance should mean that we ultimately lack nothing (Ps. 23:1; 34:10). The other part of the answer is that God loves to work through the broken, the small, those who think they aren't good enough or smart enough.


day_number: 10/03
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
Blood represents life; to take life to ourselves rather than recognize it is God's results in us losing our lives (Lev. 17:14). Just as simply as the blood was to be given to God, so we are to give our lives to God. To take the blood to themselves is in fact spoken of as being as bad as murder (Lev. 17:4). This seems extreme language, but it underlines how important to God is this principle- that life is His and we are to give it to Him rather than live or take it to ourselves.


day_number: 10/03
text:
David didn't groan at the number of God's commandments, struggling with a steel will to obey some of them; he so loved God that he asked God to show him more and more of those commandments (Ps. 119:48). Often the verses of this Psalm imply that David sought to know more of God's requirements because they are designed to help us be more obedient to all of them in toto.


day_number: 10/03
text:
Zacharias had prayed so long for a child that maybe it became a formality and he couldn't believe the answer had come. Our prayers may be heard and answered, but it may take years for the answer to be delivered. And all that time we think God's not answered. Daniel had a similar experience in Daniel 10.


day_number: 11/03
text:
The command not to steal in Lev. 19:11 is associated with not deceiving others nor lying to them. Dishonesty, even if it's unrelated to material gain at another's expense, is a form of theft; we are taking from another wrongfully.


day_number: 11/03
text:
The whole purpose of our lives, and of our eternal living in God's Kingdom, is to be obedient to God's word (Ps. 119:88). We should have that spirit in our lives now, therefore.


day_number: 11/03
text:
When the spear pierced the side of Jesus, the heart of Mary was pierced too as she watched. Our reaction to the cross is that the thoughts of our hearts are revealed (:35). Hence the breaking of bread service, when we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, is a time for self-examination because quite naturally the thoughts of our hearts are revealed as we stand before the cross (1 Cor. 11:28).


day_number: 12/03
text:
Lev. 20:26: "You shall be holy to me; for I, Yahweh, am holy". Peter quotes these words to his Jewish converts (1 Pet. 1:15,16): "But like He who called you is holy, be you yourselves holy in all manner of living. Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy". Orthodox Jews such as they once were would have been obsessed with holiness in the sense of ritual separation. But this was to be extended to "all manner of living". By being holy / separate over a few things, they were tempted to think that vast areas of life in other areas could be lived as they wished. This was and is the problem with legalistic obedience. Hence the focus on all manner of living.


day_number: 12/03
text:
In God's word we see His judgments- how He judges and will judge. And in the wealth of Bible history we see examples of how these judgments have been articulated with men in practice. The final day of judgement shouldn't therefore be a worrying mystery to us; we know how God will judge, for we have in the Bible His word, His judgments.


day_number: 12/03
text:
Lk. 3:8 "To say within yourselves". The Bible focuses upon and addresses our internal and very private thought processes. Verse 15 also talks about how people reasoned within themselves. This is the essence of Christianity- to change our spirit, the way we think deep within. The real 'Satan' or adversary is our own innermost mind, and not any external cosmic being.


day_number: 13/03
text:
The mourner was not to "make any cuttings in their flesh" (Lev. 21:5). This refers to such marks as showed loyalty to an idol or to the dead who were thought to be still alive. Whereas the Bible teaches that death is unconsciousness. Whilst there is nothing morally wrong with cutting the skin, the idea was that Israel weren't to even appear associated with pagan rituals for the dead. We likewise should naturally not want to even appear like worshippers of any other god (of whatever kind) when Yahweh is our only God.


day_number: 13/03
chapter_number_to: 124
text:
Belief in God as creator (rather than in atheistic evolution) inspires our faith in His ability to likewise creatively deliver us from the crises of our lives (Ps. 121:2).


day_number: 13/03
text:
Jesus answers the three temptations with three quotations from Deuteronomy. Those quotations are close to each other- twice from Deuteronomy 6 and once from Deuteronomy 8. These passages were in the context of Israel being 40 years in the wilderness, tested by God and tempted to be disobedient to Him. Jesus perceived the similarities with Himself- 40 days in the wilderness, tested by God and tempted, led by "the Spirit" (v. 1) as Israel were led by an Angel. We too should look for the similarities between our positions and those of others we read about in the Bible. The more we are familiar with the Bible text, the more easily in times of crisis will we find strength and find warning and encouragement directly for us. This is why we should persevere in Bible reading even if at the time we don't understand or feel any immediate benefit. Slowly, God's word becomes a living word, speaking directly to us.


day_number: 14/03
text:
Animals weren't to be castrated (Lev. 22:24). We see in this not only a reflection of the huge value God places upon life in general, but also His sensitivity to animals. Lev. 22:27, 28 may reflect the same. Animals are usually castrated if they have defects so that they don't produce more deformed animals. But if Israel were obedient to the covenant, their animals would be healthy and not deformed, so obedience to this command would have been easier. If we follow the Spirit, then we are led into an upward spiral of spiritual life and an atmosphere whereby obedience leads to obedience.


day_number: 14/03
chapter_number_to: 127
text:
Ps. 125:3 is amazing encouragement, echoed in 1 Cor. 10:13, that we will never be tested so hard that our sinning is inevitable. In the heat of temptation we persuade ourselves that our situations are too hard for us to endure and that we have no option given our humanity but to sin. But God here promises that He will never allow circumstances to be too great for our spiritual strength; we are left with no option but to accept full, total responsibility for our sins, with nobody and nothing to blame them on apart from ourselves.


day_number: 14/03
text:
Fishermen don't like being told by carpenters what to do (:5); they 'know it all' about their trade. So Peter had to humble himself to obey Christ's word just as we do; it goes against the grain of our natural instincts.


day_number: 15/03
text:
The repeated use of the word "besides" in Lev. 23:38 emphasized that times of special commitment to God shouldn't lead us to forget the regular sacrifices and devotions which we are to make. An example of this would be that if one spends some days away at a church gathering, we are not to forget our own personal quiet time with God, prayer and Bible reading.


day_number: 15/03
chapter_number_to: 130
text:
God doesn't keep a record or legal list of sins in the sense that He doesn't hold them against us (Ps. 130:3); it's not that He as it were erases those parts of His 'memory', for His word is full of the memory of human sin which He has forgiven. The LXX is applied to each of us in 1 Cor. 13:5- we too are not to keep a record of others' wrongs against us. God's forgiveness of us is to be the template for our forgiveness of others. It's not possible to forget them, in the sense that we have no power over our brain's mechanism of forgetting; but we can forgive them in the sense that we do not count them any longer against the person.


day_number: 15/03
text:
The Lord's teaching in Lk. 6:20-22 is radical. It's paradoxical that Christians want to be happy, wealthy, popular and well fed. We may take a second job or a very demanding one which leaves us no time or energy for Divine things- just because we want to 'buy' those very things which we are blessed if we don't have. This is a huge inversion of values.


day_number: 16/03
text:
The whole congregation of Israel were to bring a small amount of oil and flour for the bread each week. The constantly burning oil and presence of the small loaves was a symbol of how Israel were continually before Him. Yet the amount of oil and flour required each week was miniscule in comparison to the size of all Israel- there were probably three million of them at the time this law was given (Ex. 12:37). But God is the God of small things. In the very small things we offer Him, we are remembered before Him. Israel were taught that this tiny offering of oil and flour each week was so highly significant; offering even very small things shouldn't be seen by us as unnecessary or insignificant before God. The way Jesus noticed the widow offering two tiny coins and commented upon it is proof of this (Lk. 21:2).


day_number: 16/03
chapter_number_to: 134
text:
The blessing of Yahweh coming out of Zion was what was possible in the restored Kingdom of God (Ps. 134:3); it would be associated with Yahweh Himself dwelling in Zion (Ps. 134:3; 135:21). This would be the time when the temple vision of Ez. 40-48 was obeyed by the exiles, and the city called Yahweh Shammah, "Yahweh is there". But at the time of the exiles' return, it was precluded by their impenitence and refusal to build the temple and city according to the commands of Ez. 40-48, and the fact the majority refused to participate in the program and remained in Persia / Babylon. So much potentials are set up in human lives which are wasted.


day_number: 16/03
text:
Lk. 7:19 could imply a collapse of faith in John. He doubted whether his cousin Jesus really was Messiah as he had earlier taught; because Jesus wasn't acting as he had expected Messiah to act. God and Jesus are not to be defined by our expectations of them; but we are to accept them for who they present themselves to be in reality. Hence Jesus sent a message back to John warning him that blessed is that man who doesn't stumble over Jesus (v. 23). The Bible records the failings of great men of faith. There are no white faced saints. Although John was weak at this point, Jesus goes on to speak very positively of him in v. 28. We should also be positive about each other despite being aware of each others' weaknesses.


day_number: 17/03
text:
The principles of the Jubilee taught that all persons and land belong to God; we are only temporarily using them, and nothing ultimately belongs to us personally; all is God's. This helps us cope better with 'loss' of possessions, and should keep us from the manic materialism which has been bred by capitalism, whereby all seek personal ownership of land and resources.


day_number: 17/03
chapter_number_to: 136
text:
Ps. 135:19,20 parallels all Israel with the priestly family. As it was God's intention that Israel were to develop into an entire nation of priests to the rest of the world, so the new Israel likewise are to all discharge the priestly functions of teaching their brethren (Ex. 19:6 cp. 1 Pet. 2:5; Rev. 1:6; 5:9,10). Under the new covenant, we should all teach and admonish one another (Col. 3:16), rather than just leave it to specialists.


day_number: 17/03
text:
Jesus attracted a group of poor men and wealthy women (:3). He calls very different people into contact with Him and therefore each other, making the true church of Jesus an example of extraordinary unity; it's not composed of just one psychological type, one social class, colour, race or gender. It's a wonderful mixture. It's the very opposite of a social club, which attracts the same types together.


day_number: 18/03
text:
It seems that the curses mentioned in this chapter aren't just a general list, but there is an intended chronological sequence. God had planned from the start that if Israel were disobedient, then He would bring various judgments, in order to help them be obedient; and if they failed, He would bring more, again with the intention that they responded to them. The curses for disobedience weren't therefore merely an offended deity lashing out at a people who had irritated Him; God has purpose and positive spiritual intention even in the judgments He brings into peoples' lives. He is constantly seeking our return to Him, just as the shepherd searched for the lost sheep until He found it (Lk. 15:4).


day_number: 18/03
chapter_number_to: 139
text:
Ps. 138:8 speaks of "That which concerns me". God has a specific plan for each of us, in the same way as He has given each of us specific talents (Mt. 25:15) and has specified "good works" for us to achieve in our lives (Eph. 2:10). On His part, God will likewise fulfil what He has planned uniquely and individually for each of us- in accordance with our response to the possibilities He has potentially enabled.


day_number: 18/03
text:
We also at times 'come down from the mountain' of intense spiritual experience to face the crowds of this world, lack of faith, human need and argument (:37). We may have a wonderful Sunday service, but have to return into the world on Monday or Sunday evening. In those moments, remember Jesus went through the same. He understands.


day_number: 19/03
text:
This chapter is as it were an appendix to the Law because it concerns vows which were freewill decisions to give something to God and weren't part of the legal demands which God made upon His people in the previous chapters. It's good for us to at times make a special commitment to God from a joyful heart. The values attached to people in the next verses seem to speak of the price that should be paid if a person wished to cancel the dedication of themselves or even of others which they had made.


day_number: 19/03
chapter_number_to: 142
text:
In Ps. 141:2, prayer is likened to carefully prepared sacrifice, to painstakingly composed incense, beaten small, mixed in just the right proportions. The penalty for not making the incense properly was death. The lesson is that forethought will precede real prayer; it is an offering to God.


day_number: 19/03
text:
The Samaritan was symbolic of Jesus and His saving work for sinners, which the representatives of the Jewish law did not do. But He asks us to not only benefit from His work, but go out into the world and do the same, taking risks and sacrificing our own safety to do so. The Jews claimed Jesus was a Samaritan- a mixed race of people whom 'pure' Jews despised (Jn. 8:48).


day_number: 20/03
text:
We are a new priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5). The spirit of the Levites should be ours. As they encamped around the tabernacle, having it as the centre of their lives, so the things of God's ecclesia, His church, should be central to our lives and have far more importance to us than our careers and associations in this world.


day_number: 20/03
chapter_number_to: 144
text:
David must have shocked many by singing of how our sons shall be as plants and our daughters as corner stones (Ps. 144:12). For the corner stones of a family were perceived to be the male head of the family. The Biblical view of women always sharply contrasted with that of the surrounding world at the time; such is God's valuing of each of His children regardless of their gender or perception within society.


day_number: 20/03
text:
At the day of judgment, we will be judged in full view of others (:32). The Ninevites will watch the judgment process of the first century Jews. We therefore shouldn't be hypocritical in front of others now, because in the end they will see us revealed at judgment day for who we really are.


day_number: 21/03
text:
The standards of the tribes were a pole with a symbol upon it. Israel marched through the wilderness towards the promised land, as we walk through the wilderness of life towards the Kingdom, carrying and walking behind poles- foreshadowing the cross or stake of Christ, which we are asked to daily pick up and walk behind. Is. 11:10-12 speaks of the cross of Christ as a standard lifted up, to which the believing Gentiles come and camp around- as if they take their place in the Israel of God.


day_number: 21/03
chapter_number_to: 147
text:
David was king of Israel, but that meant little to him compared to the greatness of God's sovereign Kingship (Ps. 145:1). It may be that we are exalted a little bit in life, in career, social standing or even respect amongst God's people. An awareness of God's greatness will keep this in perspective for us; we will see it as nothing compared to God's exaltation and our subsequent smallness.


day_number: 21/03
text:
Hypocrisy is like leaven (yeast). Once one person starts being hypocritical, others tend to be; it spreads easily and has a huge effect, just as leaven does on bread. Jesus taught "first of all", most importantly, to beware of hypocrisy. We need to ask ourselves daily whether we are being hypocritical; because it's so important not to be. All will be revealed anyway (:1-3)- at the day of judgment.


day_number: 22/03
text:
Those who had been spared from death by the blood of the lamb on Passover night weren't just free to do as they wished with their saved lives, but were to be devoted to God (Num. 3:13). We are those who have likewise been spared from eternal death by Christ's blood, and we are therefore not to see ourselves as having merely escaped eternal death but must go further to perceive ourselves as thereby dedicated to God's service. Hence the Christian community is called "the church of the firstborn" (Heb. 12:23)- we are all as it were the firstborn who were saved by grace on Passover night, because we are in Christ, the firstborn (Col. 1:18).


day_number: 22/03
chapter_number_to: 150
text:
In Ps. 148:14 "saints" refers to all God's people, not just a few very righteous people. We are literally 'special ones' to God, in a world that doesn't consider us at all special.


day_number: 22/03
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
The "man" who owned the vineyard [Israel] is God; the "vinedresser" is Jesus. The three years are the three years of Christ's ministry. Jesus knew God so well that He asked Him to delay His plan to destroy Israel, to give them yet more opportunity to give spiritual fruit (Lk. 13:8). Moses and other Bible characters showed us that we can reason with God, and in some cases He is prepared to change His stated intentions. Prayer is so powerful! Earlier, Israel were the vine and the Lord Jesus the vinedresser. But now we are the vine, and God Himself the vinedresser (Jn. 15:1). We are in good hands; and the Father and Son who through Biblical history showed themselves so sensitive to spiritual fruit are the very same ones who will meet us in the last day.


day_number: 23/03
text:
Kohath wasn't the firstborn nor the senior born amongst the three sons listed here, but the Kohathites are numbered first and had the greatest responsibility (Num. 4:1). Again we see how God prefers to work not with the humanly best, strongest or most senior.


day_number: 23/03
text:
Prov. 1:28 foresees that "Then will they call on me, but I will not answer". In the day of judgment, everybody will desperately want to be in God's Kingdom, to live eternally in the way of wisdom. The rejected will urgently seek acceptance, but it will be too late (Mt. 25:11; Lk. 13:25).


day_number: 23/03
text:
Her dowry was all that a woman possessed; even her body wasn't hers. To lose a dowry coin was therefore to lose part of herself; this is how hard God takes when He loses one of His people. She searched "until she finds it"- God, and we too, should search for the lost with the attitude that we will search until we find them. We certainly should not exclude any of God's people from His house; we should search passionately for any who leave.


day_number: 24/03
text:
There were various possibilities for how a man should respond in the situation of Num. 5:12. He could have his wife stoned; divorce her; put her through this 'trial of jealousy'; or simply forgive her. We too have a range of options open to us when wrong is done to us or when we suspect it has been. The very existence of these options encourages us to think through our responses, and surely inspires us to choose the way of grace over the way of personal revenge or justification.


day_number: 24/03
text:
Solomon was inspired to write the Proverbs in his youth, and yet he did the very things he warns others against. In Prov. 2:16,17 he teaches that wisdom would save a man from the Gentile woman who made a covenant with the God of Israel in her youth (in order to marry an Israelite, by implication), but soon forgot it. This was exactly the case of Solomon, who married Gentile women in his youth; yet he just couldn’t see the personal relevance of his own wisdom to himself. The more spiritual knowledge we have, the more prone we are to make this same mistake.


day_number: 24/03
text:
How we handle wealth [whether we have to manage much or little of it] is proportionate to how we will eternally be in God's Kingdom (:11).


day_number: 25/03
text:
Any Israelite could vow him or herself to special service to God; we too shouldn't see our service to God in terms of doing the minimum. Realizing the wonder of His grace and the certainty of our eternal life in His Kingdom, we should be moved to special devotions. In this vow, the ordinary Israelite willingly submitted to some of the regulations specific to the priests on duty. The growing of long hair could be seen as an imitation of the High Priest's mitre. They were not to see the priesthood as something reserved just for specialists, those born into it; nor were they to see the High Priest as so distant from themselves that he could never be imitated, in spirit at least. We likewise can take to ourselves some aspects of the personal work of the Lord Jesus; for all that is true of Him becomes true of us who are baptized into Him. As He was the light of the world, so are we to be.


day_number: 25/03
text:
Prov. 3:34 "He gives grace to the humble" is quoted in James 4:5,6 in an appeal to us not to be envious but rather to be humble. The truly humble aren't envious; God's gift of grace to them in Christ is so wonderful that we have quite enough to personally glory in, and there will be no envy of others.


day_number: 25/03
text:
Causing others to stumble is the very worst kind of sin (:2). We should therefore think carefully how our words and actions are going to impact others; and be careful that we set the right example to others. The punishment of a millstone being hung around the neck and cast into the sea is that of Babylon's punishment at the last day (Rev. 18:21). Those within the church who make others stumble, e.g. by unreasonable demands upon them or excluding them, are no better than Babylon, the great enemy of God. How we treat others is very, very important.


day_number: 26/03
text:
We learn from Num. 7:89 that the blood of atonement, pointing forward to the blood of Christ, was permanently on the mercy seat, i.e. the cover of the ark of the covenant, with the Angel-like cherubim peering down onto it. There in that most Holy of places, God spoke. The fact that the voice of God was associated with the blood which represented the blood of His Son is alluded to in Heb. 12:24-26, which likens the blood of Christ to a voice more powerful than the sound which accompanied the shaking of Sinai. God's word becomes powerful to us over the blood of Christ in that beholding Him there, we cannot walk away passively. We are spurred to action. Yet as we behold His blood in our mind's eye, in our reconstruction of how it all maybe happened on Golgotha, we face an insistent question: What can I do, what must I do, in response to this? That question is answered in God's word, and it is in this sense that His word becomes of especial power to us over the blood of Christ. In this sense He is that word made flesh, supremely in His time of dying.


day_number: 26/03
text:
In Prov. 4:23 The heart is used in the Bible as a metaphor for the mind. To be spiritually minded is the essence of Christianity. How we think now will affect our eternal future.


day_number: 26/03
text:
"Shall He find faith on the earth?" (:8). It's an open question. The context speaks of how God answers prayer. The fact He does this should inspire faith. But will there be such faith in the earth [maybe "land", of Israel] on the eve of Christ's return?


day_number: 27/03
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
The spiritual and physical wellbeing of others can depend upon third parties, in this case the faithfulness of the Levites (Num. 8:19). Others can suffer because of our lack of diligence; it's not that if we don't do our part for them, then God will raise up others to do what we ought to have done. He may do this, as He was prepared to at the time of Esther, but He wishes us to see the eternal consequence of our actions upon others.


day_number: 27/03
text:
Sexual unfaithfulness is precluded by the fact that God sees and knows all things (Prov. 5:21); Job likewise answered a false accusation of marital infidelity by saying that this wasn't possible for him, because he lived in the constant presence of the God who sees all things (Job 31:1-4).


day_number: 27/03
text:
There is an element of unreality in the parable of the pounds: wise use of a few coins results in power over several cities (:17). We are left to imagine the men marvelling in disbelief at the reward given to them. They expected at most just a few pounds to be given to them. And in their response we see a picture of the almost disbelief of the faithful at their rewards.


day_number: 28/03
text:
In Num. 10:31 Moses asks for his father in law to "be to us instead of eyes". This may have been a moment of weakness in Moses, for the Angel went before Israel to find them camping places (:33), and the Angels are God's eyes (2 Chron. 16:9; Rev. 4:6-8). Like Moses, we tend to seek for human guidance in our wilderness journey, rather than trusting in God's Angelic Spirit guidance of us.


day_number: 28/03
text:
We can learn from meditating upon the natural creation. Human beings tend to work best when overseen by a human leader; but in spiritual life, we are to work for God from self motivation, regardless of whether or not we have good leadership within the family of God (Prov. 6:7).


day_number: 28/03
text:
God sent His Son to Israel, hoping they would reverence Him (:13). But Isaiah 53 had prophesied that when Israel saw Him, they would see no beauty in Him and crucify Him. Yet God restrained that knowledge, in His love and positive hope for His people. God in a sense comes down to our level, rather like you crouch down to speak with a child at their level, and seek to enter into their limitations of perception, their language and outlook. Truly man is not alone. God is with us.


day_number: 29/03
text:
Num. 11:1 speaks of "Those in the outskirts of the camp" rebelling. The implication could be that it was those who camped furthest away from the tabernacle who complained. An encampment of three million people would've been large, and for them to walk to the tabernacle would've been quite a journey. If we are wholeheartedly devoted to God, we won't want to be on the edge of God's people, just peripherally associated with the things of God.


day_number: 29/03
text:
The justification of any sin, but especially sexual sin, is that we have had hard lives and deserve some break, some solace, some human comfort (Prov. 7:18).


day_number: 29/03
text:
Lk. 21:36 defines watching as praying always, concentrating our faith upon the fact that ultimately we will stand acceptably before the Lord Jesus at the day of judgment, and by His grace be saved from the great judgments which will surely come upon this world. The ideas of watching and praying often occur together (Mk. 14:38; Mt. 26:41; Eph. 6:18; 1 Pet. 4:7). Prayer for our forgiveness, for acceptance by our Lord, must therefore characterize our watching in these last days.


day_number: 30/03
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
In Num. 13:28 the spies complained "The people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified". Rahab informed the later spies that the cities were fortified from fear of Israel, and the Canaanites were weak and fearful before Israel at this time (Josh. 2:10,11). Those obstacles to our inheritance of the Kingdom which seem to us huge and too strong for us may actually be very weak and far easier to overcome than we imagine.


day_number: 30/03
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
Prov. 9:7-9 is the advice of wisdom to her young women who preach her message (:3). We begin the whole enterprise of sharing wisdom with the recognition that we are likely to be rejected and abused by some who hear our message. Wisdom is calling to everyone, it's not that she advises her preachers to ignore people they consider wicked. But she warns her representatives ahead of time that they can expect rejection and hurt as a result of their work.


day_number: 30/03
text:
This condition of sweating drops (:44) indicates Jesus was at the limits of nervous endurance. He prayed to God at this time "with strong crying and tears" (Heb. 5:7). But even now, Jesus intercedes for us in Heaven, praying to God with intense groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). If He is so intensely praying for and with us, and offers our prayers to God with this intensity; then our prayers should also be intense and focused. Be careful not to rattle off the same old phrases in your prayers; put meaning into words; don't let your mind wander in prayer; pray out loud if necessary; and beware of only praying at night, warm in bed and drifting into sleep.


day_number: 31/03
text:
In Num. 14:11 God laments: "How long will they not believe in Me?". It's not that the people were atheists. They speak about the existence of Yahweh quite freely (:3). But to not believe that He will give us the Kingdom, the promised land, is to effectively be in denial of Him. We too can be effective atheists when we doubt our salvation by grace.


day_number: 31/03
text:
Note the frequent parallel in Proverbs between the tongue and the heart (Prov. 10:20). Our words reflect how we think; we can't think badly and never reflect it in our speech. Jesus understood, maybe from studying Proverbs, that our mouth speaks in reflection of our heart (Lk. 6:45).


day_number: 31/03
text:
Do we feel that our conscience is so dysfunctional and our heart so hardened in some places that nothing much can touch us and motivate us like it used to? The cross can touch and transform the hardest and most damaged heart. Apart from many real life examples around of this, consider the Biblical case of Pilate. Jewish and Roman historians paint a very different picture of Pilate than what we see in the Biblical record. Philo describes him as "ruthless, stubborn and of cruel disposition", famed for "frequent executions without trial". Why then does he come over in the Gospels as a man desperately struggling with his conscience, to the extent that the Jewish crowds manipulate him to order the crucifixion of a man whom he genuinely believed to be innocent? Surely because the person of the Lord Jesus and the awfulness of putting the Son of God to death touched a conscience which appeared not to even exist. If the whole drama of the death of Jesus could touch the conscience and personality of even Pilate, it can touch each of us.


day_number: 01/04
text:
Num. 15:24 shows that sins of ignorance still required atonement. The passage of time doesn't work a quasi-atonement for our sins; confession of sin and earnest searching of our lives, both past and present, is one of the disciplines which characterize the spiritually healthy believer. It's likely we will come to the day of judgment with sins of ignorance still counted to us, and yet we believe God will forgive them- hence we ask to be forgiven for such sins which aren't perceived by us (Ps. 19:12). This means we will be forgiven without repentance. If we look forward to such forgiveness, we should show it to our brethren today, forgiving without demanding their repentance, hoping that they will later on in their journey perceive things more maturely.


day_number: 01/04
text:
If we live according to God's principles, we will not have the rudderless spirit which there is in this world. Somehow our life path becomes naturally clear to us; our way is directed (Prov. 11:5).


day_number: 01/04
text:
The Lord was recognized by them "by the breaking of bread". Perhaps this means that the body language of Jesus as He broke bread after His resurrection was identical with that which He had in His human life before that. Resurrection and receiving Divine nature won't change us unrecognizably; we will recognize each other. We personally shall be saved through resurrection; what died shall revive and be immortalized.


day_number: 02/04
text:
The rebels in Num. 16:9 didn't consider servanthood within the family of God to be a very great honour; they wanted leadership and personal honour from those they would be over. This is the great paradox, the acme of humility, that serving is actually an honour. But there are so few who really grasp this. Leadership, like respect, is something which can never be demanded nor sought after if we are truly God's people. Notice that to serve others in God's family is to come "near to [God] Himself".


day_number: 02/04
text:
"A kind word makes it glad". We see how powerful good words can be (Job 6:25). There's a positive power in words, even just one word, which we are prone to ignore, thinking that actions are so much more important than words.


day_number: 02/04
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Paul emphasizes that he was never one to be "in with the in crowd" (Gal. 1:16); he was a loner, who preached Christ according to his totally personal experience of Him, not because any man had sent him to preach. We should be the same.


day_number: 03/04
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
The Levites were given to God, through having been given to the priests (Num. 18:6). What we give to God's people we give to God. Constantly we are being taught to see God as manifest in His people, and to treat them appropriately.


day_number: 03/04
text:
"He who guards his mouth guards his soul" (Prov. 13:3). In this sense as Jesus put it, we will be eternally justified or eternally condemned by our words (Mt. 12:37).


day_number: 04/04
text:
The red heifer as the source of cleansing through water [cp. baptism] looked ahead to the Lord Jesus. The naturalness which Jesus had with people reflects His respect for the freedom which God has given His people to chose for themselves. He was Himself supremely free, due to His pure conscience before the Father. He was typified by the red heifer "upon which never came yoke" (Num. 19:2). We were set free from sin by Christ through "freedom" (Gal. 5:1 RV). But we were set free by Him as a person. His freedom, His freedom from sin and the freedom that must have characterized His person, is what liberates us too. And it is the experience of that freedom, the freedom from sin that comes through forgiveness (Jn. 8:32), which can be 'used' to love others (Gal. 5:13).


day_number: 04/04
text:
Prov. 14:7 "Stay away from a foolish man" is typical of many such commands in Proverbs. But we should remember that Solomon was writing to Israelites living within the people of God. Just because someone is part of God's people doesn't make them wise; we still have to decide wisely as to with whom we will closely walk in life.


day_number: 04/04
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
Victory against the flesh will be achieved more by focusing upon the positive than trying to cut off the negative. That's the simple teaching of Gal. 5:16.


day_number: 05/04
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
Moses had previously struck the rock and water came out (Ex. 17:6), but this time he was asked to speak to it- yet instead, he struck it. He became over familiar with God, assuming he could do as he wished without careful respect for God's word. He failed to believe in the power of the spoken word (Num. 20:12), effectively he rebelled against the commandment (Num. 27:14); he assumed that detailed obedience wasn't necessary to God's commandment; and he gave the impression that he rather than God was giving the water ("shall we bring you water...?", :10). One angry sentence can reveal so much about our attitudes. Moses had earlier asked that he be excluded from entering the land so that Israel might enter (Ex. 32:32). In a strange way, that prayer was heard. Although Moses sinned, repeatedly we read that he didn't himself enter the land for Israel's sake (Dt. 1:37; 3:26; 4:21). They are blamed for provoking him to speak poorly (Ps. 106:33). God works through our sins in a strange way; and what we ask for in prayer, we have a way of receiving, in essence.


day_number: 05/04
text:
Prov. 15:4 implies that people are psychologically crushed when they realize that words spoken to them lacked integrity. The importance of our words is therefore because of their influence upon others. Appropriate gentleness in speech can also lead people to eternal life.


day_number: 05/04
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Paul writes to several groups and individuals that he is constantly in prayer for many people. Eph. 1:16 is one of these examples. For it to be true, he would have spent much of his available time in prayer for various brothers and sisters throughout the Mediterranean world. How long do we spend in prayer for others each day?


day_number: 06/04
chapter_number_to: 23
text:
Clearly Balaam wanted to go with them, because he loved the idea of getting the promised wealth (2 Pet. 2:15; Jude 11). If he had sent them away immediately, the spiritual crisis would've passed. But instead, God confirmed Balaam in the sinful way he wished to go- for He now permitted Balaam to go with them, but to only speak His word (:20). By going with them- and it was a very long journey- Balaam was going deeper into temptation. This is an example of how whilst the process of temptation is internal (James 1:13-15), God can lead sinful people further into situations of temptation if this is what they wish in their hearts. Hence we should pray that God will not lead us into temptation (Mt. 6:13). Hence God was angry with Balaam because he went (Num. 22:22), even though God told him to go (:20)- God led him further into temptation, but was angered that Balaam went that way.


day_number: 06/04
text:
Solomon writes inspired truth in Proverbs, but it seems that much of what he writes was written with an eye to his own self-justification, especially about the need to respect the man who has wisdom and the wise man's superiority over all others (:16). He even writes as if the king must be accepted as automatically infallible: "Inspired judgments are on the lips of the king" (see too 20:2). We too can teach God's truths whilst also motivated in doing so by a desire for our own self-justification rather than His glory.


day_number: 06/04
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Paul felt "less than the least" of all believers (Eph. 3:8). Paul preached the Gospel very aware of his own weakness and unworthiness. Hence his witness was in humility and with power. We should preach with the same spirit. Paul's awareness of his sinfulness grew over time. In an earlier letter he felt "least of the apostles" (1 Cor. 15:9), now ij Ephesians least of all believers, and at the end of his life he felt the worst sinner in the world (1 Tim. 1:15). Yet he was progressively more and more confident in his ultimate salvation, even though he increasingly realized the extent of his unworthiness. We will go through the same pattern in our spiritual growth.


day_number: 07/04
chapter_number_to: 25
text:
Balak observes in Num. 24:11 "Yahweh has kept you back from honour". "Kept you back" is the word used in Num. 22:16 for how Balak urged Balaam initially: "Please let nothing hinder you [s.w.] from coming to me". Repeatedly, God is the one who hinders or keeps back (Gen. 30:2; 1 Sam. 25:26,34; Neh. 9:20 etc.). Balak seems to be effectively saying 'Don't let Yahweh hinder you'. Balak recognizes that it was Yahweh and not Balaam who had hindered, and his words are really a lament that Yahweh had kept back Balaam. He knew that Balaam was eager for it. "Don't let your God / religion stop you..." is the call of temptation which the world makes to God's people of every generation. And heeding it is to go in the way of Balaam.


day_number: 07/04
text:
Prov. 17:14 teaches that relationship breakdown needs to be bridged as soon as possible, as a matter of urgency; otherwise irreparable damage will be done and like water bursting from a dam, many others will be affected by it.


day_number: 07/04
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
Those who feel enslaved by their daily work can do their tasks as if they are doing them as service to Christ- and He will accept this as done to Him (Eph. 6:5). This means that the person who has to work long, hard hours in the workplace most of the week can do as much service to Christ as the person who is 'free' to serve Christ in things like preaching, teaching and serving His brethren- if the work done to our human employer is consciously done by us "as to Christ".


day_number: 08/04
text:
Dan had only one son and yet by this time had become the second largest tribe in Israel. Benjamin had ten sons (Gen. 46:21) but was one of the smallest tribes. Again we see how God doesn't work through human strength or advantage; the passage of time reveals over the generations that human blessing soon fades away.


day_number: 08/04
text:
"His speech asks for beatings" (:6). According to our words we will be judged at the last day (Mt. 12:37; Lk. 12:47,48); our words now may actually be as it were requesting our punishment then. We must so speak as those who will be judged, knowing that he who showed no mercy in his words will receive none (James 2:12,13); our words of mercy or condemnation, and perhaps the way we say them, will be the basis upon which we will be accepted or rejected. In this sense death or life are in the power of our tongue (:21).


day_number: 08/04
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Paul would "be with Christ" in the Kingdom, thanks to the resurrection at the return of Christ to earth (Phil. 1:23). Death is no more than an unconscious sleep for the believer; the next waking moment, we will be with Christ. This is how near we are to being with Him; for in the bigger scheme of things, death is near to every one of us.


day_number: 09/04
text:
Considering the low status of women at that time, we see IN Num. 27:2 a commendable spirit of initiative and spiritual ambition for these women to dare ask a male dominated society to change their rules to allow them to have an inheritance. We see too how God and Moses weren't at all anti-women, and responded positively. Note how the women were allowed to come directly to the decision makers, without needing to appoint a male representative for their case, as was common in surrounding cultures. The value of the human person is consistently seen throughout the Pentateuch. They asked about this matter before the land had been possessed, reflecting their strength of faith that God would fulfil His promise of giving His people the Kingdom; they imagined what it would be like there, and acted accordingly even before they got there, as if the land was already theirs in possession- just as we should.


day_number: 09/04
text:
Prov. 19:11 means that we are not to take up every offence against us with others. There are times when our silence under provocation is in God's eyes our "glory". This verse alludes to the fact that God is slow to anger and overlooks offences without always demanding our specific repentance (Ps. 103:8; 145:8). We are to reflect our experience of this to others.


day_number: 09/04
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
"My brethren... my joy and crown" (Phil. 4:1). The crown of joy will be given us when Jesus returns to earth (1 Thess. 2:19; 1 Pet. 5:4). But that crown will be our brothers and sisters for whom we have laboured in this life. Their presence in God's Kingdom, the fact they get to be saved, will be what gives us eternal joy. The amount we try for others in this life will affect the nature of our eternal salvation.


day_number: 10/04
text:
The commands about the continual burnt offering are repeated more frequently and in more detail in the Law of Moses than those about anything else or any other offering. It's as if God perceived the likely tendency of His people to forget the regular sacrifices and focus instead on the occasional ones; and to disregard the commands about the grain offering, which was so small and yet so valuable to God. It is likewise continually stressed in the legislation that these continual sacrifices were "a pleasant aroma to Me" (Num. 28:2). Spirituality is about daily discipline, not occasional acts of devotion; hourly prayer, daily Bible reading, constant spiritual mindedness, rather than occasional attendance at a church meeting. When God later asked Israel "Did you offer unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?" (Am. 5:25; Acts 7:42), the answer implied is that no, they did not. Hence this repetition here at the end of the wilderness journey. The whole purpose of their being given Canaan was so that they would have an environment in which to keep God's laws (Ps. 105:45). Likewise with us- if we're not interested in keeping God's principles in this life, there will be little point in our being given the Kingdom, which is likewise an arena in which we can live perfectly according to His principles.


day_number: 10/04
text:
There is good wisdom within many faithful people which never becomes apparent until another person draws it out (Prov. 20:5). This should be the result of good company and true spiritual fellowship- bringing out the best in each other which is often latent and would be otherwise unavailable for others' benefit.


day_number: 10/04
text:
Our plans and thoughts are fundamentally us. "As (a man) thinks in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7), and as God thinks, so is He. Thus God's word or thinking is God: "the word was God". We see here the supreme need for spiritual mindedness; we are what we think, who we are in our hearts when nobody's watching is of ultimate moment.


day_number: 11/04
chapter_number_to: 30
text:
Each day of their rejoicing in God's grace toward them, Israel were to offer a sin offering as a reminder of the fact they were sinners, and all God's blessings toward them were given to a sinful people. We must never let slip our recognition of our sinfulness before God, and unworthiness in ourselves of His blessings.


day_number: 11/04
text:
We will all cry out for mercy and grace at the day of judgment. The mean may appear prosperous in this life, but we should live ever aware that we are spiritually poor because of our own bad decisions, just as the poor are often poor because of their own weaknesses and poor decision making; and we will cry out to God for His mercy at the last day. We therefore ought to be responsive to the cries of the poor today (Prov. 21:13).


day_number: 11/04
chapter_number_to: 3
text:
The serpent lifted up on the pole was a symbol of sin. Yet it also represents Jesus (Jn. 3:14). On the cross, Jesus was identified very strongly with sinful people, even though He never sinned. He is 'one' with us who are sinners, the sinner's friend who doesn't just turn away from sin but touches and identifies with it in order to cleanse it.


day_number: 12/04
text:
God chose Phinehas the priest to be the army commander, whereas Joshua was the more obvious human choice for that job at this time. But God wished to demonstrate that it is spiritual principle which must lead His people rather than human strength and appropriacy. It was Phinehas who had so well perceived the spiritual danger of the Moabites earlier (Num. 25:7).


day_number: 12/04
text:
God works with individuals and we are each independently judged regardless of whether we had believing or unbelieving parents, and so it cannot be that someone comes to the Kingdom simply because of faithful parents. And yet none of us will reach salvation purely by our own effort; there are other elements over and above that, and faithful parenting is one such element in the final algorithm which determines who is saved and who isn't. It's an endless motivation for parents, therefore, to raise their children in God's way (Prov. 22:6).


day_number: 12/04
text:
If we truly believe, we will become a well of water of life to other people. We can become the source of eternal life to people- in that we are the source of their contact with Christ. This means we should witness to people urgently and directly, knowing that we can give people the eternal life which otherwise they wouldn't have.


day_number: 13/04
text:
Num. 32:38 speaks of how "Their names [were] changed". Nebo and Baal were the names of Canaanite gods, and Yahweh forbad His people to even mention their names (Ex. 23:13; Hos. 2:17). The principle for us is that we shouldn't surround ourselves with things which even suggest or stimulate the idea of being anything other than totally dedicated to the one true God, or which may trigger the idea of idolatry.


day_number: 13/04
text:
In Prov. 23:11 God is likened to the counsel for the defence in the final court of Divine justice. And yet He is also the judge of all. Each of the situations we find ourselves in is played out before the court of Heaven, and the judgment of the last day will be a statement of those judgments which are happening in our lives today. God hasn't as it were turned off from this world, to open the books at the end of history and see how we behaved; He is watching and passionately judging today.


day_number: 13/04
text:
Jesus didn't criticize the man for believing in a myth about an Angel touching water. Instead, Jesus focused the man upon the simple reality- that God alone through His Son can heal. We need to be patient with those who have wrong understandings and believe groundless myths; and gently re-focus them upon the simple truths of the Gospel.


day_number: 14/04
text:
Moses kept this record of their journeys in the spirit of how God commanded His people to each one remember the way by which God had brought them out from Egypt to Canaan (Dt. 8:2). We need to keep at least a mental diary of how God has led us in our lives, to look back with feelings of gratitude and grace as we see how He has led us, how life for us is no mere succession of chance events, but has a definite direction and end point in entering the Kingdom.


day_number: 14/04
text:
As God keeps us from spiritual destruction, so we should try to keep others. We aren't to say within ourselves that we didn't realize that they were going wrong (Prov. 24:12). This is a piercing analysis of our psychology; we hold back from the awkwardness of engagement with others about their life path because we kid ourselves that they are OK really.


day_number: 14/04
text:
Although Jesus was perfect, He never omitted any act of righteousness nor committed any sin, the people amongst whom He lived for 30 years didn't think He was anything special (Jn. 6:42). This shows the humility of Jesus, and how He successfully hid His righteousness rather than did anything to display it to others. In this we have another window onto His perfection.


day_number: 15/04
text:
The land promised to Abraham was from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea, but in Num. 34:2 God redefines it as much smaller. He perhaps perceived that they simply didn't have the spiritual vision to possess that vast area. There is so much made possible for us in prospect; maybe we will ultimately receive less than we could have had because of our limited vision in this life. Yet He encouraged the people to go exploring beyond the bounds which He here gave them, right up to the Euphrates, promising to give them whatever land they walked upon (Dt. 11:24). It seems none rose up to that challenge. God invites His people to assume that they would receive this land and make preparations as if they had- for at this time they had not yet crossed Jordan into it. We are likewise asked to believe that we have been moved into the sphere of the Kingdom of God's Son, and have received an inheritance by reason of our being in Him (Col. 1:13; Eph. 1:11).


day_number: 15/04
text:
Prov. 25:5 is justifying the way Solomon killed Shimei at the establishment of his kingdom. His teaching of wisdom is constantly mixed with self-justification; our preaching must never be like this.


day_number: 15/04
text:
The Jewish hearers would've associated "living water" with the Old Testament teaching that "living water" was to be used to cleanse lepers; and that "living water" would flow out of the temple to heal the world (Lev. 14:6; Ez. 47:1-9). We are to be the source of cleansing for others- which means we are intended to communicate our faith to them. And we, rather than any physical religious building, are to be the source of new life and cleansing for the world.


day_number: 16/04
text:
Num. 35:2 meant that the Levites were divided amongst the 12 tribes of Israel, enabling them to teach God's ways to the whole nation (Lev. 10:11; Dt. 33:9,10). In this way, the curse upon Levi that his children would be scattered in Israel (Gen. 49:7) turned into a blessing for all- and God so loves to work in this way, using the consequences of sin to bring about His work, purpose and glory.


day_number: 16/04
text:
The wicked will be "exposed in the assembly" (:26). Yet the wicked prosper in this life, and often go to their graves without their deceitful words having been revealed. Yet they shall be exposed "in the assembly". There is a theme in Bible teaching about the day of judgment, that our individual judgment will somehow be visible to all (Lk. 12:1-3; Rev. 16:15). All our secret words, thoughts and real intentions will then be made public to all; there's therefore no point to be hypocritical in this life, thinking we have cleverly hidden our real positions and feelings, because ultimately all will be public knowledge to everyone for eternity.


day_number: 16/04
text:
The Lord was the "light" of the world. The Greek word can mean a torch, a burning flame held on a pole. There's a similarity of ideas with crucifixion; Jesus was lifted up on the pole, and thus becomes the light of our world, we understand everything in the context of His death there and all it means for us and demands of us.


day_number: 17/04
text:
It was so important to God that each family kept the inheritance He had spied out for them and given them. The laws about redeeming sold property at the year of Jubilee shows the same special interest of God in this matter. We need likewise to take seriously the fact that Israel's individual inheritance in the land looks ahead to the specific, unique inheritance each of us shall have in eternity. We are being developed in this life so that we can inherit it. God had given each family a specific inheritance and wanted that to remain within the family name; see on Num. 30:1 for other legislation which defends this Divine intention. The fact the legislation about female heirs is repeated twice (here and in Num. 27) reflects the same Divine concern.


day_number: 17/04
text:
This teaches the importance of having faithful, spiritually minded friends. True fellowship within the family of God's people means that we can relate to each other as if we really are natural family. The idea of 'out of church Christians' is a contradiction in terms; we are designed to develop spiritually as a result of true fellowship with other believers. Poor church experiences shouldn't lead us to retreat within ourselves, because there is no path to growth within the body of God's people if we cut ourselves off from them (Jn. 15:5).


day_number: 17/04
chapter_number_to: 10
text:
This is an unusual shepherd (Jn. 10:12)- fighting with a wolf to the death for the sheep. Wolves don't fight that desperately. But this one does. Sin appears a menace but something which can easily be overcome by a man- when in fact it can't be overcome so easily, it is a bitter fight to the death.


day_number: 18/04
text:
It took Israel 38 years to complete this journey, but it was only 11 days if they walked directly (Dt. 1:2). Their exit from Egypt through the Red Sea represents our baptism into Christ (1 Cor. 10:1,2), and the wilderness journey is the prototype of our walk to God's Kingdom. We tend to walk around in circles as Israel did, rather than perceiving our end destination clearly and keeping our focus upon it.


day_number: 18/04
text:
Our attitude to God's word is related to the effectiveness of our prayers (Prov. 28:9); insofar as God's word abides in us, we will ask for things which God will grant (Jn. 15:7), and we will ask in faith, because faith comes from hearing God's word (Rom. 10:17). The various aspects of the believing life, e.g. prayer and Bible reading, mesh together to produce an upward spiritual of spiritual development.


day_number: 18/04
text:
The Lord's "groaning" was in prayer to God. Likewise the 'weeping' of :35 was in prayer- Rom. 8:26 says that Jesus prays for us now with such groaning. We should therefore take our prayer life seriously, knowing that there is such intense mediation going on for us in Heaven itself, before the throne of God.


day_number: 19/04
text:
If giants weren't a barrier to the children of Lot taking land for a possession (Dt. 2:21), neither should they be for Israel; but they greatly feared them (Num. 13:28,33). If worldly people can achieve as they do, how much more can we with God on our side.


day_number: 19/04
text:
"A child left to himself causes shame to his mother" (Prov. 29:15). This desperate avoidance of shame at all costs is a major theme in Solomon's Proverbs, and reflects his overall focus upon the external rather than the internal. He does indeed talk about the heart, but on balance I would conclude that he is more concerned about appearances before men than before God. And this led to his own spiritual downfall. We can take a lesson from this.


day_number: 19/04
text:
We need to reconstruct in our own minds the picture of Christ hanging crucified upon the cross. If we are God's people, we will be drawn closer to Him by it. "All men" who are drawn to Him (:32) doesn't refer to every human being, but to those who draw near to Jesus on the cross. This group of people are 'all things' to God.


day_number: 20/04
text:
We see in Dt. 3:25 how Moses knew God well enough to know that He is capable of changing His stated intentions; for Moses had persuaded God not to destroy Israel as He once planned in His wrath. God is open to dialogue, He isn't the impervious 'Allah' of Islam who must be merely submitted to; and this gives our prayer life real energy and zest, knowing that we're not simply firing requests at God in the hope we might get at least some response; we can dialogue with God, wrestling in prayer over specific, concrete situations and requests.


day_number: 20/04
text:
The fact we may feel no conscience for sin isn't any cleansing from it; the only effective washing from sin is through baptism into Christ, not playing mind games with ourselves whereby we don't feel bad about our sins (Prov. 30:12).


day_number: 20/04
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
To wash the guests' feet was the job of the lowest servant. Jesus showed us that true greatness is in humble service, being a "servant of all". Even Peter struggled to understand the huge extent of this principle (Jn. 13:5,7) and we also find it hard to grasp.


day_number: 21/04
text:
ime and again in Deuteronomy, Moses speaks of the state of the heart. He warns them against allowing a bad state of heart to develop, he speaks often of how apostasy starts in the heart. Moses makes a total of 49 references to the heart / mind of Israel in Deuteronomy, compared to only 13 in the whole of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. This was perhaps his greatest wish as he faced death; that God's people should develop a spiritual mind and thereby manifest the Father and come to salvation. He saw the state of our mind as the key to spiritual success. But do we share this perspective? There is so much in our modern world which is mind-corrupting. Perceiving the importance of spiritual mindedness is a sign of our spiritual maturity.


day_number: 21/04
text:
There are those who whilst not physically mute are relatively voiceless; and we are to be a voice for them, to speak up for those who can't speak for themselves (Prov. 31:8).


day_number: 21/04
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
John also writes that if we ask anything according to God's will, then we will be heard (1 Jn. 5:14). But if God's word abides in us, then we will ask according to our will and be heard (Jn. 15:7)- because our will becomes God's will if His word abides in us. We will not ask what we want but what God wills- His will shall become our will. And our positive experience of answered prayer will thereby increase, because we are asking for the right things.


day_number: 22/04
text:
In Dt. 5:21 we have an example of how the Law of Moses was the only legal code to criminalize internal attitudes; nobody knows who covets what in their hearts, and there was no legal apparatus to punish this particular transgression of law. But the Law of Moses was a direct covenant between God and every individual amongst His people, and to Him they were personally responsible and answerable. Spiritual mindedness is likewise the essence of true Christianity.


day_number: 22/04
text:
This book appears to be the meditations of Solomon at the end of his life. He had been given Divine wisdom and retained it (2:9), but he rejected its claim upon him personally. He therefore says much which is true, and yet he speaks with the cynicism of the person who has rejected the true faith for himself whilst still offering it to others, especially the young. This explains the apparently contradictory strands of teaching within the book. We are warned to personalize the great truths we hold, rather than keeping them as merely abstract truths. We are to believe that 'I personally shall be in God's Kingdom' rather than just 'The Kingdom of God shall come'.


day_number: 22/04
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
God's Name refers to His characteristics. As the Angel declared these to Moses as he hid in a cave, humbled by God's glory passing by (Ex. 34:4-6), so Jesus declared that Name to perfection in His death. And this is to result in our loving each other (Jn. 17:26). He did this in the life He lived ("I made known to them your name"), but in a very special way at the crucifixion ("and will make it known"). The result of us perceiving this in the cross is that we shall love one another, with the love of Christ.


day_number: 23/04
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
The fact there is only one God means that He is to have our total loyalty and love (Dt. 6:5). If there were two gods, each would have 50%. But the one God demands our total devotion.


day_number: 23/04
text:
Solomon saw "wisdom" as something he had worked for [forgetting it was God's gracious gift to him], and he treated it as a material possession. Because he saw that he couldn't take it with him, he felt therefore it was useless- he didn't, it seems, want to leave it to his son because he felt it was only for him. This was the spirit of the man who buried his talent of Divine Truth in the ground and thought that would be enough- he wouldn't risk it with others or share it with them. And so Solomon ended up hating all his labour for wisdom because at the end of his life that mere knowledge and teaching of it to others hadn't transformed his personal life. The rejected at the day of judgment may well, tragically, feel the same. But now is the time to personally apply God's Truth to ourselves and to be humbled by the very possession of it.


day_number: 23/04
text:
Hyssop isn't very long (:29), therefore Jesus was not lifted up very high above the earth, contrary to the impression given by Catholic crosses and architecture. Again I say: we each have a sober duty to attempt to reconstruct in our own minds the Lord's death.


day_number: 24/04
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
The passages quoted by Jesus in the desert to strengthen Himself against His human desires ("the devil") are all from the same part of Deuteronomy, regarding Israel's experience in the wilderness. Jesus clearly saw a parallel between His experiences and theirs. The description of Him as being in the wilderness with beasts and Angels (Mk. 1:13) is another connection with Israel's experience in the wilderness- they were plagued there by "wild beasts" (Dt. 32:19-24). Jesus was led up of the spirit for forty days in the wilderness, as Israel were led forty years by a Spirit-Angel. The mind of Jesus was likewise proved by the temptations. Jesus overcame by quoting the Scriptures that were in His heart (Ps. 119:11). Jesus also was allowed to hunger, to reinforce His understanding of the fact that we are to live not by physical food but by the word of God. The reference to Israel being 'chastened' (Dt. 8:5) in the desert recall how God chastened His Son, Jesus (2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89: 32). Thus Jesus showed us how to read and study the Word - He thought Himself into the position of Israel in the wilderness, and therefore took the lessons that can be learnt from their experiences to Himself in His wilderness trials.


day_number: 24/04
text:
Solomon seems to have in view how human relationships begin and at times come to an end. He accepts that relationships sometimes come to an end, and there is even a time for contention. But when, how, with what motives... has its time for judgment (:17).


day_number: 24/04
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
The Greek word for "children" in Jn. 21:5 is a kind of slang, dynamically equivalent of "Fellas!" or "Guys!". Jesus was at such pains to show the disciples that although He has been exalted, He is very much with them, quite aware of colloquial language, and comfortable using it. This comforts us, that our Lord is so with us and understanding of us.


day_number: 25/04
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
Dt. 11:4 speaks of how God "Destroyed them to this day". We are to understand each victory and achievement of God as somehow ongoing right down to our own day and our own lives and experience. This is what makes the Bible a living word for us. This explains why David repeatedly refers to the miracle at the Red Sea as if this had affected him personally, to the extent that he could ecstatically rejoice because of it.


day_number: 25/04
text:
The billionaire always wants another billion... "Hell and destruction are never satisfied, and the eyes of man are never satisfied" (Prov. 27:20 RV), Solomon wrote in his youth; and then in old age, he came to basically the same conclusion, having spent his life working back to the truth that he had been taught in his youth (Ecc. 4:8). And there are many men and women who have done the same. We all tend to be empirical learners; and yet this is the great power of God's word, that through it we don't have to learn everything through our failures; but we can receive His Truth, trust it, and simply live by it. Otherwise we shall be like Solomon...


day_number: 25/04
text:
The Gospel of Luke was the "former account" or record of what Jesus "began" to do. Jesus didn't stop His activity when He ascended to Heaven- the book of Acts is the account of how He continues to work with His people on earth, and that work continues to this day.


day_number: 26/04
text:
Several times Moses describes Israel's inheritance of the land as entering "rest" (Dt. 12:10), mindful of how God had sworn that they would not enter into that rest. And yet he had pleaded with God to change His mind about that (Ps. 95:11; Heb. 3:11), even though Israel at the time didn't realize the intensity of pleading and self-sacrifice for them which was going on up in the mountain. Just as we don't appreciate the extent of the Lord's mediation for us, that we might enter the final "rest" (Heb. 4:9).


day_number: 26/04
text:
"God is in heaven, and you on earth". God is revealed as existing as a personal being in a specific location, Heaven. Although He is present everywhere by His Spirit, this doesn't mean that He has no personal existence. He is real, He is there, and we are here, but in relationship with Him.


day_number: 26/04
text:
Acts 2:23 "lawless men" refers to the Romans, who were not under the Law of Moses. But the guilt is clearly placed on the Jews. We cannot get others to do our 'dirty work' for us and still be innocent. We are judged according to our intentions more than our literal actions.


day_number: 27/04
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
Whilst there is nothing morally wrong with cutting the skin, the idea was that Israel weren't to even appear associated with pagan rituals for the dead (Dt. 14:1). We likewise should naturally not want to even appear like worshippers of any other god (of whatever kind) when Yahweh is our only God.


day_number: 27/04
text:
Prov. 6:26 warns the young man that the Gentile woman will take his money and leave him destitute at the end. These words seem to be alluded to by Solomon years later here in Ecc. 6:2, where he laments that despite his wealth and success, a Gentile would have it all after his death. He saw in later life that his warnings to the young men of Israel had been in the form of painting a picture of a typical young man who epitomized youthful folly; but now he realized that he had been making a detailed prophecy of himself. Likewise in 2:18,19 he laments that his labours will achieve nothing; doubtless alluding back to his words in Prov. 5:10, where he says that the Gentile wife will make the young Israelite's labours meaningless. Sin never satisfies. We can know truth on a theoretical level as Solomon did, and yet not live it out in practice.


day_number: 27/04
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
In Acts 4:13 the early disciples are called "unlearned", Greek 'a-grammatos', 'without grammar'; Ignorant- Greek 'idiotes'. The early preachers and leaders of the church appeared as idiots, as men without even basic education. But God used their witness to confound the mighty of this world. Erudition and education aren't qualifications for preaching the Gospel; we should never feel we're not good enough, but just do what we can and let ourselves be used by God.


day_number: 28/04
text:
Dt. 15:2 says that a man "must not demand it of his neighbour and his brother because Yahweh's release has been proclaimed". The final release was in the death of Christ releasing us from all our sins, which are likened to debts in the New Testament. We are therefore not to "demand" recompense for sin from others because of the great release proclaimed. Jesus foresaw the difficulty of doing this, and urges us to pray constantly that we forgive or release our debtors (Mt. 6:12). The year of release was proclaimed on the day of atonement, in the same way as the cross has initiated a time of release from sin. The idea of 'proclaiming' this release or forgiveness is behind the language Luke uses to record the great commission, to proclaim this wonderful news to absolutely everybody- that their debt is cancelled.


day_number: 28/04
text:
The continual emphasis of society upon 'fun' and 'entertainment' doesn't lead to wisdom before God, but the very opposite (Ecc. 7:2-4).


day_number: 28/04
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
The growth in acceptance of the Gospel happened immediately after God had killed Ananias and Sapphira for the sin of hypocrisy (Acts 5:11,14). The 'harder side of God', the fact He is serious about His demands upon us, is actually an attraction for genuine people, rather than a repulsion.


day_number: 29/04
text:
Moses was so positive about Israel, as we should be about others too. "God will bless you" (Dt. 16:15), even though these blessings were conditional upon their obedience (28:1,4,12). Moses was this confident of them, as Paul was confident of the obedience of the Corinthians despite it seeming humanly unlikely (2 Cor. 10:6). It's far easier to have a negative attitude about people than a positive one; but God's grace and imputing of righteousness to us personally should help us be positive about others.


day_number: 29/04
text:
Solomon didn't see the relevance of his wisdom to his own personal family life. Yet he proudly insisted: "Who is like the wise man?", as if the possession of theoretical truth and wisdom was the ultimate possession; and he then goes on to say that this made him beyond criticism (:2-4). This is a danger for any community or individual who says they have "the truth" and who considers the possession of it to be of the utmost importance.


day_number: 29/04
text:
Israel carried two tabernacles through the wilderness- that of God, and that of their idols (:43). If the exodus through the Red Sea is symbolic of our baptism (1 Cor. 10:1,2), then the wilderness journey speaks of our journey after baptism towards the Kingdom of God. We must carry only one tabernacle with us, one worship system- that of God.


day_number: 30/04
text:
Dt. 17:16-20 has strong relevance to Solomon. He did multiply silver, gold, horses and wives; his heart was turned away (:16,17= 2 Chron. 9:20). Yet this passage says that if he studied the Law all his life, this would not happen, and also his heart would not be "lifted up above his brethren" (:20). Solomon’s whipping of the people and sense of spiritual and material superiority (2 Chron. 10:11; Ecc. 1:16; 2:7,9) shows how his heart was lifted up. Yet Solomon knew the Law, despite his explicit disobedience to the commands concerning wives, horses etc. But his knowledge of the word didn't bring forth the true humility which it was intended to. Solomon assumed he wasn't proud; he assumed God's word was having its intended effect upon him, when it wasn't. Such spiritual assumption is a temptation for every child of God. God’s intention that the king of Israel should personally copy out all the commandments of the Law was "to the end that his heart will not be raised up above his brothers"- i.e. reflecting upon the many requirements of the Law would've convicted the King of his own failure to have been fully obedient, and therefore his heart would be humbled. And soon after this statement, we are hearing Moses reminding Israel that Messiah, the prophet like unto Moses, was to be raised up (Dt. 18:18). Human failure, and recognition of it, prepares us to accept Christ.


day_number: 30/04
text:
Solomon sees death as a great evil; GNB "is as wrong as anything that happens in this world". Yet according to Genesis, death was created by God as a punishment for human sin, and the consequence of sin. Had Solomon accepted the message of resurrection of the body and future judgment, he would not have portrayed death so harshly; nor effectively charged God with abusing man by allowing death to happen. What a contrast with Paul, who earnestly desired to "depart" (Phil. 1:23), and the generally hopeful approach to death found in the faithful of the Biblical record.


day_number: 30/04
text:
The Eunuch couldn't have children, and so he was interested to read this prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah 53, which predicted He would die without having children (:33). We each see in Jesus some direct similarity or point of contact with our life experience, and this attracts us to Him.


day_number: 01/05
text:
God encourages us to make special devotions to Him. Thus the Levites could choose to leave their areas in the provinces and go and serve at the sanctuary (Dt. 18:6). We must ask what special devotion we could make in response to His grace.


day_number: 01/05
text:
Solomon had been so confident that he was or would be the Messiah that he seems to have felt that he was beyond the possibility of sinning; real self-examination and the sense of the possibility of failure just didn't exist for him. He says that the land of Israel is happy or blessed because her king is the son of a noble, and she will be cursed if her ruler is a servant. Solomon proudly presented himself as the son of King David- and he makes a clear swipe at Jeroboam, the pretender to the throne who was a servant (1 Kings 11:26). By reasoning like this, Solomon sets himself in direct opposition to the spirit of Jesus, who declared that the servant is to be the King of all. Thus Solomon's self-justification, his self-defensiveness, his lack of focus on the future Messiah, led him to miss totally the spirit of Christ. To be Christ centered is of the essence.


day_number: 01/05
text:
We must be open minded to how God may be working. We must allow people the chance of repentance, be prepared to accept that they really have changed, and that God is willing to use them. It may be that we have to persuade other believers of this, just as Barnabas did (:27). Ananias also had to learn the same lesson.


day_number: 02/05
text:
The command to prepare a way along which to flee to the cities of refuge is expressed with the very same Hebrew words used about God through the Angels preparing a way for Israel to flee along, out of Egypt to the promised land (Ex. 23:20). This was obviously done purely at God's initiative. But now, Israel were asked to do the same- to prepare a way for others' salvation. When we reflect upon our own way of escape from this world, it's clear enough that it was by grace. Our response to that grace must be like Israel's- to prepare a way for others to flee, when they like us find themselves in a situation that is spiritually against them, although not of their conscious choice. In fact, if Israel were indifferent to preparing the way for others' salvation, then innocent blood would be shed and they would be responsible for it (Dt. 19:10). Indifference to providing others with a way of escape from their sin and death means we are actually guilty of their lack of salvation. And yet we tend to think that committed sin is all we have to worry about / avoid. The lesson here, however, bites far more caustically and insistently into our comfort zone. If we are indifferent to marking out the way of escape for others, their blood will be upon our heads. Our chief excuses for not witnessing enthusiastically basically amount to laziness, indifference, not getting our act together because we don't see we have to... when actually, there is an intense urgency about our task.


day_number: 02/05
text:
The tragic brevity of life means that youth is vanity; we should quit the time wasting follies of youth or overgrown childhood (and the modern world is full of these), and therefore we too should remove anger from our hearts. Ecclesiastes uses the mortality of man not only as an appeal to work for our creator and quit anger, but to simply have faith in His existence (as 2 Cor. 1:9).


day_number: 02/05
text:
Peter was in Joppa, the very place where Jonah had failed to understand his call to preach to the Gentiles. God arranges circumstances so that we have the chance to learn from the mistakes of others; He reminds us of them, as Peter must have been reminded of Jonah by being in Joppa.


day_number: 03/05
text:
The softness of Moses, the earnestness of his desire for their obedience, his eagerness to work with them in their humanity, is shown by the concessions to human weakness which he makes in Deuteronomy (with God's confirmation, of course). When they attacked a foreign city, OK, Moses says, you can take the women for yourselves- even though this is contrary to the spirit of earlier commands (see too Dt. 21:11). Likewise with the provisions for having a human king (Dt. 17:17) and divorce (24:1-4). He knew the hardness of Israel's hearts, their likelihood to give way to temptation, and so he made concessions contrary to the principles behind other parts of the Law (Mt. 19:8). The fact God makes concessions to us doesn't mean we can eagerly use them in some spirit of minimalistic service; we should seek to serve God on the highest level we can. The fact there are these different levels- rather than a demand for unthinking submission to a law for the sake of it- encourages us to express our love for God.


day_number: 03/05
text:
Ecc. 12:3-5 is a picture of a man in old age, perhaps based upon Solomon himself, having lost his strength and his teeth ("the grinders"), with darkened eyesight, poor of hearing and jumpy, scared of heights having lost his balance, with white hair like the almond tree and having lost sexual desire. Solomon presents this picture of man at his last end to those yet young, with the appeal to therefore not waste life ingratiating the senses, but rather in serving God.


day_number: 03/05
chapter_number_to: 12
text:
Holding a prayer meeting all night indicates the intense focus of mind which these early believers had (Acts 12:14). But when their prayer meeting was interrupted with the news that the prayers had been answered- they just didn't believe it and even mocked the idea. We too can pray without real expectation that the answer will come, and may come sooner and more powerfully than we could ever imagine.


day_number: 04/05
text:
Dt. 21:17 means that in a situation where there were two sons, the younger son's share was one third. In the parable of the prodigal son, the younger son is given half − such was the Father's love for him. This element of unreality in the parable is to signpost the amazing level of love the Father has for us; even when He knows that we will waste what He gives, still He gives, and gives generously.


day_number: 04/05
text:
The set of dialogues we have in this Song indicate that here we have a romance which went too far too quickly between Solomon and an Egyptian girl. He ought to have married an Israelite, one of the "daughters of Jerusalem". The Song is full of tension between the girl and these "daughters", whom she fears as being more attractive to Solomon than herself; and they speak to her sarcastically. Solomon in the Proverbs warned the Israelites about being attracted by pretty Gentile women who would lead them astray; and yet he does the very opposite of what he had taught to be true. The Song ends not with a wedding, as the genre of love poems might suggest, but with the couple parting in acrimony. Not running relationships God's way doesn't lead to satisfaction.


day_number: 04/05
text:
Paul means "the little one". There's no record of any specific name change, but it seems that as he began his missionary preaching, Saul changed his name to "the little one" (:9). Humility is vital if we are to preach the Gospel. Arrogant, proud evangelists are an abomination to God. Saul, Israel's first king, was only acceptable to God whilst he was "little in his own eyes" (1 Sam. 15:17). Paul seems to have thought on this carefully, and taken the implications to heart.


day_number: 05/05
text:
Dt. 22:1 penetrates psychologically to the very core of our inaction and frequent sins of omission- we hide the need we encounter from ourselves. We pretend we have not seen. Prov. 28:27 uses the same word: "He that gives to the poor shall not lack: but he that hides his eyes shall have many a curse" (as in Is. 58:7- "Deal your bread to the hungry.... hide not your eyes"). This theme of sins of omission is continued throughout the chapter.


day_number: 05/05
text:
It was because of the impossible tension between the Egyptian girl and the Jerusalem maidens that there's the constant theme of needing to hold meetings in secrecy, often in the countryside or mountains around Jerusalem, and to "go away" in order to be together. They appear to have slept together in the open air, beneath the trees (1:16,17; 7:11). Song 2:17 and 4:6 suggest they spent a night together in the hills, and then before dawn Solomon got back to Jerusalem. Illicit relationships are powerfully attractive at the time, but doomed to ultimate failure.


day_number: 05/05
chapter_number_to: 15
text:
Only through much tribulation can we enter the Kingdom (Acts 14:22). We cannot expect Christianity to be an easy ride. Our salvation is through many traumas in this life, and God won't always preserve us from them, but rather He works through them so that we might come to His Kingdom when Jesus returns.


day_number: 06/05
text:
Dt. 23:15 was to remind them how they were escaped slaves. God wanted them to continually remember the way He had saved them, and His law was designed to repeatedly prod their conscience about this in daily life. He wants us to live today in constant awareness of our salvation.


day_number: 06/05
text:
She walked the streets of Jerusalem whilst he was confined in the palace (:2). Her mother moved to Jerusalem from Egypt, but it wasn't possible for Solomon and her to easily be together in that house (also 8:2). 3:4 is very similar to Solomon's own warnings against Gentile marriage in Prov. 7:13,27; 5:8. We have an amazing ability to do the very opposite of what we know is right.


day_number: 06/05
chapter_number_to: 17
text:
Why didn't Paul declare his Roman citizenship earlier, so as to avoid a beating (Acts 16:37)? Whatever the reason, there was a reason, and it was connected with the furtherance of the Gospel. There are times when we can take an easier way and it's no sin; but the cause of the Gospel is better served by taking the harder way.


day_number: 07/05
text:
In the case of adultery a man could have his wife killed; apply the trial of jealousy of Num. 5; forgive her; or divorce her, as allowed for here. We have choices as to how we respond to human failure against us, and the very existence of the choices is in order to exercise our spirituality.


day_number: 07/05
text:
She loves him because of his ointment, and he loves her because of her jewellery (:4). He says that deep kissing with her gives the same after effect as drinking enough wine that you talk in your sleep afterwards (7:9). It's all very human and carnal; one lesson of the Song is that superficial attraction isn't the basis for true love.


day_number: 07/05
chapter_number_to: 19
text:
We believe "through grace" (Acts 18:27). Salvation is of grace; we believe not only because we read the Bible and want to believe, but because God opened our hearts to believe (Acts 16:14; Ps. 119:18). If this factor wasn't at work, then salvation would be by our own strength of will and understanding. Those factors are significant, but the "grace" element must never be lost sight of. It's this which will keep us humble.


day_number: 08/05
text:
Dt. 25:3 reflects how there's a tendency in us to be harsh in punishing others for their sin. This is psychologically explainable by our conscience for our own sins, and subconsciously realizing we deserve punishment; we then eagerly transfer this guilt and need for punishment onto others. Instead we are to confess our sins and believe that the final judgment for our sin was in Christ upon the cross; and if we believe this to the point of really feeling it, we will never punish anyone more than required, indeed we will be gracious to them as God has been to us.


day_number: 08/05
text:
He sees her as "undefiled" even though he has just slept with her and she is no longer a closed garden (Song 4:16; 5;1). They both create images of each other which are simply not true to reality, and fall in love with those images rather than reality. In the dream, Solomon has been out all night. We continue to get the impression of the secret, illicit nature of their relationship, unable to be seen in public together (Song 8:1). Projecting our idealized images onto people is a sure path to broken relationships later.


day_number: 08/05
text:
The Holy Spirit told Paul that he would suffer if he went to Jerusalem; but he also felt bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22,23 and 19:21; 21:4,11). Sometimes it seems God gives us contradictory guidance; this is so that we can work through the choices and come to a decision from the right motives, even if sometimes it doesn't always matter what the decision is. In some matters it's the process, not the product; the journey, not the destination... which is important.


day_number: 09/05
text:
God declared Israel "a people for His own possession... in order that you should keep all His commandments" (Dt. 26:18). But God had put it the other way around when He told Israel that if they kept His commandments, then they would be "a people for His own possession" (Ex. 19:5). This conditional promise is now referred to by Moses as having been fulfilled- Israel became His "own possession" by status even though they did not keep His commandments (7:6; 14:2 s.w.; Ps. 135:4). God said that if they were obedient, then they would be His special people. Yet He counted them as His special people even though they were not obedient. And He did this so that they would be so touched by this grace that they would be obedient. We are to live out in practice what we have been made in status by our gracious Father. The very fact He counts us as in Christ, as the spotless bride of His Son, must be both felt and lived up to by us. The way He counts righteousness to us is a wonderful motivation to live it out as far as we can.


day_number: 09/05
text:
Solomon claims that indeed this Egyptian girl is a Shulammite, a girl of Jerusalem, Yerushalem. She is one of the daughters of Jerusalem, so he decides; and therefore there should be division between her and the daughters of Jerusalem, as if they were in two camps. Solomon projects an image onto her, as an Israelite daughter of Zion... and believes it. Regardless of the reality. Projecting our idealized images onto people is a sure path to broken relationships later.


day_number: 09/05
chapter_number_to: 22
text:
Paul was a Roman citizen (Acts 22:26). But he invites all of us to see ourselves as a citizen of a Heavenly state (Phil. 3:20); he downplayed his Roman citizenship in his own mind, because he was so conscious of being a citizen of God's Kingdom. We too should allow the wonder of our citizenship in Christ to lead us to despise all worldly advantage which we may have.


day_number: 10/05
text:
The list of sins in Dt. 27:15-25 are all matters of the heart or things which are not seen by others. The people were confirming their acceptance of the fact that God sees and knows all things, and there really would be a judgment for them.


day_number: 10/05
text:
The emphasis upon aphrodisiacs throughout the Song (e.g. 7:13) underlines the impression that these two are only in love on a physical level. If external adornment and drugs are required by them for the enjoyment of their relationship right at the start of it, then there is clearly no bond of personality or spiritual aspect to it at all. And so it proves finally unsatisfactory, and the love song doesn't end with marriage and children as we expect, but with cynical and bitter breakup. And this will be the path for all relationships [of whatever kind] based on purely secular attraction.


day_number: 10/05
chapter_number_to: 24
text:
The very fact of judgment to come is in itself a demand for righteousness and temperance. Felix realized this and trembled (Acts 24:25), in anticipation of rejection at the judgment. As the Lord had explained in Jn. 5, when a man hears the word of the Gospel, he hears the call to go to judgment. And if he rejects it, he rejects himself from the Lord's presence in the future. Likewise Acts 17:31 reasons that the very existence of the future judgment seat and the Lord ordained as judge of living and dead is a command to repent. And we must hear that call today.


day_number: 11/05
text:
Israel would be rejected and cursed if they didn't serve God "with gladness" (Dt. 28:47). Service to God must be done with joy; if we lose the rejoicing of our hope, we lose the hope itself (Heb. 3:6). Joy is therefore a vital characteristic of God's true people.


day_number: 11/05
text:
The daughters of Jerusalem mock her. We expect a romantic song to end with the wedding; but it doesn't. It ends with the couple parting; and this dream wedding is no more than the Egyptian girl fantasizing. The fact the wedding 'scene', in the form of a dream about it, comes in the middle of the song rather than at the end is again a subversion of the whole genre of romance. The climax is in the wrong place. And this just indicates how unfulfilling are relationships which flout Divine principles.


day_number: 11/05
chapter_number_to: 26
text:
Being sent to the highest level of judgment seat in Rome, yet with no valid charges against him- was bizarre. Paul alludes to this when he wrote to the ecclesia in Rome (who surely knew the situation with Paul's case) that in Christ, there is now nobody to condemn us (Rom. 8:34). His letter from Rome to the Colossians has a similar message (Col. 1:22): "...to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable (Gk. 'free from accusation') in his sight". This freedom from accusation explains why none of our bad deeds will be mentioned to us then. One wonders if Paul's hearing in Acts 25 is described as it is in order to help us imagine this; he has no accusers, and therefore can be acquitted. We are in that same situation. We have been forgiven; there is no case against us before the judgment seat of Christ.


day_number: 12/05
text:
For Israel in covenant with God, absolutely nothing- not sex, menstruation, the content of clothing fabric, diet- could fall outside the scope of their covenant relationship. And so in principle it is with us under the new covenant. Such a relationship also precludes the worship of any other God. The covenant we have entered has constant and binding claims upon our loyalty; and it also speaks of God's constant and passionate commitment to us.


day_number: 12/05
text:
"We would have been as Sodom" (Is. 1:9). But :10 speaks to them as if they are Sodom. They were as Sodom to God, but for the sake of the faithful remnant, He wasn't judging them as Sodom. This shows how faithful third parties can have a huge effect upon the destiny of an unspiritual mass of God's people- so sensitive is God to the righteousness of even one man, as exemplified supremely in the achievement of Christ's work for us.


day_number: 12/05
text:
The legalists in the early church taught that unless believers kept the circumcision laws, "you cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1). The very same Greek phrase is used by Paul when he calls out in urgency during the storm: "Except these stay in the ship, you cannot be saved" (:31). Surely Luke's record is making a connection; the legalists taught that it was time to quit the rest of the community unless they got their way, for the sake of their eternal future; and Paul responds by teaching that our salvation depends upon us pulling together against the desperate situation we find ourselves in. We should never walk out on our brethren or the body of Christ. Severed from Him, we can do and be "nothing" (Jn. 15:5); and He is His body, the church.


day_number: 13/05
text:
Moses pleaded with them to see that "this day... this day... this day" he set before them life and death, forgiveness or salvation (Dt. 30:15-19). He saw the urgent importance of deciding now, in this moment, for the Lord. The Lord Jesus had His mind on this when He told the thief with the same emphasis that "this day" He could pronounce that he would be saved, not condemned (Lk. 23:46). He felt like Moses, but greater than Moses, in that He not only set before men the choice, but could grant them the salvation they sought.


day_number: 13/05
text:
The reference to silver, gold, horses and chariots in Is. 2:7 recalls God's forbidding of Israel to trade with other nations in order to get these things, lest they become proud and fear Yahweh alone (Dt. 17:16-20). They did exactly that- and became proud, which is the very reason God wanted to destroy them as this chapter explains in such a repeated manner. Wealth and human strength lead to pride and idolatry- that principle is just as true today. Yet we can so easily seek those things, and the worldly associations through which they can apparently be acquired... Yet humility is of the essence, and this comes from being forced to trust in God alone.


day_number: 13/05
text:
Paul preached 'boldly' (:31), but he had asked others to pray for him, that he would preach boldly (Eph. 6::19). We all find it hard to be bold in witness; Paul even asked others to pray for him, that he would be more bold; and the inspired record shows us that these prayers were heard, and Paul's desire was granted. We probably need to pray for the same boldness.


day_number: 14/05
text:
Dt. 31:6 "He will not fail you nor forsake you" is specifically applied to each of us in Heb. 13:5, in the context of appealing for us not to be covetous, worrying, as it were, how we are to cope on our journey into the Kingdom.


day_number: 14/05
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
"The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin" (Is. 3:9). God's intense awareness of and sensitivity to human behaviour extends even to His noticing of their body language (see too :16). Out of all the many things for which He could have condemned His people, He focuses on pride. Pride is simply so extremely abhorrent to God.


day_number: 14/05
text:
The stabilizing element in our lives is "the hope of the Gospel", that we will live for ever in God's coming Kingdom on earth. We must not only not deviate in understanding, but continue positively believing that we will really be there (:23). This continuing in faith in the certainty of future salvation is what will 'ground and settle' us.


day_number: 15/05
text:
According to Dt. 32:10, God keeps His people "As the apple of His eye"- one of the most sensitive spots on the body. Anyone who even comes near God's people stimulates a natural response from God, so sensitive is He to our pain in this life.


day_number: 15/05
text:
God has done absolutely everything possible so that we His vineyard bring forth fruit. We need to remember this when we complain that if only this or that situation would be different in my life, then I could bring forth far more fruit to God. Jesus based His parable of the vineyard on this song (Mt. 21:33-41). But He concludes it rather differently. Instead of the vineyard being destroyed, the workers (the Jews) are destroyed in judgment and the vineyard is given to other workers (the body of Christ). But the same fruit is required of us as it was from them- justice and righteousness towards others (:7). In these very two things, we exalt God if we exalt the lowly by giving them justice (:16).


day_number: 15/05
text:
It may 'feel good' to obey legalistic rituals, but this will not help us in our battle against self-indulgence (Col. 2:23).


day_number: 16/05
chapter_number_to: 34
text:
Is. 63:14 says that the Spirit [the Angel] caused Moses to rest as a man leads his animal to water in a valley. The way the Angel buried Moses is very touching. "According to the word of Yahweh" (Dt. 34:5) can bear the translation "By the kiss of  Yahweh", as if the Angel with whom Moses was used to speaking face to face, as a man speaks with his friend, kissed him and as it were reversed the kiss of life, took his breath / spirit away, and laid him down to rest there on the mountain, then carried the body down to the valley and buried him there, to rest until the resurrection. The softness, respect and gentleness of God with His beloved in their time of dying comes over very strongly here.


day_number: 16/05
text:
Isaiah realized his unworthiness: "Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips". He felt he was going to be condemned. But then out of the same vision, the Angel comforted him: "Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged". And then immediately he offered to go on a preaching mission to Israel, motivated by his own experience of forgiveness and with therefore an appropriate humility: "Here am I, send me" (Is. 6:5-8). This incident is full of allusion to the sending of an equally hesitant Moses. Our qualification for being used by God is simply that we are convicted of our sin, and the receipt of His grace.


day_number: 16/05
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
It's very gracious of Jesus to accept our service to our worldly employer as service to Him (Col. 3:23). This empowers us to no longer be crushed by the monotony of our daily work- it can now have meaning and be consciously done for Jesus. This must've been especial comfort to slaves in the first century.


day_number: 17/05
text:
Joshua is assured in Josh. 1:5 "I will not fail you nor forsake you". And we may boldly say that we will not be fearful, as Joshua was, because God has addressed to us the very words which He did to Joshua: "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5,6). In this especially, Joshua is our example.


day_number: 17/05
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Converts tend to imitate the person who converted them (1 Thess. 1:5,6). We therefore have to watch who we are, for the sake of others who will hear us preach. This isn't a call to hypocrisy; rather to being aware that who we are really does affect who others become, and so we should watch who we are for others' sakes.


day_number: 18/05
text:
When Rahab says that she was aware that God had "given you the land" (2:9), she uses the same two Hebrew words used repeatedly in Deuteronomy regarding God's promise to give Israel the land of the Canaanites. "The fear of you is fallen upon us" is likewise an allusion to Ex. 15:16; 23:27 [the same Hebrew word is used by Rahab]. Rahab speaks of how her people are "melting" in fear- quoting Ex. 15:15 about how the inhabitants of Canaan would "melt" because of Israel. Knowing all this, she has the ambition to request the impossible- that she would be the exception, that with her a covenant would be made. When she says that "we have heard" about the Exodus (:10), she may be referring to the prophecy of Ex. 15:14: "The people shall hear and be afraid". In this case, her emphasis would have been upon the word "have"- 'yes, we have heard indeed, as Moses sung, and yes, we are afraid'. Spiritual ambition of the type Rahab had lifts us far above the mire of mediocrity which there is in all human life under the sun.


day_number: 18/05
text:
"I and the children whom Yahweh has given me" applies not only to Isaiah's natural children but to his "disciples" who formed a school of prophets who also preached God's word to Judah (:16). Yet this is quoted in Heb. 2:13 as a proof that Christ was of the same nature as us. We are therefore invited to see Isaiah here as a type of Christ, and us as that small group of supporters who assisted him in teaching God's word to a generally unresponsive people. We too are to be people of sign to those around us.


day_number: 18/05
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
We are 'before God' when we pray to God, and in our lives generally (1 Thess. 3:9). Yet Paul uses the same phrase in :13 to describe how we will come 'before God' at the day of judgment. In prayer, and in our lives, we should try to live as if we are before God at judgment. In our daily lives, let's not isolate ourselves from that ultimate reality. Prayer especially is a foretaste of judgment day.


day_number: 19/05
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
There is a much repeated characteristic of God's servants: that they 'rose up early in the morning' and did God's work. In each of the following passages, this phrase is clearly not an idiom; rather does it have an evidently literal meaning: Abraham (Gen. 19:27; 21:14; 22:3); Jacob (Gen. 28:18); Job (1:5); Moses (Ex. 8:20; 9:13; 24:4; 34:4); Joshua (Josh. 3:1; 6:12; 7:16; 8:10); Gideon (Jud. 6:38; 7:1); Samuel (1 Sam. 15:12); David (1 Sam. 17:20; 29:11); Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:35; 2 Chron. 29:20). This is quite an impressive list, numerically. I 'm not suggesting that zeal for God is reflected by rising early rather than staying up late; but it wouldn't be too much to suggest that if we are men of mission, we won't waste our hours in bed. Get up when you wake up.


day_number: 19/05
text:
Is. 9:2 is quoted in Mt. 4:13-16 about how Jesus began His ministry in the areas of northern Israel which were most despised by devout Jews for being associated with Gentiles. God loves working in this way- firstly revealing Himself to those despised by others.


day_number: 19/05
text:
We should not be asleep when the Lord returns (1 Thess. 5:6)- but the parable of Mt. 25:1-13 suggests that even the "wise virgins" will be asleep when Christ comes. Even the faithful won't be spiritually alert when the Lord returns, we shall be saved by grace alone. We really must be aware of our spiritual frailty.


day_number: 20/05
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
Everything about the battle plan was somehow humanly foolish- to yet again attempt to teach Israel, old and new, that victory comes from following God's way, and His way is humanly foolish. The warriors were circumcised before the battle (Josh. 5:2). We know from the Biblical record of Shechem how this would've physically weakened the men- for this was only a week or so before the battle. The manna wasn't phased out- it stopped abruptly just before the battle of Jericho (Josh. 5:12). The people would likely have been short of food, and would've been dealing with the problems associated with a new diet- after 40 years! Walking around the city seven times, starting at dawn, would've made the people tired. There was no advantage of shock or surprise by doing this. Planning the final assault for late afternoon was hardly smart either- humanly speaking! But all this was- and is- to teach God's people that victory His way involves shedding our human strength, just as Gideon was likewise taught so dramatically.


day_number: 20/05
text:
Unbelieving people and entire nations can be controlled by God to do His purpose, but their hearts are far from consciously realizing the role they are playing. Assyria was used by God to punish various Gentile nations and also Judah to some extent, but when he went too far and thought he would destroy the Jerusalem temple because Yahweh was merely another idol who couldn't withstand his strength (:11-13)- then God punished him. Truly all things are for our sakes as God's people (2 Cor. 4:15), and God even watches and disciplines those unbelievers who play a role in our lives if they intend to go further than what God has intended. His level of involvement in human life is awesome. We need to remember this in those times when we may feel God to be distant and uninvolved.


day_number: 20/05
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
If we desire to speak and do the right things, God will confirm us in this; just as He confirms those who don't love the truth in the way of untruth (2 Thess. 2:10,11,17). There is both a downward and upward spiral in spiritual life; we can't just opt out, we are on a journey either to eternal life or eternal death, and God is propelling us on the way we choose.


day_number: 21/05
text:
A condemned man having hidden God's money in the ground (Josh. 7:21) is clearly the basis of Christ's parable about the man who was given one talent, who hid it in the ground and did nothing with it (Mt. 25:25). But in the parable, the man didn't steal it; he was given it by Jesus, but didn't do anything with it. The connection is to perhaps teach us that passively doing nothing with God's wealth is the same as actively stealing it from Him; the sin of omission is just as bad as that of commission.


day_number: 21/05
text:
The descriptions of how Christ in His life and future Kingdom would bring justice to the poor (Is. 11:4) is set within the context of Isaiah's repeated condemnation of Judah for not doing justice to the poor (3:14; 10:2). He would be an embodiment of all that God's people ought to have been; had they followed God's commandments, they could have been His Kingdom on earth. But they failed, as we do. Therefore Christ is presented as the essence of God's Kingdom, it's even one of His titles (Lk. 17:21). If we want to understand what the Kingdom of God will essentially be like, we must look at the character of Christ. If that's not what we wish to be in ourselves 24/7, there will be no point in our being in His Kingdom. But if we long to be like that, and for the whole world to be as Him, then the coming Kingdom of God is truly good news for us.


day_number: 21/05
text:
Sometimes it's better not to do something which we could legitimately do, because of the bad example it may set, and because it may be misunderstood and misused by others who are weaker (:9).


day_number: 22/05
text:
God told Israel to totally destroy the spoil from the cities they attacked. But when they failed to do this with Jericho, God told them that with Ai, the next city on the agenda, they were allowed to keep the spoil; even though Dt. 20:14-16 said that this was how they should treat their distant enemies, but not cities like Ai which were part of their inheritance. This was an undoubted concession to human weakness. The same concession to human weakness applied to other cities apart from Ai; it became a general policy that Israelites took all the spoil of the Canaanite cities for themselves; and yet following straight on from this we are told that Joshua "left nothing undone of all that Yahweh commanded Moses" (Josh. 11:14,15). God accepted those concessions to human weakness, this living on a lower level, as total obedience. The grace of all this is marvellous.


day_number: 22/05
text:
God Himself personally, perhaps manifested through His Son but perhaps in person, will ultimately dwell literally in Jerusalem (Is. 12:6). And we shall see His face, and He shall wipe all tears from our eyes. This is a wonderful light at the end of the tunnel.


day_number: 22/05
chapter_number_to: 3
text:
Paul, now nearing the end of his life, considers himself the world's worst sinner (1:15). Previously he had thought of himself as the least apostle (1 Cor. 15:9), then as the least of all the believers (Eph. 3:8). As Paul grew spiritually, he became more aware of both the extent of his own sinfulness, and of the certainty of his salvation. We should be following this pattern.


day_number: 23/05
text:
One gets the sense that the Gibeonites' deception was somehow guessed by the elders of Israel, but against their better judgment they disregarded the tell-tale signs. We all have a tendency to go against our better judgment.


day_number: 23/05
text:
In the restored Kingdom of God, Is. 13:12 says that "I will make people more valuable than fine gold".  The value and meaning of persons will be the principle which is to be enforced upon this earth by the destruction of all those systems which mean otherwise. We are to live that life now. People are worth more than money.


day_number: 23/05
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
All our sins and good works will be openly revealed at the day of judgment in front of everyone (5:24,25); so we shouldn't be hypocritical in this life, nor should we grieve that our good works aren't noticed or valued. For the day shall come when they will be.


day_number: 24/05
text:
It was due to Joshua's faithfulness to the Gibeonites that this great battle and victory occurred. We see how God worked through the Gibeonites' deception and Israel's unwisdom- to bring about a situation whereby His people could take possession of the Kingdom. He does things like this all the time; rather than turning away from human failure in disgust, He works through it; just as we should when confronted by it in ourselves and in others.


day_number: 24/05
text:
Prophesying like this against a city like Babylon would've been as bizarre as declaring that the world's great cities such as London, Moscow or New York will soon become deserted wasteland because God is angry with their pride (:19). Isaiah's faith, and that of his hearers, would've been sorely tested in preaching and believing this message; just as our proclamation of Christ's return is a challenge to our faith when we consider its' real implications for our current world.


day_number: 24/05
text:
Paul didn't advocate the demise of slavery, even though it was an unChristian institution. He accepted some things are as they are in this world, and taught us to live within those limitations but in a spiritual manner. This principle applies to many situations and aspects of modern society.


day_number: 25/05
text:
Josh. 11:9 made no human sense, to destroy the latest military technology which had fallen into their hands. But this is the way of faith.


day_number: 25/05
text:
"My heart cries out for Moab!" (Is. 15:5). Isaiah was emotionally caught up in his message. Having prophesied how Moab, the enemy of his people, would weep and cry out, Isaiah starts crying for them. Like God, he had no joy in the death or judgment of his enemies. He grieved at any person who turns against God, even if they were his personal enemy. The message of Christ's return is also a message of judgment on this earth, and we must ask ourselves whether we have ever cried tears for the lost?


day_number: 25/05
text:
2 Tim. 1:15 laments how all in Asia turned away from Paul. However, it's clear from the letters of Rev. 2 and 3 [which were written later] that there were some in Asia who remained faithful to the Lord. Believers at times misjudge others and reject them, which is very painful for those rejected; but those believers may still be acceptable to their Lord. Seeing Paul's work had led to the conversion of most of those in Asia, their being poisoned against him must've been so painful.


day_number: 26/05
text:
The conquests of Joshua-Jesus were extensive. Yet when Israel took the land, they settled just in the fertile areas and let the Canaanites live in those infertile areas, rather than completely destroy them (Jud. 1:34). We too can as it were take possession of those parts of the Kingdom life which are convenient to us, rather than in the spirit of Jesus-Joshua take full possession


day_number: 26/05
text:
Prayer is likened in Is. 16:12 to a struggle, as in Hos. 12:4. It's not a mindless uttering of familiar words and phrases, but real, focused engagement with the mind and heart of God.


day_number: 26/05
text:
The images of a soldier at war and a training athlete show the intensity expected of us in the Lord's service. It can never be a mere hobby, culture or inherited tradition.


day_number: 27/05
text:
Joshua, like Jesus, had won all the battles; but God's people failed to go and possess what could so easily have been theirs. Defining what exactly hadn't been possessed was a good idea psychologically; it also helps us if we set ourselves specific spiritual objectives, no matter how limited, so that we can tackle them.


day_number: 27/05
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
The intention of all God's judgments is that some will repent, drop their pride and come to identify with Him and His people. His judgments aren't therefore the outpouring of the uncontrolled anger of an irritated deity, but they are spiritually constructive in their ultimate intent. We see this too in the smaller experience we have of Divine judgment for our sins in this life.


day_number: 27/05
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
2 Tim. 3:15 shows the importance of the Bible- if we believe God's word, we find there the wisdom which leads to salvation. Attention to the Bible is therefore vital for every true Christian, and we ought to be reading the Bible daily. God breathed His word into the Bible writers, so that what they wrote wasn't merely the word of men, but was God speaking through them. This is what makes the Bible unique amongst books; God's word is all we need to prepare us to every good work (v. 17). We need no other books or revelations, as the Bible is enough to completely equip us (v. 17).


day_number: 28/05
text:
From Josh. 14:12-14 we learn that on one level, we can quite rightly ask for material blessing, and the Father is pleased that we should. But there is a higher level we can live on, where requesting physical blessings doesn't figure so largely. We can be like Caleb, who conquered Hebron (his part in the Kingdom) for himself and then gave it to others. In any case, Hebron became a priestly city for the Levites to live in. He gave his place in the Kingdom to others, reflecting the grace he had received- that was the level of love this great man reached. Moses reached a similar height of loving devotion to God's people in Ex. 32:32-34.


day_number: 28/05
text:
Is. 19:3-13 speaks of how Egyptian wisdom is in fact foolish, and will be declared as such in Egypt's final judgment; and how God will thereby destroy the wisdom of this world, for Egypt is a symbol of the world. Paul alludes here in 1 Cor. 1:19,20, where he speaks of just the same principles; that God will bring down the wisdom of this world, and that worldly wisdom is foolishness with Him (as in Rom. 1:22). What the world will learn only when it's too late, we are to learn now. This is not an appeal to any spirit of anti-intellectualism in itself, but rather the simple teaching that what is worldly wise and smart is foolishness with God; and acts and attitudes of faith which may appear foolish in the eyes of the world, are in fact the true wisdom.


day_number: 28/05
text:
Justification by grace is a major New Testament theme. We are counted as righteous, even though we are not of ourselves, by God's pure grace; and thus we are waiting to inherit eternal life- which we will receive when Jesus returns. The fact we are saved as a pure free gift, and not by our works, should actually be a motivation to do good works (Tit. 3:7,8).


day_number: 29/05
text:
Joshua had taken Hebron (Josh. 10:36) but Israel had not followed up his victory, and the Philistines had returned; and so Caleb then took it (Josh. 15:13). Joshua / Jesus has won great victories for us against every barrier which might stop us entering the Kingdom- but we have to do our part in making good that victory.


day_number: 29/05
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
What would have been pleasure for Isaiah- that the great enemy of His people was to be judged- became awful for him as he realized the tragic human destruction it involved (Is. 21:4). Strangely, he achieved identity with Belshazzar king of Babylon, who likewise had his evening of pleasure broken up by fear (:5). Unconsciously, we too can achieve identity with the objects of our witness if we have a true heart for people as Isaiah did.


day_number: 29/05
text:
Paul saw those he converted to Christ as his spiritual children. Onesimus was a runaway slave who had ended in prison in Rome; and yet Paul converted his fellow prisoner. It happened that Onesimus's master, Philemon, had also been converted by Paul (v. 19). And so now Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon, persuading Philemon to have mercy upon him. We may feel imprisoned by situations, but we can still reach out to others who are also imprisoned within them, and lead them to Christ.


day_number: 30/05
text:
In Josh. 16:9 God redefined the boundaries of the land in accordance with what Israel had the strength to subdue; He made account for their weakness as He does for us. Thus Ephraim were given some cities within the inheritance of Manasseh, presumably because Manasseh wouldn't drive out the tribes living there. And the Lord Jesus seems to have alluded to this by saying that we will be given cities, the number of which depends upon our zeal to possess them. God had clearly promised that He would expel the tribes and "You shall possess their land" (Josh. 23:5). But this promise was conditional upon them making the effort, even though that condition is not specifically mentioned. Ultimately, God will "enlarge all the borders of the land" (Is. 26:15 RV) because Israel will finally rise up to the spiritual ambition He desires of them.


day_number: 30/05
text:
Is. 22:13 "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die" is quoted by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:32 as the attitude we may as well have if we have no hope of resurrection to eternal life. Exactly because we will not die eternally, we are to not live merely for today, like the Jews in Isaiah's time, shrugging at the prospect of future judgment. Paul is saying that he for one would live like that if he had no hope of eternity. Our belief in future salvation has profound effect upon our lives today.


day_number: 30/05
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
The humanity of Jesus is reflected in the way that He had to put His faith in God (Heb. 2:13). This solidarity between Jesus and us is fundamental. 2:14 "He also himself in like manner partook of the same" nature is saying the same thing five times over. It is a colossal emphasis. He can exactly empathize with our feelings today.


day_number: 31/05
text:
One reason why Israel failed to drive out the tribes, and thereby lost the Kingdom, was simply because they wanted to take tribute from them. Ez. 7:19 defines "silver and gold" as Israel's stumbling block- moreso than idols. Wealth and the easy life have been the most common form of spiritual destruction in the history of God's people.


day_number: 31/05
text:
God's prophesied 70 year silencing of Tyre was perhaps to encourage Judah to believe that the prophecies of their 70 year captivity in Babylon and subsequent revival would likewise be fulfilled (Jer. 25:12; 29:10). God may make situations occur in the unbelieving world around us which parallel our own, in order that we may be encouraged that His word will come true in our lives and that His principles will be upheld in the end.


day_number: 31/05
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
Hard heartedness is a spiritual disease we must avoid. Numbness of conscience, of feeling to and for others, indifference to God, existing rather than living life as God intended... this must be replaced by a softness of heart, a sensitive conscience, a gentleness (Heb. 3:8).


day_number: 01/06
text:
When Joshua told the spies "Go walk through the land..." (Josh. 18:8), they ought to have perceived that he was asking them to walk in the faith of Abraham- to believe that this land truly had been promised to them, as his seed. God sometimes sets us up in situations in which we are intended to perceive the similarity with some incident in Biblical history, and to thereby be encouraged to act appropriately and in faith. For this to 'work' it requires a sensitive familiarity with Scripture; hence the advisability of daily Bible reading.


day_number: 01/06
text:
Isaiah's sorrow to the extent of wanting to pine away is purposefully juxtaposed alongside the reference to the fact that there would be a righteous remnant out of all the destruction (Is. 24:16). This is to show how pained he was at the fact that so many would be lost. We noted his extreme compassion for those who left or never knew God's ways. The tragedy of the lost must be felt by us.


day_number: 01/06
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
"Fled for refuge" (Heb. 6:18) is an allusion to the way in which under the Law of Moses, if you accidentally killed someone [thereby committing a sin worthy of death, but not willingly], you could flee to a city of refuge, and remain there until the death of the High Priest; you would be safe in that city, and pronounced free when the High Priest died (Num. 35:24-32). We are in such a situation; the city of refuge and High Priest we have is Christ.


day_number: 02/06
text:
Josh. 19:50 is an example of spiritual ambition. Note the huge breadth in attitude amongst the children of God at this time; some were so indifferent to their inheritance that they gave it to other tribes or never even went there to try to possess it; others took their inheritance and had the initiative to ask for more land. This breadth in commitment levels within the people of God can be very discouraging, but thus it has always been. Joshua and Caleb must have found the negative, faithless attitude of the others hard to live with, but they didn't let it take away from their own zeal for God.


day_number: 02/06
text:
Is. 25:9 describes our feelings after Christ has returned, and we stand immortalized before His judgment seat. Our faith in God's final, visible intervention on this earth and in our own lives will have finally come to realization.


day_number: 02/06
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
Heb. 8:9 "Took them by the hand" is a picture of a loving Father taking the hand of a child to lead them. This is how gentle God was in leading His people out of Egypt and through the Red Sea- events which represent our exit from this world's ways and passing through the water of baptism (1 Cor. 10:1). He will be that gentle with us today.


day_number: 03/06
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
We read in Josh. 21:44 that "Not a man of all their enemies stood before them". But their enemies did stand before them, they didn't possess all the land. Yet God puts it over so positively, as if it's a story with a happy ending- when actually it's a tragedy. Even when rebuking them, God sees Israel as in some ways perfect (Num. 23:21; Is. 42:18-20). We stand related to the same grace, and should reflect it in being positive and gracious in our view of our brethren.


day_number: 03/06
chapter_number_to: 27
text:
Is. 26:10 seems to be saying that it would be pointless to allow wicked people into God's Kingdom because even there they would not wish to be righteous. If we wish above all things to be eternally righteous, then the Kingdom of God will be for us.


day_number: 03/06
text:
The point is frequently made that Jesus now sits at the right hand of God, whereas the Mosaic priests stood as they did their work (:11,12). However, in Acts 7:55, Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, interceding for him. This shows that even now in His Heavenly glory, Jesus has passion and emotion; He so feels for us as we suffer on earth that at times He stands up in order to plead more powerfully for us.


day_number: 04/06
text:
Their words in Josh. 22:18 "Since you rebel today against Yahweh" were hypocritical, for the prophets repeatedly declare that Israel as a whole were persistently rebellious against Yahweh from the day that He had entered covenant with them at Sinai (Dt. 31:27; Ps. 78:8; Is. 63:10; 65:2; Ez. 2:3; 20:8). They were still themselves worshipping idols (24:14). Such hypocrisy is understandable in psychological terms; on a subconscious level, sinners know they have sinned and rebelled against God, and so they transfer this on to others and eagerly give them punishment for it. By facing up fully to our sins, repenting and accepting as just whatever judgment God gives us, we are saved from this tendency. We will not be hypocrites.


day_number: 04/06
text:
"Therefore the word of Yahweh will be to them precept after precept... line on line" (Is. 28:13) is declared as a judgment upon Judah, with the result that it would make them fall. Israel throughout their Biblical history always claimed to be believers in Yahweh and to be obedient to His word; their sin was in that they additionally did other things and worshipped other gods which were quite contrary to God's word. The problem was in their attitude to the word of God, which they claimed to study and be aware of. They saw it as merely a series of disjointed, unrelated commands; they didn't perceive the overall spirit behind it. Our Bible reading can be the same, indeed it is often like this for unbelievers who start reading the Bible for the first time. This is why we must pray for God to guide and assist our Bible reading so that we make the connections and join the dots, until we hear the voice of God Himself speaking to us through those lines and precepts.


day_number: 04/06
text:
When Sarah first heard that she would have a child, she laughed in disbelief (Gen. 18:12). So her "faith" of which we read in this chapter (:11) wasn't simple nor automatic, it had to be developed. And today is another chance to develop faith, no matter how weak were our beginnings.


day_number: 05/06
chapter_number_to: 24
text:
A reflection on Josh. 24:10 is that Balaam, in his heart, didn't want to bless Israel; he wanted to curse them so he could get his hands on the riches Balak promised him if he did so (Num. 22,23). Balaam knew if God had told him to bless Israel, there was no way of changing things. But God here says that He refused to hear Balaam's prayer to curse Israel. It seems that Yahweh read Balaam's latent, unexpressed desires as prayer to Him. When we are too weak or sick to pray, God still reads our situations as prayer, even if unexpressed in so many words.


day_number: 05/06
text:
It was understood that each city had its god, who was supposed to protect it from invaders. But here the God of Israel says that He Himself will camp with Jerusalem's enemies (Is. 29:3), and enable and support their campaign against His own people. This was more radical a concept of God at that time than we can likely realize. Yet it's all very hard for us to understand that the God of all grace can allow and bring about the most awful suffering in the lives of His children- with the aim of developing us even through our weaknesses so that we shall enter His Kingdom.


day_number: 05/06
text:
The faithful listed in chapter 11 are as it were a great crowd who are cheering us on as we run our race towards the Kingdom (12:1). God's word in history comes alive for us each day.


day_number: 06/06
text:
After the leadership of Moses, there came that of Joshua. When he died, Israel expected that another such leader would be raised up. They expected a single man to be named. But instead, they were told that the whole tribe of Judah must go up. The reality would have sunk home- no more charismatic leaders, now the ordinary people must take responsibility. The same is true in our generation.


day_number: 06/06
text:
Is. 30:9 laments that they were "lying children". Yet when He brought them out of Egypt, God had been certain that "Surely they are My people, children that will not lie: so He was their saviour" (63:8). The God who can know the end from the beginning was so in love with His people, as He is with us, that He felt the very best about them. Hence the bitter disappointment when those positive hopes were dashed by their fickleness. God has great hopes for each of us.


day_number: 06/06
text:
Abraham was unaware that the strangers he entertained were Angels (Gen. 18:1-16). It's possible that we may meet Angels today in the form of people who appear as ordinary humans.


day_number: 07/06
chapter_number_to: 3
text:
There are seven weak things which are mentioned in Judges as being the tools of God's salvation: a left handed man; an ox goad (3:31); a woman (4:4); a nail (4:21); a piece of a millstone (9:53); a pitcher and trumpet (7:20), a jaw bone of an ass (15:16). God delights to work through the weak; indeed, only if we perceive our own weakness can God work through us.


day_number: 07/06
text:
Is. 31:7 means that at the time of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time (which is the context of the chapter), the people were still worshipping idols. Yet Hezekiah had supposedly purged Judah of idols. This shows that true faith is sometimes only found in a minority of God's people; they may go along with the guidance of faithful leadership externally, but even good leaders cannot reform the hearts of individuals. It also shows how the Angelic deliverance of Jerusalem was due to the prayers and faith of a very small remnant, centred around Isaiah and Hezekiah.


day_number: 07/06
text:
We who read the Bible can delude ourselves that this very process will save us; but unless there is a direct connection between our Bible reading and concrete action, it will not help us at all. True Bible reading as God intends will elicit self-examination and an abiding awareness of our true spiritual state (1:22,24). If it doesn't, then we are actually deceiving ourselves by the process of Bible reading into thinking we are religious when actually we are vain (:26).


day_number: 08/06
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
According to Jud. 5:14, Barak's victorious warriors were civil servants and writers, not military men; in the same way as God used goldsmiths and traders to do the work of builders and engineers to rebuild Jerusalem's walls at the time of Ezra. God often uses those not suited to a particular job to do it, because the victory must always be of Him and not of human ability.


day_number: 08/06
text:
The threatened judgments against "the city" (Is. 32:14.19) presumably refers to Jerusalem. It seems that on one hand, it was God's intention to allow the Assyrians to destroy Jerusalem as well as Judah, and yet He saved it for the sake of the faithful minority who were there, based around Isaiah and Hezekiah. God is so sensitive to His people that He is willing to change His stated purpose if He hears powerful prayer and sees genuine spirituality amongst even a minority.


day_number: 08/06
text:
The Christians whom James was writing to were being abused by those richer than them; and they were taking out their hurt on those who were poorer than them (2:6). This is a psychological classic; but in Christ we are to break the cycle of abuse by not taking out our hurt on those over whom we in our turn have some advantage and human superiority.


day_number: 09/06
text:
Gideon's constant need for Divine reassurance indicates he wasn't so brave; but in Jud. 6:12 God addressed him according to his spiritual potential: "You mighty man of valour". He does the same with us, hence the challenges He sometimes gives us which appear far beyond what we feel capable of.


day_number: 09/06
text:
Is. 33:11 "Your breath is a fire that will devour you" repeats a common theme, that the rejected are those who condemn and destroy themselves, often by their own words ("breath").


day_number: 09/06
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
We should therefore unashamedly say "God willing" when talking about our plans, no matter if others look at us strangely (4:15).


day_number: 10/06
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
They attacked when "They had but newly set the watch". This was humanly speaking the worst time to attack, when the guards were fresh and alert. Likewise going in to battle cumbered with pitchers and trumpets rather than weaponry was a sign of trusting in God for victory rather than human strength. God's battle plans often specifically require us to attain victory in a way which is foolish and weak in human terms.


day_number: 10/06
text:
God had called the nations to attack and destroy Judah because of her sins, and yet now He takes vengeance for Zion (as in 35:4) as if she has been unfairly treated, and those nations require punishment for what they did. The final algorithm of God's justice is far beyond our total comprehension, but perhaps we are to perceive in this the passionate love God has for His sinful people- in that He so loved them that even when they were justly punished, He punished those by whom they were punished with great fury. This was in a sense just because they were also sinners. But whoever touches God's people, even when they are in rebellion against Him, has touched Him at a highly sensitive spot. In these things we see the depth of God's love for us, and how He counts us as His very own, and feels to us that way, even when we are in rebellion against Him.


day_number: 10/06
text:
The prayers and spiritual efforts of a third party really can lead to a believer's forgiveness and salvation-  although see 1 Jn. 5:16,17. If our prayers and efforts for others can have such eternal consequence- we should, like Paul, be praying for our brethren all the time (:15,20).


day_number: 11/06
text:
God is capable of sending a spirit of disunity between people, (Jud. 9:23) as He did to Egypt (Is. 19:1,2,14). God created the division between Israel and Judah as a punishment for their apostasy. Whilst division between people is a work of the flesh, it's also true that God confirms people in the divisions they wish to have, and He does this as a punishment. There are times when people who have an existing disagreement encounter situations which involve genuine misunderstanding and unfortunate coincidence of circumstances which confirm their division yet further; and this 'extra' factor in their relationship breakdown is sent by God. In this sense stubborn hearts are also sent from God (Ps. 81:13); God can work positively and negatively directly upon the human heart. Likewise God confirms a desire for unity amongst His people.


day_number: 11/06
text:
Is. 35:10 is clearly a prophecy of God's future Kingdom on earth when Christ returns. Our joy will be "everlasting", whereas all joy in this life is tinged by the sense that it shall come to an end, the emotion has to subside, with the prospect of death ever before us. The joy we will then have shall have no fading away from a crescendo back into normality, but will have this 'eternal' aspect to it.


day_number: 11/06
text:
The hard experiences of life are like fire applied to us, purging out the dross, and making our dirty piece of rock turn into pure gold (1:7). It's hard to imagine, but we will be "praised" by Jesus at the last day- just as He enthusiastically commends the faithful for the good things they did which they had forgotten (Mt. 25:36,37). This is how positively Jesus views us.


day_number: 12/06
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
Jud. 10:13 says: "I will save you no more". But they begged Him, and He did. Likewise in Hosea, He said He would love them no more, but just couldn't bring Himself to do it (Hos. 9:15; 14:4). These aren't contradictions, but rather a window onto the passion and emotion of God; how His love is greater than His anger with sin. And this God is our God.


day_number: 12/06
text:
Is. 36:16,17 is a parody of Micah's prophecy of what God's future Kingdom on earth would be like (Mic. 4:4). The allusion is so strong that it would seem Rabshakeh knew that prophecy, confirming the suggestion made under :10 that he was an apostate Jew. The kingdoms of this world offer us a fake kingdom of God in this life- if we submit to them and reject the vision of God's Kingdom. Going the way of the world may appear to give all that God's Kingdom offers- but the kingdoms of men shall come to an end, all is not what it seems, they will not last eternally as God's Kingdom will; and it is for us to have the wisdom to see that we face a choice between the Kingdom of God, and the kingdoms of men which are a poor imitation of it.


day_number: 12/06
text:
1 Pet. 2:21 implies that the cross and sufferings of Christ are therefore not just something to be admired from a distance as we may admire a picture or be intrigued by distant history. He there is our very real pattern and inspiration in daily life.


day_number: 13/06
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
The record of Samson and his parents has a large number of situations where he was connected into the experience of those who had gone before; they were intended to learn the lessons, as we are to turn God's word into flesh, making the historical accounts have practical relevance to life today. Consider: Manoah's desire to detain the Angel (cp. Gen. 18:5). Manoah's desire to detain the Angel and offer sacrifice was exactly that of Gideon (6:18). His belief after he had seen the Angel ascend (13:20 = 6:21), and his subsequent fear, were again expressed in the words of Gideon (13:21,22 cp. 6:22). As Gideon was, perhaps subconsciously, the hero of Manoah, so Samson followed his father's spirituality in this (see on 14:1; 15:4). It seems he lived out parental expectation, and imbibed the spirituality of his father without making it his own. Born and raised believers, beware. See on :24; 14:1,3; 15:4,15,19; 16:24,25.


day_number: 13/06
text:
Is. 37:20 "That all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are Yahweh" is a common reason given by faithful believers when begging God to hear their prayer. It should be most important to us to see His glory worked out through the answer to our requests, rather than merely personal benefit to us. This approach will also influence what we pray for, as well as how we pray for it.


day_number: 13/06
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
1 Pet. 3:6 says that Sarah called Abraham her "lord". But she is only recorded as calling Abraham her "Lord" when we are told that she thought this about him in her heart (Gen. 18:12). In fact she said this in disbelief in the promises of God- in her heart she initially thought God's promises of her and Abraham having a child couldn't come true because "my Lord" was so old and impotent (Rom. 4:19). However we see how both spirituality and unspirituality can exist within the heart of believers at the same time; and God here chose to focus upon the positive. His positivity about His children is an example to us, as well as a comfort.


day_number: 14/06
chapter_number_to: 15
text:
Why did Samson as a Nazirite go for a walk in vineyards, among the forbidden fruit? This was typical of him: a great zeal and understanding, mixed with a desire to walk as close to the edge as possible, and to ultimately have a little of both. He had a fascination with vineyards, which the record brings out. Like an ex-alcoholic staring at the bottles in the shop 'just out of interest', so Samson fooled about with what was forbidden- just as we all tend to. He later teased Delilah to tie him with seven "cords" (Jud. 16:7), the Hebrew word implying made from a vine. He just would mess with the forbidden. The way he burnt up those vineyards in Jud. 15:5 may have been as a result of realizing that the answer lay in total devotion and rooting out of temptation; cutting out the eye that offends.


day_number: 14/06
text:
In Is. 38:3 Hezekiah simply puts his situation before God, he doesn't actually specifically ask for healing. But God saw the essence of his heart, and read this as a prayer requesting healing and the extension of life. At times, typically during illness, we find it hard to verbalize prayer; and yet God sees to the core of our hearts, and understands what are really our heart's desires, and understands these as requests to Him.


day_number: 14/06
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
We get the impression from the Old Testament that Lot was spiritually weak; but we must be careful how we judge Bible characters because in 2 Pet. 2:7 we read that Lot was in fact righteous and although he was well involved in the life of Sodom, he was deeply grieved for their wickedness. He is a type of the faithful living in the world of the very last days (Lk. 17:28-32).


day_number: 15/06
text:
Heb. 11:34 says that that Samson was a man of outstanding faith- yet the record in Judges seems framed to paint Samson as a womanizer, a man who lacked self-control and who only came to God in times of dire personal need. But imagine if only the negative incidents in our own lives, over a period of 40 years, were recorded. Anyone reading it would conclude that we were hypocritical to claim to have any hope of salvation. In our self-examination, we sometimes see only this negative record; we fail to see that God has justified us, that in His record book, we are ranked among the faithful, as Samson was in Hebrews 11. Any reflection on Samson needs to bear this in mind. He seems to have lived the rest of his life full of faith and zeal- although this doesn't minimize the mistakes he made.


day_number: 15/06
text:
The Hezekiah story has a spiritually sad ending, with Hezekiah appearing selfishly content that he himself won't suffer too much for his prideful friendship with the world and indeed, with those who were God's especial enemies. We inevitably wonder whether in spiritual terms it wouldn't have been better for him to die when God first offered him the chance to, as it were. We need to consider relatively 'premature' deaths in this light; maybe they are a case of 'die young stay pretty' in spiritual terms. For it is far better to die in youth and rise again to live eternally, than live a 'long' human life only to in middle or older age turn away from faith and the hope of the Kingdom.


day_number: 15/06
text:
Remembering is a major theme of Peter's letters. It seems that his initial audience had heard the Gospel but were forgetting it; this problem is seen in the way Paul writes too. We need to regularly remind ourselves of the basic Gospel.


day_number: 16/06
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
In Jud. 17:10,11 Micah asked the young Levite, who was "unto him as one of his sons", to "be unto me a father and a priest" (note the paradox- the son is as a father), resulting in others likewise asking him to "be unto us a father and a priest" (Jud. 18:19). The point is, no matter how unqualified a person may be for the job, they may be pressed into being leaders because that's what nominally religious people so desperately need. There's a desire in most people for religious leadership rather than forging a direct relationship with God through personal response to His word and accepting His system of mediation between Him and us, which in our day is through His Son.


day_number: 16/06
text:
In the prospect of Christ's coming and our meeting with Him, those with a too low self esteem are lifted up, and the proud brought down to their level (Is. 40:4); so that between them, the prepared people of God are the road over which God's glory in Christ shall advance. "Made low" uses the same word as in 2:11, which predicts that in the day of judgment, the proud looks of man shall be humbled ['made low']".


day_number: 16/06
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Our "boldness" in the day of judgment (1 Jn. 2:28) is the same Greek word we find elsewhere about how we can be "bold" or confident, open, as we stand in the presence of God in prayer (Eph. 3:19; Heb. 4:16). Thus our attitude to the Father and Son in prayer today is the attitude we shall have to them when we stand before them at judgment day. This gives cause for much self-examination.


day_number: 17/06
text:
The splitting up of the body was done so that all who received the parts of that broken body would "consider" and be motivated in response. It was designed to elicit the declaration of their hearts, and above all to provoke to concrete action. Splitting up a body and sharing it with all Israel was clearly a type of the breaking of bread, where in symbol, the same happens. Consider some background, all of which points forward to the Lord's sufferings: The person whose body was divided up was from Bethlehem, and of the tribe of Judah (:1); They were 'slain' by permission of a priest; They were dragged to death by a wicked Jewish mob; They were "brought forth" to the people just as the Lord Jesus was to the crowd (:25); "Do... what seems good unto you" (:24) is very much Pilate language; A man sought to dissuade the crowd from their purpose- again, as Pilate. There should be a like effect upon us as we receive the emblems of the Lord's body- the inner thoughts of our hearts are elicited, and we are provoked to action.


day_number: 17/06
text:
Is. 41:22 says that God can "declare the former things". Not only is God's prediction of future events a sign of His supremacy as God, but we must consider too that He is the only ultimate historian; He alone can attach meaning to the events of history, interpreting in a way so unique that we are persuaded that surely, He alone is God. This is why so much of the Bible is in one sense history, and God's interpretation of it. This of itself ought to persuade us of Him and His word, quite apart from His predictions of future things.


day_number: 17/06
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Jesus' life wasn't taken from Him, but He "laid it down" (1 Jn. 3:16; Jn. 10:17). He gave His last breath as an act of the will, a consciously controlled outgiving of life rather than dying because men took His life from Him by murder. This intense level of self-giving is applied to us. When Jesus died for us in this way, we were far away in understanding, appreciation and spirituality. And so it will be with our fellow believers for whom we are to likewise die.


day_number: 18/06
text:
Both sides were in the wrong. But God as it were lead the idolatrous and hypocritical Israelites further down the downward spiral. We learn from this that division amongst God's people is in a sense sent from Him in the sense that He confirms divisive brethren in their position they wish to adopt, and even uses it to destroy communities which displease Him. Even with Gentile nations, His preferred manner of destroying their armies was to turn their swords against themselves.


day_number: 18/06
text:
Is. 42:4 "He will not fail nor be discouraged" is a prophecy of Jesus. He had so much to discourage Him, and yet it seems He never felt totally discouraged even once- because He looked at the short term ups and downs of His ministry from a Kingdom perspective, knowing that ultimately all would work out. We need to look at the down cycles of our own experience the same way.


day_number: 18/06
text:
The Bible teaches that we are mortal and don't consciously survive death. We "have eternal life" (:13) in the sense that from God's perspective He remembers us after our death and knows we will be immortalized at Christ's return. Further, insofar as we live the kind of life which we will eternally live in the Kingdom, we have and can live the eternal life right now.


day_number: 19/06
text:
From Jud. 21:5 we learn that  Israel made oaths before Yahweh which they didn't keep and yet God worked through their failure in order to preserve His people... we see here how God works through human self-righteousness, failure and hypocrisy, in order to do His work and save people. We likewise shouldn't totally turn away from those guilty of such things but try to patiently work through them still to God's glory.


day_number: 19/06
text:
Every single Jew in captivity was created potentially for God's glory. At the end of the 70 years captivity He did indeed command the Persian empire to allow the Jews to return; but the majority chose to stay where they were rather than return to the ruined, hard land of Judah- to glorify God. The frequent emphasis on how "each one" would be gathered (Is. 43:7) shows the colossal significance of the individual human person to God, and how He sees us as individuals rather than merely His people en masse.


day_number: 19/06
text:
Love isn't the passing emotion which the world calls love (2 Jn. 6). Love for God and each other involves keeping His commandments; it's not enough to just be vaguely attracted to the ethos of Christianity in a casual manner.


day_number: 20/06
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
We see from Ruth 2:14 that offering bread and wine was a sign of fellowship and acceptance. The fact we are invited to do this by the Lord Jesus is a sign that He eagerly accepts us and seeks fellowship with us.


day_number: 20/06
text:
God appeals for Israel to respond by pointing out that in prospect, He has already forgiven them. (Is. 44:22) This not only inspires our personal repentance, but can be the basis upon which we appeal to others to repent- that for the sake of Christ, God has forgiven them, but they need to claim that and identify with it. Isaiah urged the Jews to return to the land by saying that God had forgiven them, and on this basis He appealed for them to both 'repent' and 'return' to the land. The two terms are related. Thus He showed His grace; forgiveness preceded, not followed, repentance. As Paul put it, the goodness of God leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4). And we are asked to show that same "goodness" of God to others, being "kind [s.w. 'goodness'] one to another... forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you" (Eph. 4:32). We too are to show this grace of forgiveness-before-repentance; but perhaps in no other area has formalized, institutionalized Christianity failed worse. The Greek word translated "goodness" is rendered "gracious" in 1 Pet. 2:3- newly converted babes in Christ taste of this gracious goodness, and it leads to repentance.


day_number: 20/06
text:
Jude 15 shows that people are condemned because of their words- how we think and speak is of huge importance to Jesus (Mt. 12:37).


day_number: 21/06
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
A man had to redeem the property of a dead relative in some cases by marrying his late brother's wife; but this would have resulted in polygamy (Boaz surely had other wives), thus creating a situation whereby one principle had to be broken (in this case, of one man : one woman as ordained in Eden), in order to keep another principle (to raise up children in love to your deceased brother). God has made spiritual life not always so black and white- in order that our personal ethical debates, our prayerfulness and reflection upon God's word, will result in our taking whatever decisions we do from a good motivation, rather than out of mere submission to a law we have no understanding of.


day_number: 21/06
text:
Is. 45:20-24 is quoted in Phil. 2:9-11 in description of the believer's response to the suffering Saviour. And yet it is quoted again in Rom. 14:10-12 regarding our confession of sin before Christ at judgment day. The connections mean simply this: before the Lord's cross, we bow our knee and confess our failures, knowing the imputation of His righteousness, in anticipation of how we will bow before Him and give our miserable account at the judgment. And both processes are wonderfully natural. We must allow the power of a true faith in His cross to work out its own way in us. At the judgment, no flesh will glory in himself, but only in the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 1:29). And even now, we glory in His cross (Gal. 6:14).


day_number: 21/06
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Some had "lost their first love", Greek 'agape' (2:4). Their defence against false teachers and hard works (:2) had been done without agape love. If we lose love as our motivation, all defence of the faith and labour for Christ becomes meaningless and places Jesus "against" us (see 1 Cor. 13); we have "fallen" from the true faith.


day_number: 22/06
text:
After praying for a child, Hannah went her way "and her face wasn't sad any more" (1 Sam. 1:18) because she truly believed she would soon become pregnant. She's a great example to us of believing and feeling that what we have prayed for, we have actually received (Mk. 11:24).


day_number: 22/06
chapter_number_to: 47
text:
"I am and there is none else". We bear the Name of Yahweh, by reason of our baptism into it. His Name is declared as His character- merciful, truthful, judging sin, patient etc (Ex. 34:5-7). He who will be who He will be, manifesting His characteristics as He does so, must have His way in us too. Babylon and Nineveh were condemned for having the attitude that "I am, and there is none beside me" (Zeph. 2:15). Their self-perception was a parody on the Name and being of Yahweh: He alone can say "I am, and there is none else" (43:11; 44:6; 45:6,21) and seek to be who He is. He alone can seek to articulate the characteristics that make up His Name onto the lives of others, and onto the things that comprise His Kingdom. We are not to be who we are in a fleshly sense; to 'just be yourself'; to 'just do it', as foolish slogans and adverts encourage us. We are here to show forth His mercy, truth, judgment of sin, patient saving of the weak etc., not our own human agenda. We are to be Yahweh manifested to this world, through our participation in His Name in Christ.


day_number: 22/06
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
In the Kingdom, we will praise God and serve Him every single moment (4:8). Our service of Him in this life cannot be a mere occasional hobby; if we are seeking to eternally serve Him every moment, then this will be our desire in this life; and our life decisions relating to education, career and use of our personal time will reflect this.


day_number: 23/06
text:
God is unashamed about the fact that He can change His stated purposes about people in response to human behaviour (1 Sam.2:30); the fact God does this is simply an indication of the extent to which He is sensitive to our actions and decisions.


day_number: 23/06
text:
"Flee from the Chaldeans" (Is. 48:20). Judah were comfortable and prosperous in Babylon, as the conclusion to the book of Esther shows. Jews were senior in commerce and politics (as witness the book of Daniel). Yet they were to "flee" from this situation because of its huge spiritual danger. Generally they didn't perceive the spiritual danger of the world in which they lived, and most Jews remained in Babylon, to their spiritual destruction. We are given the same urgent invitation to flee latter day Babylon.


day_number: 23/06
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
If the scroll is the book of life, the seals represent what stood in the way of the book being opened. The book will be opened at Christ's return (20:12). They refer to various periods of history between the time John was given the vision and the return of Christ, and the events within them all have special relevance to God's people. They were opened on account of Christ's death. Thus He became the Lord of history; all history and world political events occur under His control and all play a part in bringing on the day when He shall return and open the book of life.


day_number: 24/06
text:
Eli did rebuke his sons; but in God's eyes he didn't (1 Sam. 3:13 cp.  2:24). He said words for the sake of saying words, but in his heart he didn't mean them. He honoured his sons above God, to make himself "fat with the best of all the offerings". The description of Eli as being fat surely reflects his guilt (1 Sam. 2:29; 4:18). And yet he appeared on the surface to run his family life on a spiritual footing. Eli is presented as a kindly old man who had a heart for God but was too soft on his children; but God's judgment of him is much harsher, teaching us the serious consequence of sins of omission, and of allowing abuse to continue when it is in our power to stop it. Because Eli wouldn't restrain the abuse, he was seen as committing those very things which he failed to rebuke. Likewise the man who wouldn't discipline his wayward ox was to be treated as if he had committed the crime the ox did, and therefore must die if the ox killed a man (Ex. 21:29).


day_number: 24/06
text:
2 Cor. 6:2 interprets the time of salvation and acceptance of Is. 49:8 as "now". The window of opportunity which there was for Judah to return from exile and inherit the restored Kingdom of God is "now"  in that we should likewise be appealing to men and women to quit this world of "Babylon" and journey towards God's Kingdom. The spiritual opportunities which there are "now" are amazing; but there is an urgency to our appeal in that the time of acceptance is "now" and the amazing opportunity must be grasped "now".


day_number: 24/06
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
The visual image of incense smoke ascending to Heaven and then fire and Angelic activity ensuing shows the power of prayer (8:5). The silent words of a man praying at a bus stop really reach Heaven itself, and call forth Angels running hither and thither, causing dramatic events on earth.


day_number: 25/06
text:
The record emphasizes Eli's love for the ark; even after the shock of hearing that his sons had been killed, it was only when he heard that the ark had been taken that he had a stroke and died (:18). Likewise his daughter in law died with mourning for the ark on her lips (:22). But this love of the external things of one's religion (see on :10) wasn't the same as true spirituality. For all Eli's love of the things associated with the true God, he was severely condemned for not having the glory of God and care for His people at heart (see on 3:13). It's not difficult to love the external trappings of our religion- the church hall, the social events, the regular activities, the general ambience. But this isn't the same as true spirituality.


day_number: 25/06
text:
"I gave... "I didn't hide my face... set my face like a flint" (Is. 50:6,7). The body language of Jesus as He endured His sufferings is worth trying to imagine. His spirit of self-sacrifice and willing suffering with and for us would've shone through it. Lk. 9:51,53 notes how He set His face to go to Jerusalem and die there, His determination and conscious self-dedication were visible in how His face was set. We are asked to carry His cross with the same devotion.


day_number: 25/06
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
In one sense the coming of Christ is delayed (10:6), just as the bridegroom delays in Mt. 25:5, because God is so passionate for as many people as possible to come to repentance and salvation (2 Pet. 3:9). In another sense we can hasten the coming of Christ by our spiritual development (2 Pet. 3:11,12) and spreading the Gospel worldwide (Mt. 24:14). But the apparent delay in Christ's return can lead His people to selfish behaviour (Mt. 24:48); and we must beware of this danger.


day_number: 26/06
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
The men of Beth-Shemesh were smitten because they looked into the ark, probably because they wanted to find more jewels which the Philistines might have placed there (1 Sam. 6:15). In the face and presence of the things of the supreme glory of Yahweh of Israel, they scavenged around in a spirit of petty materialism- just as men gambled for the clothes of Jesus at the foot of His cross; they trampled upon the supreme holiness of God in their crazed fascination with wealth. And people are doing this all around us.


day_number: 26/06
text:
In Is. 51:8 God's salvation is paralleled with His righteousness; He saves people by counting them as if they are righteous on account of their relationship with Him. In our times our baptism into Christ means that His righteousness is counted to us, and on this basis we shall be saved.


day_number: 26/06
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
The forehead represents the mind. The mark of the beast may not be anything literal, but rather an attitude of mind (13:16). God's people are likewise sealed on their foreheads (7:3; 9:4). The difference between the believer and the world comes down to where our inner heart is.


day_number: 27/06
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
Samuel failed as a father in the same way as his mentor Eli did (1 Sam. 8:3), although he wasn't condemned for it as Eli was. The lesson is that even in later life, we are influenced by the examples we saw in the spiritual mentors of our youth. The power of influence is far greater than we imagine; we have more responsibility for our actions and examples than we think. Nobody lives life to and for themselves, because every life has such a powerful effect upon others (Rom. 14:7 and context).


day_number: 27/06
text:
Is. 52:7 "The feet of him" is a prophecy of Christ's preaching of the Gospel. But it is quoted in Rom. 10:15 with a significant change of pronoun- "the feet of them". We who are baptized into Christ are His witnesses; His preaching is ours and vice versa. We will experience His especial identity with us in our efforts to preach the Gospel.


day_number: 27/06
text:
The believers have of course been sinful and blemished. But they are seen by Jesus as perfect; for love imputes perfection to the beloved, and the love of Christ is the ultimate love. He will see us as if we are perfect; hence the bride "was found" without blemish (14:4). We can rightly rejoice today in His love and how positively He sees us.


day_number: 28/06
text:
What we hear in the ear, that we must preach on the housetops (Mt. 10:27). This is built on 1 Sam. 9:15,25, where God speaks in Samuel's ear, and then he speaks that word to Saul on the housetop. Jesus is saying that in essence, we are all in Samuel's position; we hear the word of this world's salvation, the word about "the Kingdom" as it was for Saul, and that very fact is in itself the imperative to overcome our natural reservations and share it with those for whom it is intended- even if, as with Saul, we may consider them unlikely and unspiritual hearers.


day_number: 28/06
text:
In Is. 53:2, the Lord Jesus is seen "As a root out of dry ground". There was nothing around Jesus in His environment which encouraged spirituality. He grew as we do, as a tender green plant in a desert.


day_number: 28/06
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
We shall sing the song of 15:3, by God's grace! As Moses rejoiced that God's people had escaped from Egypt, so we shall rejoice that we have finally and irreversibly left behind the flesh and this world.


day_number: 29/06
text:
"God gave him another heart" (1 Sam. 10:9). God is able to work directly on the human mind, giving us mindsets and attitudes which are more spiritual than we would otherwise have. He can make us "another person" (:7). But despite this will and ability of God to do this, Saul was ultimately untransformed, because he simply preferred the flesh.


day_number: 29/06
text:
God clearly has emotions of a kind which are not unrelated to the emotions we experience, as beings made in His image. But those emotions involve a time factor in order to be emotions. We read of the anger of God "for a moment" (Is. 54:7,8; Ps. 30:5), and of His wrath coming and going, leaving Him "calm" and no longer angry (Ez. 16:42). When we sin, we provoke God to anger- i.e. at a point in time, God sees our sin, and becomes angry. This is attested many times in Scripture. But it's meaningless if God is totally outside of our time and emotions.


day_number: 29/06
chapter_number_to: 18
text:
The figure of a millstone being cast into the sea is used by Jesus to describe the fate of those who cause His little ones to stumble (Mt. 18:6). To do this means that we are just as bad as Babylon with all her apparently more gross sins, who is to be treated likewise (18:21). Those who do this will be "condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11:32), i.e. they will be resurrected, judged, and sent back into 'Babylon' to share her judgment.


day_number: 30/06
chapter_number_to: 12
text:
The call of God comes to us right in the midst of ordinary, mundane life (1 Sam. 11:5). Gideon was called whilst in the middle of threshing wheat in a time of famine (Jud. 6:1), Saul whilst he was out looking for lost cattle (1 Sam. 9:10) and again whilst he was coming home from work one evening (1 Sam. 11:5); David whilst he was looking after the sheep; Samuel whilst he was asleep; Amos whilst he was leading the flocks to water (Am. 7:14); and see too 1 Kings 11:29; 19:16; 2 Kings 9:1-13,18. Christ likewise called men, arresting them with His radical call in the very midst of daily life, at the most inconvenient moment, even the most humanly inappropriate moment- such as being on the way to your father's funeral, or in the very act of casting a net into the sea.


day_number: 30/06
text:
The parallel between the seed and the convert is such as to suggest that the word of God will produce converts in some sense; it will not return void (Is. 55:11). The apparent dearth of response to some preaching therefore poses a challenging question. Are we preaching the word of God alone, or our own ideas? Does God withhold blessing for some reason unknown to us? Or is this only part of a wider picture, in which somehow the word does return void due to man's rejection? Thus the word of God was 'made void' by the Pharisees (Mk. 7:13 RV- a conscious allusion to 55:11).


day_number: 30/06
chapter_number_to: 20
text:
We are the betrothed wife of Christ, the lamb (19:7). We should be preparing ourselves in this life for the great day of marriage. There's no uncertainty about it- He loves us and is eager to marry us!


day_number: 01/07
text:
The God whose ways are above our ways as far as Heaven is above earth can say that David was of the same mind as Himself (1 Sam. 13:14). This shows the extent of God's humility, His enthusiasm to connect with man, and His eagerness to count our feeble spiritual mindedness for far more than it really is of itself.


day_number: 01/07
chapter_number_to: 57
text:
Is. 56:7 "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" is quoted by Jesus in Mt 21:13 as a demand for God's house now to not be a forum for personal financial gain. If we are living the Kingdom life now, then whatever is said of the future Kingdom must in essence be the rule of our lives today.


day_number: 01/07
chapter_number_to: 22
text:
When Christ returns, we shall be resurrected, judged, and made the rulers in His Kingdom which He will establish upon earth (5:10). We will rule over the ordinary mortal people who are alive on earth at the time of His return. The rulers of this world will bow before us and give all their glory to us- we who in this life are as nothing. We shall be the light of the world in that we shall teach the nations the light of Christ (21:24), who is the light of the world. But we must be and want to be the light of the world now if we are to be it in the future age.


day_number: 02/07
text:
In the same way as answered prayer reflects God's pleasure, so prayer which God doesn't respond to at all is one indicator of His displeasure (e.g. Saul's experience in 1 Sam. 14:37). This isn't to say that when we don't receive the answers we expect, then God hasn't responded. There's a difference between God responding to prayer and God answering prayer as we expect Him to answer.


day_number: 02/07
text:
In Is. 58:5, those fasting on the day of atonement bowed down their heads as a rush- to quickly spring back again to pride. Our talk of humility mustn't be just a temporary, tokenistic acceptance of it as a nice idea.


day_number: 02/07
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
In Mt. 2:20-22 Joseph was told that it was safe to return. But he doubted. And so God made a concession to his weakness by telling him to go and live in Galilee. God makes concessions to us because He thirsts for continued relationship with us despite our weakness.


day_number: 03/07
text:
In 1 Sam. 15:11, God tells Samuel of His rejection of Saul, and Samuel cries to Him all night. The implication is that Samuel was pleading with God to consider another future with Saul (see too :35; 16:1). Having stated His intentions, God is open to persuasion before He carries them out; that gap period is intended to inspire intense prayer and dialogue with God on our part.


day_number: 03/07
text:
If we feel that God is somehow limited, we must ask whether it is in fact our sins which are limiting His action; because He Himself is totally unlimited in His possibilities (Is. 59:1,2).


day_number: 03/07
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Mt. 3:9 "Within yourselves" shows how the Bible is aware of how we are likely to respond. God's concern is with our state of mind, how we think within. For this is the ultimate source of human sin.


day_number: 04/07
text:
The "spirit" often refers to an attitude of mind (e.g. Dt. 2:30; 1 Sam. 16:14). The "evil spirit" refers to Saul's state of mind here; just as a "holy spirit" refers to a sanctified state of mind. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts today. The idea that 'evil spirits' refer to invisible cosmic beings isn't Biblical; they would hardly flee just because of how a man plays a harp. Notice that here the "evil spirit" was "from Yahweh"-  this is emphasized (:14,15,16; 18:10); this attitude of the mind was sent by God, not a super-human evil being acting in radical opposition to God.


day_number: 04/07
text:
The ideal of Is. 60:11 was that the exiles were to restore Zion and the city's gates would be open to the Gentiles. The reality was that the walls were built from a motive not of glorifying Zion in fulfillment of prophecy, but for defence against the Gentiles. But the gates had to be shut to keep the Gentiles out (Neh. 13:19), lest they yet further corrupted the Jews who were eager to trade with them on the Sabbath rather than convert them to the God of Israel. Instead of bringing their goods through the gates to lay before Yahweh, they brought in their goods to sell to His people in trade. But returned Judah didn't act as a nation of priests, the food the Gentiles brought in to Zion was to be sold for profit to the Jews. They failed to be a missionary nation, and rather were mere trading / economic partners on an equal footing [cp. the church today?].


day_number: 04/07
text:
"Makes His sun" (:45) implies God hasn't wound the world up and left it ticking. Every action within creation is consciously from Him. We are therefore never far from Him- just feel Him acting in nature.


day_number: 05/07
text:
He took five stones (1 Sam. 17:40) not because he thought he might miss a few times but because Goliath had four sons whom he likely intended to kill at the same time (2 Sam. 21:18-22; 1 Chron. 20:4-8). This was indeed spiritual ambition. But those four sons were killed later, by David's men; just as we are left with some aspects of Christ's victory against sin to follow up on ourselves.


day_number: 05/07
text:
In Is. 61:6 we see God's intention that all Israel should have graduated to become priests (Ex. 19:5,6); this became true in the new Israel, the ecclesia, where we are all to have the spirit of priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9).We are to feel a priestly responsibility for others, like the Levites to not focus upon our own property and land, that we may do God's work.


day_number: 05/07
text:
Mt. 6:18 "Not be seen" means we must consciously try to conceal our good works so that other people do not notice them. When was the last time you did this?


day_number: 06/07
text:
To achieve the state of mind of 1 Sam. 18:5 must have required a lot of conscious thought and self-analysis by David. We get the sense that David pitted his wisdom against Saul's anger and bitter persecution; David's wisdom and prospering is repeatedly mentioned in tandem with Saul's anger against him (:5,11,14,15,30). These words are referring back to Dt. 29:9, which promised that those who kept the words of the covenant would prosper. David's charmed life and prospering despite all manner of plotting against him was due to his single-minded devotion to the Law; to those very chapters which tired Bible readers tend to skip over as boring and not motivating. Yet David found something immensely inspiring and practical about the Law. The word made him wiser than his foes (Ps. 119:98)- and there is reason to think that Ps. 119, which is all about how much David loved God's word, was written by David at the time of his persecution by Saul.


day_number: 06/07
text:
Although God may appear inactive, there is a restlessness in Him, willing all things towards their appointed end- the establishment of His Kingdom on earth based around Jerusalem. This restlessness of God is inspired by His people continually begging Him to intervene on earth, to reveal Himself and establish His Kingdom (:1.6,7).


day_number: 06/07
text:
There will be people who called Jesus "Lord" and who thought they did miracles in His Name who will be rejected at the last day (:25). They actually did "iniquity". Possessing the gifts of God is no guarantee of salvation.


day_number: 07/07
text:
There are many connections between Saul and Paul; and Paul noticed them and was motivated by them. The way Paul was let down through a window to escape persecution (Acts 9:25; 2 Cor. 11:33) was not of his own choice; God set up that situation to make him realize that he should not be as Saul, his namesake. And so, led by God in this, he purposefully changed his name from Saul to Paul, 'the little one', recalling how when Saul was "little" in his own sight, he was acceptable to God (15:17). We too are to look for the similarities between our lives and those of Biblical characters, and act accordingly; and God will work in our lives to make the similarities, differences and lessons the more apparent to us.


day_number: 07/07
text:
Israel did deal falsely with God, but His hope- an almost blind hope which was born of the extent of His love for them- was that they would not deal falsely with Him (Is. 63:8). This positive hopefulness of God for His people should be seen in us too.


day_number: 07/07
text:
Remember the Gospel records were written by the disciples. They are transcripts of their preaching to others. They appealed for others to believe in Christ by pointing out how they had themselves been of such weak belief in Christ (:25). Such humility, recounting our failures to others, is what makes our witness powerful rather than pretending we are perfect. Self-righteousness turns people off.


day_number: 08/07
text:
"Yahweh will require it (1 Sam. 20:16). This affects the question of whether there will be a specific 'going through' of many (all?) our deeds at the day of judgment, or at least, all the sinful deeds of the condemned. Actions in this life will be "required" by God (Dt. 18:19; 23:21; Josh. 22:23; 2 Chron. 24:22; Ez. 3:20; 33:6,8)- at judgment day, when an explanation for our behaviour will be "required". The Hebrew word translated "require" in the above passages has the sense of to search / enquire- which suggests a process of discussion during the judgment process. Likewise God will "require" the flock at the hand of the pastors (Ez. 34:10; Heb. 13:17). There must be answerability before God for human actions; in this life and / or at the day of judgment when Christ returns. The apparent silence of God in this life can lead us to think that there are things we can 'get away with'; but ultimately there will be accountability before God.


day_number: 08/07
text:
Is. 64:4 is quoted in 1 Cor. 2:9; the things prepared for those who wait for God are the things of redemption and forgiveness in Christ. But Paul interprets "him who waits for Him" as "them that love Him". To love God is in one sense to wait in patient faith for Him to act and send His Son to establish His Kingdom. But the waiting game is harder than it seems, because we expect immediate response from God, whereas the intention of His apparent inaction is to focus us instead upon the return of Christ and the coming of His Kingdom as the ultimate resolution of all things.


day_number: 08/07
text:
"Not to call the righteous but sinners" means that we are all sinners, it's just that some think they are righteous. We will never be good enough for God, never morally ready enough for baptism- but the whole purpose of Jesus is to save us who are sinners.


day_number: 09/07
chapter_number_to: 22
text:
David's eager taking of the sword of Goliath (1 Sam. 21:9) contrasts sadly with his earlier rejection of such weapons in order to slay Goliath (17:39). David later reflects how he knew that his faithless taking of that sword and the showbread would lead to the death of Abiathar's family (1 Sam. 22:22). But still he did it. David was ultimately a righteous man, but if we were to draw a graph of his level of faith, with time along the bottom and his level of faith on the side- it would be a jagged graph. Just like our lives.


day_number: 09/07
text:
God's experience with the Jews in exile was tragic. He set them up with the possibility to return to Judah, to establish there a Messianic-style Kingdom, giving them the commands in Ez. 40-48 for a glorious temple; but most of them preferred the soft life in Babylon, and those who did return proved small minded, selfish and disinterested in the vision of God's glory. In this context, Isaiah ends his restoration prophecies on a tragic note from God: "I was ready to be sought... I was ready to be found" by the unspiritual exiles in Babylon. But Israel would not. He pictures Himself standing there crying "Here am I, here am I!"- to be rejected by a people more interested in climbing the endless economic and social ladder in Babylon and Persia, and caught up in finding petty religious fault with their brethren (:5). And so He now calls out to us, and we are to respond...


day_number: 09/07
text:
If at the day of judgment (1 Cor. 3:13) we will be revealed for who we really are eternally, there's no point in acting out a false image to our brothers and sisters in this life (:26).


day_number: 10/07
text:
The way Saul returns from pursuing David because of a rumour of invasion is so similar to Rabshakeh's retreat from Jerusalem after rumours of incursions (Is. 37:9,10). There is much repetition within the Biblical narratives. Individuals tend to go through very similar experiences, and often the same words are used in the descriptions of the experience or their response to it. Some of these similarities are so specific and humanly unlikely to be replicated that one can only conclude that there was a higher power over-ruling their situations. It may be that the Angels work in human lives according to some kind of Divine pattern, and this accounts for the sense of repetition and déjà vu. But it may also be because it is God's intention that we meditate upon the lives of previous servants to the point where we see their experiences coming through, in principle, in our own lives; and we are urged on to a like victory as they attained.


day_number: 10/07
text:
Is. 66:16 speaks of how God will "Plead judgement". The Hebrew word translated "judgment" here is also translated "plead". God's judgments aren't the anger of an irritated deity, rather are they constructive, designed to plead with those who observe them to repent. And surely we have all experienced His judgments in our lives.


day_number: 10/07
text:
Jesus encouraged people to preach to their network of friends and relatives, in their home areas / cities (:1); He visited those places to back up their witness. Witnessing to friends and family is the most difficult yet most important witness we make.


day_number: 11/07
text:
David saw Saul for who he was, the anointed of God. Christ too taught His men to have respect for the Pharisees, who 'sat in Moses' seat' , and therefore ought to be given reverence on that account (Mt. 23:2). David's extreme respect for Saul is shown in the fact that Yahweh had explicitly told him that he would deliver Saul into David's hand, and David was free to do as he wished to him; but because of his genuine respect for Saul, David didn't take the liberty of killing him; he chose a higher level on which to relate to Saul. Indeed, he even felt guilty at cutting off the blue ribbon from Saul's coat, such was David's respect for Saul. All those baptized into Christ have been "anointed" in that we are "in Christ", 'the anointed one' (2 Cor. 1:21). We must truly respect others on account of their being in the body of Christ / God's people, as Saul was. Paul deeply loved Corinth and respected them for their status as men and women in Christ, in receipt of the Father's love and grace, even though they abused him. Therefore he like David could love his enemies within the ecclesia; for Saul was in the ecclesia of Israel as much as David was.


day_number: 11/07
text:
Like Jeremiah (Jer. 1:6), so many called to preach God's word feel unworthy or unqualified to do so; but God delights to work through those who feel this way.


day_number: 11/07
text:
Jesus and the disciples were prefigured by David and those who followed him (12:1,3). Those who followed David were those in debt and 'distressed' (1 Sam. 22:2). It is the desperate and broken who follow Jesus today. Which means you and me.


day_number: 12/07
text:
David thanks Abigail for persuading him not to 'shed blood' and "avenging myself with my own hand"- the very things he elsewhere condemns in his Psalms (e.g. Ps. 44:3). Often in the Psalms, David uses that Hebrew word translated "avenging myself" about how God and not man will revenge / save him against his enemies, for God saves / avenges the humble in spirit not by their strength and troops but by His. But in the anger of hot blood, David let go of all those fine ideas. In the heat of the moment we too can let go of all the far higher principles we know and love, and do the very things we detest when we see in others.


day_number: 12/07
text:
The wilderness is described as an awful place (Jer 2:6), just as Moses likewise spoke of it when reflecting on the journeys of Israel in Deuteronomy. Israel crossing the Red Sea represents our baptism into Christ (1 Cor. 10:1,2), and their wilderness journey afterwards equates with our lives now as we walk toward the promised land of God's Kingdom. The world is a terrifying place spiritually; in spiritual terms it isn't the nice safe place it can appear.


day_number: 12/07
text:
Jesus foresaw that His followers would have a tendency towards trying to do God's judgment for Him; He explains (:29) that it's not possible for us to judge who is who. It's therefore a fact that there will be insincere people growing within the field of the church, next to those who are sincere. They have an appearance of growth. But we must leave them until harvest- the return of Jesus.


day_number: 13/07
chapter_number_to: 27
text:
From 1 Sam. 26:24 we see established the principle that the grace we show others is related to the grace God will show us. David could have killed Saul, indeed God gave him the legitimate opportunity to do so, but he chose the higher level- of grace and forgiveness, despite Saul's lack of repentance at the time. Someone doesn't have to be grovelling in repentance before we show grace to them.


day_number: 13/07
text:
God's fantasy about Israel was that one day they would say the words of repentance of Jer. 3:22-25 and return to Him. True love includes fantasy, imagining the object of our love speaking or acting in the way we dream of. And God's passionate love for His people is no different. True repentance is such a thrill to God; it fulfils what He has dreamt of for us. Hence all the Angels rejoice when one sinner repents. So don't hold back with your repentance.


day_number: 13/07
text:
Jesus knew it was impossible for them to find food for the crowd. But He asks them to do it, in order they might learn that whatever little we have can be used by Him; and He challenges our faith and horizons likewise.


day_number: 14/07
text:
"When Saul inquired of Yahweh, Yahweh didn't answer him" (1 Sam. 28:6).  But in God's final analysis of Saul, He says that He killed Saul because Saul sinned against God's word by not enquiring of God, but of a witch (1 Chron. 10:13,14). But Saul did enquire of God (see too the same Hebrew word in 14:27), but God didn't answer him. Although Saul prayed to God and enquired of His word on the surface, in his heart, he did nothing of the sort; and therefore his prayer and enquiry was reckoned never to have happened. And we must ask how much of our prayer and Bible study is seen by God as being only spoken and read on a surface level. This was exactly the problem of natural Israel (Hos. 7:14; 11:7).


day_number: 14/07
text:
The wrath of God can be turned away or 'quenched' by the actions of those He is angry with (Jer. 4:4; see too Num. 25:4; Dt. 13:15-17; Ezra 10:14; Jonah 3:7,10; 2 Chron. 12:7; Jer. 21:12). And yet that wrath can also be turned away by the prayers of a third party (see  18:20; Ps. 106:23; Job 42:7). This means that in some cases, our prayers for others can be counted as if they have repented. We can gain our brother for God's Kingdom (Mt. 18:15), as Noah saved his own house by his faithful preparation (Heb. 11:7).


day_number: 14/07
text:
The dogs were the Gentiles; crumbs were the miracles; the masters were the Jews; the meal or table was Jesus' fellowship and ministry to the Jews. She showed humility and faith by saying this; she knew that even the miracle she so sought was a mere crumb of what Jesus was offering Israel. They refused so much, just as so much potential is wasted today by God's people.


day_number: 15/07
chapter_number_to: 30
text:
In 1 Sam. 29:4 David was in an impossible situation; he had not been attacking Israelites as he had previously claimed to the Philistines; he had a strong conscience against killing Saul; yet he had given the impression he was willing to zealously fight against and kill his own Israelite people; it seemed there was no way out. And then, God's gracious hand acted. Some of the Philistine army leaders objected to David's presence on the battlefield- at the very last minute! God leads us into apparently dead end, no way out situations- and then delivers us out of them by His grace, in ways we had never considered.


day_number: 15/07
text:
"How can I pardon you?" (Jer. 5:7). This opens a window on the self-questioning which is associated with God- e.g. "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?" (Hos. 6:4; 11:8; see too Jer. 9:7,9). These aren't purely rhetorical questions- they reflect the actual and real self-questioning of Almighty God, reflective as it is of the turbulence of emotion which is part and parcel of being in a relationship which has gone painfully wrong. There even seems at times a difficulty on God's part to understand why the people He had loved could hate Him so much (2:14,31;8:5,19; 30:6; Is. 5:4; 50:2). "What more could I have done for my vineyard... why did it yield wild grapes?" (Is. 5:1-7). This is so much the anguished cry of bewildered middle age parents as they reflect upon a wayward child. This Divine struggle to understand reflects the extraordinary depth of His love for them; and it warns us in chilling terms as to the pain we can cause God if we spurn His amazing love. 8:4-7 records God reflecting that even the stork 'returns' predictably; but His people have inexplicably not returned to Him. This reveals a powerful thing- that our rejection of God's love is inexplicable even to God Himself. And yet humanity persists in this utter madness. For all our education, business sense, scientific knowledge- we are revealed as inexplicably foolish in rejecting God's love and not 'returning' [repenting] to Him.


day_number: 15/07
text:
The rock was the rock of Peter's belief that Jesus was God's Son (:16), and Peter's personal preaching of it. 'Peter' means 'rock'; it was a nickname, something like 'Rocky'. He was far from stable, but Jesus saw him as stable; just as this very today He imputes righteousness to us, because He loves us.


day_number: 16/07
text:
David had been known throughout Israel for teaching by example that he would not harm the Lord's anointed, and that anybody who did so would have to give account (1 Sam. 24:6; 26:9-11). Although Saul's armour bearer was likely one of his most loyal supporters in the campaign against David, David's spiritual reasoning and example had influenced him, so that in the heat of battle he acted accordingly. We learn from this that our examples are far more powerful than we may realize.


day_number: 16/07
text:
We may assume that it is the leaders of a corrupt society, the opinion formers, who should be punished. But God seems to emphasize in Jer. 6:11 that it's the apparently innocent members of society also who shall be punished- the children and the wives of the men who were the decision makers. The modern liberal mindset struggles with this kind of thing. But the picture is all the same of God holding an entire society culpable to judgment, as He did in punishing Egypt. It's not that the individual doesn't matter to God, nor that the righteous must perish with the wicked; but rather than the apparently insignificant individuals have more significance than we may imagine. Passive support of a corrupt regime is sinful and culpable for judgment; for holocausts happen when good people do nothing. There is in this sense no such person as the innocent bystander.


day_number: 16/07
text:
Again Jesus shows His frustration with their lack of spiritual perception (17:11; also 15:16; 16:11). To be frustrated isn't sinful- for Jesus never sinned. If He so desires understanding from us- let's give ourselves to trying to understand. And surely He will help us if we ask Him.


day_number: 17/07
text:
We can all too easily pray for what we will later ask to be changed. David prayed for deliverance from "the evil man", Saul; he asked that Saul be slain and punished (Ps. 140:1,9,10). But when this prayer was answered, David wept with the amazing lamentation over Saul which we have here. It's a lesson to think carefully about what we're praying for, and imagine our response and situation if actually the prayer is answered. We need to pray as if every prayer will be answered, not just expressing our feelings and immediate desires, as it seems David did in his prayers against Saul.


day_number: 17/07
text:
Before the days of alarm clocks, rising before dawn required a great conscious mental effort. The words of the prophets weren't effortlessly given by God and mindlessly relayed by them. They involved real conscious expenditure of effort by both God and the prophets, with God 'rising up early' (Jer. 7:13).


day_number: 17/07
text:
Jesus invites us to see Him as represented by the child in the midst (:5). In the 1st Century world, children and women were considered as non-persons. But Jesus paid great attention to them and showed how He valued them as persons. His value of the human person must be reflected by us today.


day_number: 18/07
text:
The incident of 2 Sam. 2:16 was surely to show the tragic wastage and pointless destruction caused by conflict between brethren. Perhaps both sides were being prompted by this incident to call off the entire armed conflict with each other, but they failed to respond to the providential hint.


day_number: 18/07
text:
We all know how when we miss the way in finding an unfamiliar address, there's a tendency to keep on going along the wrong road- because turning back is so psychologically difficult. Pride often stops us turning back; we were so convinced we were right, and what will people think as they see us retracing our steps... And this is the image that God uses in Jer. 8:4- to appeal to Israel, and ourselves, not to foolishly 'backslide', keep on turning away from Him- just because that's the course we're set upon and we lack humility. Pride is the greatest barrier to repentance; pride is indeed the essence of sin.


day_number: 18/07
text:
Often partners don't psychologically 'leave' their parents, and only when this is done can they cleave to their partner. As they try to do this, so God will confirm them in 'joining' them. Partners are glued together [19:5,6 Gk.] by God in His own way- often through life circumstances overruled by Him. Adultery is therefore so wrong. It's a fighting against God's work in a couples' life.


day_number: 19/07
text:
In 2 Sam. 3:35 David is at great pains to demonstrate that he is against the pointless shedding of blood. But his earlier life had featured much pointless shedding of blood- e.g. he killed 200 Philistines when only 100 were required (1 Sam. 18:25,27), and thought nothing of killing the man who informed him of Saul's death (1:15; see too 4:12). He said that he was disallowed from building the temple because of how much blood he had shed (1 Chron. 22:8). His Psalms often call for the death of his enemies. We are left to reflect that perhaps now he was maturing, as we should over the course of our lives, to perceive the value and meaning of the human person. Or it could be that he was simply emphasizing that he really didn't seek the blood of Saul's family because he had truly forgiven him; or perhaps as a highly emotional person, he demonstrated both great sensitivity to the death of people and also great insensitivity; a very soft side and a very hard one, all within the same personality. Human nature is capable of very contradictory behaviour.


day_number: 19/07
text:
God lamented that the destroyer would come "upon us" and wailed "for us" (Jer, 9:18; 6:22,26). The "us" is God and Israel. The tragedy is awful, beyond words. All commentary is bathos. His love is wondrous.  God delicately speaks as if He is married to Israel, and that even in their sufferings, He would suffer with them, as a husband suffers with his wife. "The destroyer will come upon us" even sounds as if God let Himself in a way be 'destroyed' in Israel's destruction; for each of us dies a little in the death of those we love. The idea of God being destroyed in the destruction of His people may be the basis of the descriptions of Zion as being left widowed (Lam. 1:1; Is. 54:1-8). We ask the question- if she was a widow, who died? Her husband, God, was as it were dead. The very idea of the death of God is awful and obnoxious. But this was and is the depth of God's feelings at His peoples' destruction. This is the almost unbelievable extent of God's pain and hurt for His people. Truly did it hurt God more than His children knew to punish them.


day_number: 19/07
text:
The implication of :14 could be that the hard working man is 'fired'- he must go his way, away from Jesus, because he thought that he was more worthy than the weak, sick, old or lazy workers who had also been hired. Such spiritual snobbism is so repellent to Jesus.


day_number: 20/07
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
The lame and blind were not allowed to serve God under the law (Lev. 21:18), nor be offered as sacrifices (Dt. 15:21), nor come within the temple (2 Sam. 5:8). Christ purposefully healed multitudes of lame and blind (Mt. 15:30), and allowed them to come to Him in the temple (Mt. 21:14). His acted out message was clearly that those who were despised as unfit for God's service were now being welcomed by Him into that service. The lame and blind were despised because they couldn't work. They had to rely on the grace of others. Here is a crucial teaching: those called are those who can't do the works, but depend upon grace. We are the lame and blind who have been invited to the Messianic banquet; and we are to reflect God's calling of us, the desperate, in our calling of others- we too are to invite the lame and blind into our homes and thus into God's Kingdom (Lk. 14:13,21). A person who feels they are somehow a nice guy and worthy of invitation will be the one who tends to consider others as unworthy of invitation to the Kingdom. He or she who perceives their own desperation and the sheer grace of our having been called into the Kingdom will eagerly invite even those they consider to be in the very pits of human society.


day_number: 20/07
text:
Jer. 10:19,20 is an interjection by Jeremiah but it could equally be from God; both of them identified with the hurt and pain of those who were to be punished. We can understand why God says He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked- He finds it simply so painful (Ez. 18:32; 33:11). This alone is reason to reject the unBiblical myth of God allowing eternal punishment of the wicked in 'hell'.


day_number: 20/07
text:
A humble King was a contradiction in terms. A King was supposed to ride upon a battle horse, not a donkey. It's like a President arriving in a battered 20 year old small car, rather than a cavalcade of Mercedes. Humility is of the essence and was modelled in Jesus.


day_number: 21/07
text:
The lesson is that all the fine worship in the world is meaningless unless it is underpinned by careful awareness of and obedience to God's word. The great worship procession ended very abruptly- to drive home this point.


day_number: 21/07
text:
At times of Israel's apostasy, God reconfirmed Israel's covenant relationship with Him. Note how God calls them "My beloved" even whilst listing their sins and His future rejection of them (:2,15). His grace is so counter-instinctive. The height of the demand, the extent of the implication of being in covenant with God ought to preclude the possibility of worshipping anything else. The covenant we have entered has constant and binding claims upon our loyalty (Dt. 29:14-18). By reminding them of the nature of their covenant relationship at a time of their moral weakness, they were being led to realize that the life of sin was not for them. And so there should be a like awareness in us when at least weekly we are reminded of our covenant bond in the communion service, celebrating the blood of the covenant made with us.


day_number: 21/07
text:
The wedding garment represents the righteousness of God which is given to us when we are clothed with Christ in baptism. In weddings of those days, the white wedding garment was given to the guests as they entered the feast. To refuse it was arrogant- presumably the person thought that his own clothes were better than the wedding garment offered by the host. May we not be like that today.


day_number: 22/07
text:
It was God's clearly expressed wish that He should not live in a physical house (2 Sam. 7:5; see too Acts 7:48; 17:24). Yet He accommodated Himself to human weakness in wanting a physical house in which to worship Him; He came and lived (in a sense) in just such a house. He makes concessions to human weakness because He so thirsts for relationship with us; but by making free use of those concessions we in fact make relationship with Him more difficult.


day_number: 22/07
text:
Any doubts we have about the justice and ethics of God's ways must begin with the acceptance that God is right; therefore the difficulties we have with these things are a result of our limitations rather than any ultimate fault with Him (Jer. 12:1).


day_number: 22/07
text:
Mt. 23:39 may mean that when Jesus returns, those who rejected Him will be resurrected and then will recognize Him. But it will be too late. At the day of judgment, nobody will be indifferent. People may shrug their shoulders now or even reject Jesus, but in that day they will desperately want one thing- to be with Him. But for those who rejected Him in this life it will be too late. Hence the rejected will bang their teeth in self-hatred. Let us never forget that we can lose our salvation.


day_number: 23/07
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
We too should consciously seek out opportunities to show grace, even to the relatives of our enemies. We have been shown kindness or grace from God (2 Sam. 9:1,3) and we should respond to this by reflecting it to others, thinking up ways to do so as God has done to us. The challenge is to ask ourselves when was the last time we thought up a way of showing grace to others.


day_number: 23/07
text:
The whole point of Judah's exile in Babylon was to make them "ruined, unfit for use" like the cloth which Jeremiah buried by Euphrates (Jer. 13:7). And yet the second half of Isaiah is full of expressions of God's desire to use Israel after their experience in Babylon as His witness to the nations. Israel's preparation for their mission and Divine 'usage' was through being made "unfit for use". And so God prepares His missionaries and ambassadors today likewise.


day_number: 23/07
text:
The Angels will gather us from all over the world (:31)- there will be true believers world-wide, as a result of the witness of :14. Our Angel may appear to gather us to judgment today.


day_number: 24/07
text:
David had earlier sent messengers to Nabal meaning well to him, and they were rudely rebuffed, resulting in his anger which only Abigail's grace and wisdom saved him from (1 Sam. 25). And yet here the same situation repeated in its essence when he sent messengers to Hanun who were likewise misinterpreted and rebuffed. Again, David got angry- but there was no Abigail to restrain him, and he got into an impossible fight... from which by grace God delivered him. David failed to learn from his previous experience; and God repeats situations in our lives too, that we might learn from them and develop. Note how suspicious people were in the societies of those days when they encountered David's grace (see too 2 Sam. 3:24,25); and today too, we tend to disbelieve God's grace because we haven't encountered it very often from people.


day_number: 24/07
text:
God is presented as a tragic figure in Jer. 14:8,9, desolated by the loss of His people, left as a mighty man that cannot save, as a wayfaring man wandering through His own deserted land; as Israel wandered amongst the nations (:10), so God as it were wanders too, so identified with them is He. This is how difficult it is for God to punish His people; for He so suffers in their suffering. It is in a sense therefore 'easier' for Him to forgive and save us.


day_number: 24/07
text:
Some who call Jesus "Lord" will be rejected. Nobody will be passive in that day- all will wish to be accepted by Jesus. And so it should be the passion of our lives today.


day_number: 25/07
text:
"But David stayed at Jerusalem" (2 Sam. 11:1)- when it was the season for a king like himself to be out in battle. The lesson is that when we are doing nothing and not doing what we are intended to, then we are more prone to fall into sin. He appears to recognize his attitude problem in Ps. 30:6: "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be (spiritually) moved". In the lead up to the sin, God had given him victory after victory- leading him to think that he must therefore be spiritually OK because of his many physical blessings (1 Chron. 18:6). His conscience had been blunted by the easy life.


day_number: 25/07
text:
The implication of Jer. 15:1 is that when an individual or group of God's people have a modicum of spirituality, then one individual like Moses is able to make Him feel positively toward them. The power of third party intercession for others means that we should constantly be in prayer for our brethren. But 'the power of one' works the other way, too; for :4 speaks as if all Judah suffered because of the sins of one man.


day_number: 25/07
text:
In Mt. 26:38 Jesus almost died from sorrow, sorrow that Israel had rejected God's salvation. His heart so bled for others' response to the Gospel, as should ours.


day_number: 26/07
text:
There will be anomalies in the lives of our brethren- just as there are in the lives of us all (if only we would examine ourselves ruthlessly enough to see them). And in some ways at some times, God goes along with them. Thus He gave Saul's wives to David (2 Sam. 12:8), which would've involved David being married to both a mother and daughter- for he had married Saul's daughters. And this giving of Saul's wives to David may not have occurred simply after Saul's death. For David's eldest son, Amnon, was borne by Ahinoam (3:2), who was initially Saul's wife (1 Sam. 14:50). Now this is not to justify sin. Adultery, taking another's wife or husband, is all wrong. Let there be no mistake. But God at times sees the bigger, or longer, perspective, and tolerates things which we may quite rightly find intolerable. And if He loves us despite of our sin and failure- are we surprised that we are invited to show love to others in the face of their sin and failure toward us? A black and white insistence upon God's standards being upheld in the lives of others, demanding their repentance for having hurt us, is what has caused so much division between believers. Whilst God alone will apportion the guilt for this, in the final algorithm of Divine judgment, it's worth observing that the fault for division isn't always with the sinners, the wider thinkers, the freewheelers; but with the inflexible intolerance of those in power.


day_number: 26/07
text:
Jer. 16:13 is an example of where the passion and love of God leads Him time and again to apparently contradict Himself. He says that He will cast Judah out of their land, they would go to Babylon and serve other gods there, "where I will not show you favour". But actually Esther and her people were shown favour there (s.w. Esther 4:8; 8:5). God was gracious [s.w. 'to show favour'] to those in exile (Is. 30:18,9; Am. 5:15; Mal. 1:9). But Jeremiah goes on to state that God would not ever hide His eyes / face from the iniquity they had committed, i.e. the reason why they were in captivity (:17). But actually He did do just that- He hid His eyes from the sin of Judah and the sin of the exiles (Is. 65:16); the hiding of His face from them was in fact not permanent but for a brief moment (Is. 54:8). God then outlines a plan- He will recompense their sin double, and this would lead them back to Him (:18). But this was to be an unrepeatable, once-for-all program that would "cause them to know My hand... and they shall now that My name is Yahweh" (:21).


day_number: 26/07
text:
The self controlled silence of Jesus was amazing (:14). May it be our inspiration in times of provocation today.


day_number: 27/07
text:
There are Biblical examples of refusing to take guilt when others feel that it should be taken. Recall how the Lord's own parents blamed Him for 'making them anxious' by 'irresponsibly' remaining behind in the temple. The Lord refused to take any guilt, didn't apologize, and even gently rebuked them (Lk. 2:42-51). In similar vein, Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "Even if I made you sorry with a letter, I do not regret it" (2 Cor. 7:8). He would not take guilt for their being upset with him. Likewise Absalom comforted his raped sister not to 'take it to heart', not to feel guilty about it (2 Sam. 13:20), as it seems she was feeling that way, taking false guilt upon her. We should take true guilt before God for our actual sins, and not allow others to put guilt on us.


day_number: 27/07
text:
In Jer. 17:10 we learn that God searches our heart in order to judge our works; because how we think is how we act- in the end.


day_number: 27/07
text:
Women weren't valid witnesses in first century legal circles. But Jesus chose women to be the primary and initial witnesses of His resurrection. He has likewise chosen people like us who are totally not qualified in secular terms to be His witnesses. This is His style.


day_number: 28/07
text:
The woman understood the implications of the promise in Eden when she tells David that God "devises means" to bring back the banished and expelled to Him (2 Sam. 14:13). Whom did God banish? Adam, and all his children. But God 'devised means' through the promises of Gen. 3:15 so that this banishment was not permanent expulsion. The means devised was the death and resurrection of His Son, the seed of the woman. But the woman's point was that as God sought to restore His banished sons, through the pain and cost to Him of the blood of His Son, so we ought to likewise be inspired to win back the banished. And so we look to those banished from ecclesial life by disfellowship, church politics, personal animosities of past decades, or simply their own sins; or those marginalized by poverty, education, disability, health, geography... these are the banished whom we ought to be winning back.


day_number: 28/07
text:
Due to Moses' prayer, "the Lord repented of the evil which He had said He would do unto His people" (Ex. 32:14 RV). Yet these are the very words of Jer. 18:8- if a nation repents, then God will repent. But in this case, God accepted the singular prayer of Moses as if it were the prayer of the whole community. We can influence God positively for others' blessing.


day_number: 28/07
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
We should not only try not to sin, but also not 'approve' sin when we encounter it. This principle affects what we watch, view and read. The list of sins in 2:29-31 are what much modern 'entertainment' is all about.


day_number: 29/07
text:
The record of the various rebellions against David show how fickle are the hearts of men; they changed loyalty so easily according to whatever seemed to offer them the most immediate advantage; just as a study of the theme of "the crowds" in the Gospels shows the same. For all their apparent culture, sophistication and education, people's hearts today are the same, and we can never trust in human loyalty generally; although our experience with God's people can be amazingly better.


day_number: 29/07
text:
"I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced" (Jer. 19:15)- This may appear to be stating the obvious, until we appreciate that God pronounced the evil whilst being fully open to changing His mind about it (Jer. 18:4-8). God is therefore saying here that the time of His openness to persuasion against His intention to destroy them is now closing. Every moment we live, we live within the frames of amazing possibilities in terms of dialogue with our gracious, open-ended God.


day_number: 29/07
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
Abraham was impotent yet he still believed that somehow he would produce a child (4:19). We too are to have the faith which is a hope against hope, that we can overcoming our most intimate inadequacies.


day_number: 30/07
text:
The unexpected grace of 2 Sam. 16:2 formed the basis of Ps. 23, where David marvels at God's kindness in furnishing a feast for him in the wilderness at the very time that it seemed he was walking in the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes God does things like this in our lives too- His grace bursts into the darkness of a situation.


day_number: 30/07
text:
Jer. 20:6 shows how publically, Jeremiah appears bold and undeflected by opposition and persecution. But :7-10 show how internally, he was so sensitive to it all. When we feel the same, we can remember Jeremiah.


day_number: 30/07
chapter_number_to: 6
text:
We are counted as if we are righteous even though we are not- because we believe in God's gracious offer to count as righteous all those who believe in Christ and are baptized into Him. This isn't mere theology- it gives the baptized believer a real and felt peace with God, which is the most valuable thing we can have in this life. If God accepts us, all else is of little importance (5:1).


day_number: 31/07
text:
Ahithophel was like so many people- giving up his life, even if not everyone does it by suicide, because he felt he had failed, he ran out of highway and lost his political power to others. For those in Christ, life becomes valuable; we number our days with wisdom (Ps. 90:12). We no longer fear failure, for firstly we know there is forgiveness in Christ; and secondly, our realization will be that we're on a journey, living the real life of ultimate discovery and adventure, able to live with the fears which this presents to us. Failure is no longer a problem to us; for the aim of the Kingdom is ever before us. Our failures are nothing more than temporary setbacks, as the baby who stretches out her hands to the lamp on the ceiling and cries because she can't reach it. We take them all, even our sins, in the spirit of the cross- the supreme failure which became the supreme triumph of God and the spiritual person.


day_number: 31/07
text:
Even at this very late stage, with Jerusalem surrounded (:2,4), God was prepared to relent and not fulfil all the prophetic words of destruction (:12); His wrath was still capable of being quenched. Unquenchable or eternal fire therefore refers to the wrath of God which has reached such a point that it can no longer extinguished; but once the objects of that wrath are 'burnt', as the metaphor requires, they will not exist eternally in that burning process. Notice that the one thing He so wished to see was "justice"- because this is the epitome of so much spirituality and right behaviour. This is how very sensitive He is to how we treat each other.


day_number: 31/07
chapter_number_to: 8
text:
The judge and counsel for the defence are on our side; and in Christ, no accusation can be brought against us. And so in the court of Divine justice, we are acquitted. This reality is so wonderful that all earthly problems (8:35-39) should mean little to us.


day_number: 01/08
text:
David was described as the chiefest among ten thousand (2 Sam. 18:3), and yet this is how Solomon's illegal girlfriend describes him (Song 5:10). He had clearly told her all about his father David- and she evidently pleased Solomon by describing him as being like his father, even though she probably had never known David. He sought a wife who would be a surrogate parent rather than someone he could serve and assist towards God's Kingdom.


day_number: 01/08
text:
Note the dramatic contrast within Jer. 22:6. God so loved Judah, He saw them as beautiful, and yet with those feelings in mind He was going to destroy them. They were so wicked and rebellious against them, but truly He loved them with a father's love. His punishment of them wasn't the offended wrath of a capricious deity. If God has such love for the condemned and rebellious just because they are His children; how much more confident can we be of His grace toward us who are in Christ.


day_number: 01/08
text:
In Rom. 9:3 Paul is alluding to how Moses offered his place in God's 'book of life'- i.e. his eternal salvation- in order that Israel might be saved. This is an amazing level of love- to be prepared to offer up your place in eternity for the sake of others. Paul says he "could wish" this- because he had learnt from the fact that God had refused Moses' offer. God doesn't work on the basis of substitution; He saves people because of their freewill identification with Messiah, i.e. Jesus, as the representative of God to man and man to God. And in our lives today, we make that identification with Him.


day_number: 02/08
text:
David graciously overlooked Shimei's cursing, promising him that he would not die because of it (2 Sam. 16:10,11). But he didn't keep up that level of grace to the end: he later asked Solomon to ensure that Shimei was killed for that incident (1 Kings 2:8,9). Perhaps it was Shimei's words which so broke David's heart that he later wrote: "Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man... as he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he delighted not in blessing, so may it be far from him. He clothed himself also with cursing as with a garment..." (Ps. 109:16-18).


day_number: 02/08
text:
Human "might is not right" (:10); human power is fiercely criticized by the prophets. One of the most striking features of the prophets is their denunciation of human power. Judah were doing what was humanly sensible and smart. To trust in politics, in what seems the usual human response to an issue rather than trust in God, is in fact something which breaks God’s heart. The life of faith in God is simply the very opposite of what seems humanly sensible. To give money we'd surely be better saving; risk our lives and health for another; neglect our business or career for the sake of the Lord's work. These ought to be the normal decisions we make, if we are walking in step with the spirit; and yet it would appear that they are the exceptions to the rule of far too many of our lives. And the point is, God's heart broke because His people were and are like this (:9).


day_number: 02/08
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
God has delegated the work of witnessing and reaching people to us. If we don't preach to people, they won't hear the Gospel (10:14). Their eternity is in this sense in our hands. Each day we should try to share the Gospel with at least someone in some way.


day_number: 03/08
chapter_number_to: 21
text:
As Samuel tarried longer than Saul expected (1 Sam. 13:8), so Amasa "tarried longer than the set time which [David] had appointed him". Circumstances repeat within our lives and also between our experiences and those of characters in Biblical history. God through His Angels is working out a script for us, so that potentially we are enabled to see that God is teaching us through repetition and through re-framing circumstances in different contexts to see if we have really learnt the lesson intended. We learn from this that we are not in the hands of random fate, but rather there is meaning attached to every event, even if we can't immediately discern it- and perhaps in some cases we will only finally discern it in the Kingdom.


day_number: 03/08
text:
It was obvious what Jeremiah had seen; but God asked him to verbalize it (Jer. 24:3). By putting things into words out loud, we become the more conscious of them. It's no bad idea to pray our private prayers out loud, to recount out loud to God our situations so that we perceive them more accurately rather than just assuming that we have internally assessed the situation correctly.


day_number: 03/08
text:
The Old Testament sacrifices were cut up into their body parts, and even the most internal organs offered to God. This speaks of how every part of our lives, especially our innermost being, should be offered to God as a living sacrifice (12:1).


day_number: 04/08
text:
David at the end of his life could say that he was upright and had kept himself from his iniquity- despite his sins concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. He could only say this by a clear understanding of the concept of imputed righteousness (Ps. 32:1-8), believing that he was totally "purified" from the past (2 Sam. 22:27). He really believed it and felt it, as we should. Paul's claim to have always lived in a pure conscience must be seen in the same way (Acts 23:1; 2 Tim. 1:3)- when there were times when he kicked against the goads in his conscience (Acts 9:5).


day_number: 04/08
text:
Judah's sin lead to other nations suffering (Jer. 25:9). People suffer the effects of others' sin, as we see in the consequence of Adam's sin. This isn't because God punishes the righteous with the wicked, but because He allows people the freewill to sin; and the sinfulness of sin is in the harmful effect it has upon others.


day_number: 04/08
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
We need to examine our attitudes and positions, and watch our words, to ensure that we are trying to make peace rather than division (14:19).


day_number: 05/08
text:
Is. 26:8,9 parallels "the desire of my soul" with "my spirit"; it is the dominant desire of a man. For David, the salvation promised to him through Christ was "all my desire". The direction of his life was towards that end. 2 Chron. 15:12,15 parallels seeking God with having our whole desire for Him, giving all our heart and soul to Him. God judges a man's life with regard to where the essential, dominant desire of his heart is focused. And like David in 2 Sam. 23:5), our dominant desire should be for the coming of the Kingdom.


day_number: 05/08
text:
People get very angry when we say things which criticize their relationship with God and their behaviour before Him, and suggest that their established way of worship is wrong (Jer. 26:8). So when this happens to you, you are in good company.


day_number: 05/08
chapter_number_to: 16
text:
Erastus must have been a very wealthy man of high social profile. In this list of Rom. 16, he is purposefully placed next to Quartus- a common slave name- who is simply described as a "brother". The true church of Christ will be characterized by an amazing unity between persons of very different social, ethnic and personal background. Our unity should be enough to stop this world dead in its tracks and win it for Christ (Jn. 17:23).


day_number: 06/08
text:
Thanks to David building an altar at his own expense and asking God to kill him and his family, God stopped the plague upon Israel; the stretched out hand of God in destruction was what David asked to be upon him and his family. Israel were suffering the effect of their own sin, in not paying the temple tax (Ex. 30:11-16); but in the spirit of Christ, David was willing to die for them. And his dominant desire was counted as if it had been done, and thanks to his self-sacrificial spirit, the people were saved when they personally were unworthy. The wrath of God can be turned away by the actions of those He is angry with (Num. 25:4; Dt. 13:15-17; Ezra 10:14; Jonah 3:7,10; 2 Chron. 12:7; Jer. 4:4; 21:12). And yet that wrath can also be turned away by the prayers of a third party (Ps. 106:23; Jer. 18:20; Job 42:7). This means that in some cases, our prayers for others can be counted as if they have repented (Mk. 2:5; James 5:20). We can gain our brother for God's Kingdom (Mt. 18:15), as Noah saved his own house by his faithful preparation (Heb. 11:7).


day_number: 06/08
text:
If God takes away from us what we have been accustomed to having- in Judah's case, their independence as a nation- then we should recognize that God as creator of all has the right to do this, and that nothing we have, be it material or immaterial, is personally ours (Jer. 27:5). This is one outcome of believing in God as creator rather than in atheistic evolution.


day_number: 06/08
text:
Nobody was cleansed of leprosy and so the priests would've been amazed that someone was bringing them the offering proscribed in the Law for a cleansed leper. Jesus would've appeared unrealistically hopeful in thinking that the priests might respond; as they were the very class who were opposed to Him and later killed Him. But His hopefulness for people worked- many of the  priests did later repent and accept Him (Acts 6:7). Let us today have the same hopefulness for people.


day_number: 07/08
text:
Think through the psychology of 1 Kings 1:42: "You are a worthy man, and bring good news". We too can assume that the message carried by a person must be good and true because we perceive them to be a good person. Yet they are only 'good' in our eyes, in our experience and perception of them. The messages we receive from others must somehow be separated by us from our perception of them as a person, and in our context, compared against God's revealed word before we accept them as true.


day_number: 07/08
text:
There are times in such conflict situations as Jer. 28:11 when we too just have to walk away. God's says one thing, and the popular religious leaders say another. We can make our point and then walk away from endless argument and controversy.


day_number: 07/08
text:
Tax collectors were seen as collaborators with the Romans and were hated. Jesus also called a Zealot, a hard line nationalist terrorist, to His group of followers (Lk. 6:15). The body of Christ is comprised of people very different from each other. Yet our tendency is to attend a church or group comprised of those from our own class, background and personality type. But the body of Christ is so different.


day_number: 08/08
text:
To eat at the king's table was a sign of acceptance and special favour (1 Kings 2:7); and all believers are invited to eat at Christ's table at the breaking of bread. To refuse or ignore the invitation is to turn down a great honour.


day_number: 08/08
text:
"I am He who knows, and am witness" (Jer. 29:23). It's not painless to simply say that we believe God's Name is Yahweh and that this means "I am". He therefore sees and knows all things because He "is" in all ways, and our lives must be appropriate to Him being as He is. Note that God is presented as both witness and judge. Our lives are as it were played out before the Divine courtroom.


day_number: 08/08
text:
The desire to touch Jesus and His desire to touch people comes out frequently in the Gospels. People believed that through touching a holy man, they would receive blessing; rather like Catholics and Orthodox travel far to touch relics. Jesus went along with this, but always emphasized that it was faith in Him, and His Father's power, which were responsible for the miracle, and not the touching in itself. We too have to go along with the weakness of others to bring them to a higher level.


day_number: 09/08
text:
Solomon immediately demonstrated his wisdom by the way he judged between the two prostitutes who came to him. They lived in the same house, and had given birth at the same time. The whole situation spoke of the kind of shameless prostitution which the Mosaic Law demanded should be punished by death. But the way of Divine wisdom in this case was not to automatically apply Divine law in condemning sinners. Instead, by cutting to the conscience within those women and appealing to it, they were led to at least the possibility of repentance, transformation and salvation. Solomon's wisdom was given him in order to know how to guide God's great people. The way of wisdom is therefore sometimes not to press a point when someone's in the wrong. We see this in all levels of relationships. There are weak points in relationships, fissure lines, which when pressed or brought under tension will cause earthquakes and destruction. It's best not to press on them; and yet if they are ignored, then the quality of relationship suffers and descends into interacting only over 'safe' matters. So what are we to do? By not raising the obvious issue- you're prostitutes and must be put to death- Solomon showed grace, but he showed it in such a way that those women surely couldn't have felt the same again; rather like the woman taken in adultery in Jn. 8:1-11. The very fact she was not condemned by the One who could condemn her- meant that she went away indeed vowing to "sin no more".


day_number: 09/08
text:
Jer. 30:17 says that "I will restore health to you". Although their wound was humanly incurable (:12,15). God really can do the impossible, and the impossible thing we struggle with is that sinners condemned to suffering and death can really be saved from that and given eternal life.


day_number: 09/08
text:
The measure we apply to God's word will have a recompense (:24). If we pay little attention to it, we will be given little; if we give our mind and life to it, then we will receive an appropriately large recompense. The least we can do is to read the Bible daily.


day_number: 10/08
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
In 1 Kings 5:12, the practical result of wisdom was peace between persons, and this should be the practical outcome of translating all our knowledge of God into practical wisdom.


day_number: 10/08
text:
It was unheard of for a woman to take the initiative in starting a romance leading towards marriage (Jer. 31:22); the man always chose his woman. Hence Ruth and Naomi's outstanding initiative regarding Boaz. Our repentance is presented here as a woman taking the initiative to as it were woo God Almighty; who as it happens has a heart that yearns for her anyway (:20). This is the strange romance of repentance, a mutual attraction that lasts for eternity. And the grace of it all is that this initiative of Judah for God, this new thing in the earth, was created by Him.


day_number: 10/08
text:
The sick man worshipped Jesus by recognizing Him as Son of God (v.7). And yet, in his illness, he also spoke aggressively to Jesus. But God understands mental illness and focused on the positive, accepting the correct parts of his understanding as "worship". We too must focus on the positive in our encounters with others.


day_number: 11/08
text:
We are represented by these stones of the temple (1 Pet. 2:5); we are being quarried and shaped now by the hand of God in our lives, and will be assembled into the temple at Christ's return. It will be too late then for corners to be knocked off; the shaping process is going on now. Stones need shaping so that they fit nicely with the other stones, in order to be a useful part of the entire house. Spiritual isolation isn't therefore what God intends; the shaping process involves us in inter-personal relationships and getting along with others, rather than walking away every time there is awkward conflict.


day_number: 11/08
text:
The repeated emphasis upon witnessing the purchase of the land (Jer. 32:15) and making it legal was because at the end of the 70 years captivity, land would again be valuable and be bought and sold; and this land which Jeremiah was buying would therefore be a valued part of his family's inheritance. So God was asking Jeremiah to put his money where his mouth was for the sake of the hope of the restored Kingdom which he was preaching. Sometimes God asks us to do the same; to make a sacrifice, even a financial one, for the sake of the hope of the Kingdom which we profess to others.


day_number: 11/08
text:
Jesus asks them to provide bread for the crowd in order to try to elicit faith and spiritual ambition from the disciples. But they couldn't see beyond the immediate problems. The possibility that Jesus could do a miracle and multiply what little bread they had... just didn't occur to them. All they could think of was the cost of buying the bread. Today Jesus asks us similar questions through bringing situations into our lives which require our faith.


day_number: 12/08
text:
Solomon spent nearly twice as long building his own house as he did God's house (1 Kings 6:38; 7:1). He liked building (Ecc. 2:4); he served God in ways convenient to him, rather than taking up a cross and going against his own natural desires.


day_number: 12/08
text:
Jer. 33:10 speaks in the present tense: "That are desolate". They were not at that moment desolate (:1), but God's prophetic word is so certain, that what He predicts will happen is spoken of as if it already exists. Likewise :12 "which is waste". The way of faith is to see future things as if they now are.


day_number: 12/08
text:
The Jews would've been shocked to hear that they rejected God's commandments. Jesus' generation were one of the most Torah observant there has been in Israel's history. But to follow human tradition as well as God's commandments is to effectively reject them. The Bible presents human failure in very stark terms. And we too fail, and must take that seriously.


day_number: 13/08
text:
Solomon hadn't learnt the lesson his father David did after his sin with Bathsheba- that God doesn't really want multitudes of animal sacrifices, but rather the sacrifice of a broken heart and true internal spirituality (Ps. 50:8-15; 51:16,17; Is. 1:11; Jer. 7:22; Am. 5:25). We must be aware that organized religion so easily leads us to think that the externalities of religious devotion are all important; whereas it is internal spirituality which God seeks above all, and any organized religious system we are part of should be merely an assistance towards that, rather than an end in itself.


day_number: 13/08
text:
The prophets not only reflected God's dismay and passionate feelings, they expressed their own dismay too. Lack of justice was a major concern of the prophets. But to us, injustice may be so commonplace we don't really worry about it too much. Given all the idolatry going on at the time of Jeremiah, we'd have expected the condition for being spared judgment at the hands of their invaders to be: 'Throw your idols away!'. But :11,22 offers them a reprieve if they stopped abusing their brethren. When, temporarily, the Jews ceased doing that and proclaimed liberty to their brethren- the pending judgment was put on hold. When they again abused their brethren, not giving them the "liberty" which must be afforded to all those made in God's image, then the Babylonians returned. And we need to ask whether we proclaim liberty to our brethren- or abuse them by not allowing them the basic freedom which is the dignity God allows to each of His children.


day_number: 13/08
text:
This situation of a hungry crowd of listeners is similar to that of 6:37. Jesus was hoping the disciples would have learnt from the experience they had then of Him multiplying their bread. This is why life situations repeat, in essence; because God plans them all for our spiritual education. We are intended to learn from one experience in order to spiritually succeed the next time that situation occurs. Sadly it seems the disciples didn't learn, just as we often don't.


day_number: 14/08
text:
Solomon's building work was what he naturally desired to do, he built for his personal "pleasure" (1 Kings 1:1,19); he didn't understand that true service of God requires us to go against the grain of our natural desires.


day_number: 14/08
text:
Jonadab's requirements of his descendants were unreasonable. There was nothing wrong in drinking wine nor in owning vineyards or living in a house. Indeed, all these three things are listed amongst the blessings which God would give Israel in Canaan (Dt. 6:11; 8:12; Ps. 104:15). But the point is that if other people can show such careful obedience to human commands, even if they are unnecessary and increasingly irrelevant- how much more should we be obedient to God's word. All around us are great examples of single minded dedication of life- to wrong principles. Self-sacrificial humanitarian atheists are ever before us with their good deeds. If they can do it- why can't we, and why can't we do even more than them?


day_number: 14/08
text:
They argued about who should be the greatest immediately after Jesus had told them of His upcoming death (v. 31). Whenever Jesus told the disciples about His death, they started arguing amongst themselves. They had a psychological barrier to the message of the cross. We tend to also; we would rather become inward looking, compare ourselves against ourselves, rather than against the standard set in the crucifixion of Jesus.


day_number: 15/08
text:
The Queen of Sheba saw Solomon's wisdom through seeing the "sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their clothing". It was through her observation of Solomon's people that she perceived and understood his wisdom. The nations will likewise learn the knowledge of Christ through observing the example of natural Israel and ourselves; as they should in this life too. People tend not to believe mere words until they see them lived out in practice before their eyes.


day_number: 15/08
text:
God says that perhaps Judah would hear His word and repent (Jer. 36:3); in :7 Jeremiah repeats this by saying that perhaps Judah would pray and repent. True prayer is therefore a reflection of our hearing of God's word. His word influences ours. If the Lord's word abides in us, then prayer becomes powerful, as our will merges with that of God in our requests (Jn. 15:7).


day_number: 15/08
text:
The invitation to take up a cross was shocking to first century people- for death by crucifixion was the death of criminals, and the cross was despised as a symbol of shame. Jesus is asking us to join Him in a condemned man's last walk to the place of death. Following Him means following Him to death.


day_number: 16/08
text:
The extent of grace explains many apparent contradictions and paradoxes throughout God's relationships with men- e.g. God repeatedly said that He would leave David with "one tribe" (1 Kings 11:13). But actually by grace He gave David and Judah two and a half tribes.


day_number: 16/08
text:
Later in Jeremiah, we read of how Jeremiah was given the choice of honourable retirement in Babylon, or to remain with God's spiritually weak people in the land. He chose to stay with them, and even went down into Egypt with the weakest of them. Perhaps he learnt to do that from his experience at this time. We too are taught by failures in one situation to be stronger the next time we are faced with the choice. It seems he had had enough and just wanted to get away from the aggressive, rejective audience he had in Jerusalem. It is hinted in 32:25 that Jeremiah may have somewhat resented having to buy the field, so that perhaps his family relatives would inherit it at the time of the restored Kingdom in 70 years time, after his death. So he wanted to enjoy it now. And for these things he suffered. We can't have the hope of eternity and fully enjoy it now, even if we may have some foretastes of it.


day_number: 16/08
text:
Mk. 11:17 is about the future Kingdom of God. But Jesus understood that we should be living the Kingdom life now. We should do the same; there will be no huge difference between the type of life we now live, and the life we will eternally live. In this sense we "have eternal life" in that we live today the kind of life we will eternally live.


day_number: 17/08
text:
In 1 Kings 12:7 we see the paradox of servant leadership- if Rehoboam had been a servant of his people, then he would have ruled over them. In all ways, Jesus is our pattern. He was a servant of all, and so should we be. His servanthood dominated His consciousness. He said that He came not [so much as] to be ministered unto, but so as to minister, with the end that He gave His life for others (Mk. 10:45). This is what makes Him Lord of all- because He was servant of all.


day_number: 17/08
text:
God somehow arranged things within His purpose so that Zedekiah's repentance would have enabled the salvation of all Israel (Jer. 38:23). But his failure to repent, his fear of his image amongst men who were themselves condemned and on borrowed time, meant that judgment came on all His people. What this shows is that there are times and places where God is willing to save people for the sake of the spirituality of a third party, but if he or she fails in this, deliverance doesn't necessarily arise from another place, as it would have done in Esther's time.


day_number: 17/08
text:
In Mk. 12:24 the Lord laments: "You do not know the scriptures". But they did know them, many could recite the entire Old Testament from memory. We can know the Bible and yet not know it at all if we don't personally believe in the power of God which it teaches.


day_number: 18/08
text:
The prayer of the man of God caused Jeroboam's hand to be healed. The prayers of someone else can affect the fortunes of another in a way which would not happen if they just prayed for themselves. What stronger motivation could we have to pray earnestly for each other?


day_number: 18/08
text:
The parable of the good Samaritan features a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and being attacked, to be saved by grace when no human help could assist him (Lk. 10:30). The wounded man represents us all, and yet he is modelled upon Zedekiah. This weak king who loved hearing God's word and wanted to do the right thing, but was simply weak and gave in to the pressure of circumstance and thereby seriously sinned- is representative of each of us (Jer. 39:5).


day_number: 18/08
text:
Mk. 13:8 is clear that we in the last days will go through "birth pains". The bringing to birth will be when Jesus returns and we are fully 'born again' and enter His Kingdom with immortal nature (Jn. 3:3-5). Living in the last days just before He returns will therefore be a painful and frightening time for the believers.


day_number: 19/08
text:
As Pharaoh's heart was plagued (Ex. 9:14), so was Israel's (1 Kings 8:38); as Egypt was a reed, so were Israel (1 Kings 14:15). The language of the world is thus applied to God's people because this is how they thought and acted. Apostate Israel are spoken of as the pagan world; and therefore at the day of judgment the rejected of the new Israel will be condemned along with the world (1 Cor. 11:32); assigned their portion "with the unbelievers" (Lk. 12:46). We must be ultimately separate from this world.


day_number: 19/08
text:
"All the land is before you" (Jer. 40:4). Jeremiah would have recalled how Lot was in a similar position, given the opportunity of living where he wanted; and he wrongly chose the Sodom area, and spiritually suffered for it. Jeremiah would've immediately been on his guard, in case this offer of living where he liked could lead him to wrong choices. The more familiar we are with Scripture and the more we reflect upon and personalize it, the easier it will be for us to see our situations as being in essence what others were in, and the clearer the decisions will become.


day_number: 19/08
text:
There is a tradition, and also some internal evidence, that Mark was writing down Peter's account of the Gospel. Although Mark is the shortest Gospel, the account of Peter's denials is most detailed in Mark. This shows how Peter was focusing upon his own weaknesses as he retold the Gospel; as we should.


day_number: 20/08
text:
"The high places were not taken away: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with Yahweh all his days" (1 Kings 15:14). God appears prepared to overlook some failures because our conscience is still right with Him. And yet, despite the significance of conscience, we will be judged at the last day according to God's word rather than our own conscience as it were jumping out of us and standing there as the yardstick for our judgment. Asa and Jehoshaphat removed the high places, but in a sense they didn't (1 Kings 15:14 cp. 2 Chron. 14:5; 17:6 cp. 20:33). We read of how the land was purged of Baal, Sodomites etc.; but in a very short time, we read of another purge being necessary. Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah all made major purges within a space of 80 years. Jeremiah therefore condemns the Jews who lived at the time of Josiah's reformation for not knowing God in their hearts.


day_number: 20/08
text:
To eat bread together was a sign of fellowship and mutual acceptance (Jer. 41:1). The breaking of bread service is therefore designed as a comfort to us of the Lord's acceptance of us. He is willing to do this any time with us.


day_number: 20/08
text:
John says that the Lord went out bearing His cross. Luke says that Simon was asked to carry the hinder part of the cross behind Him. Matthew and Mark say Simon carried the cross. Mk. 15:22 (Gk.) says that the soldiers carried Jesus to Golgotha. J.B. Phillips renders it: " They got him to a place Golgotha". It would seem that the Lord collapsed, perhaps fainting. If He was unable to fully carry His own cross, He totally understands our struggles to carry His cross as He asks.


day_number: 21/08
text:
We learn from 1 Kings 16:2 that we can make others stumble from the path to His salvation. Baasha made other people sin and thus provoke God to anger; his own sin and that of the people are described in identical language, to portray how he influenced them. We have far more spiritual influence upon others than we might think.


day_number: 21/08
text:
Prayer was envisaged by them as a going to God, a journey into His presence (Jer. 42:6). Although we are in His presence all the time, this doesn't take away the special entry into God's personal presence which is what prayer is all about.


day_number: 21/08
text:
The women who came to the tomb weren't looking for the risen Lord; they came to anoint the body. But their love of the Lord was counted to them as seeking Him (Mt. 28:5). The Bible is full of how God counts people as righteous although they are not. This is what love is, in some ways. As God counts us as righteous, so we should recognize that our weak brethren are counted righteous by Him.


day_number: 22/08
text:
God had sought to gently teach Elijah his need for others when He told Elijah to go to the widow woman in Zarephath who would "sustain you"; it worked out that Elijah sustained her. And he must have reflected upon this. God's intention was that spiritually, his experience with that woman would sustain him. Our efforts to sustain others lead to our being sustained.


day_number: 22/08
text:
It's incredible that Jeremiah went to Egypt with them, despite having had his prophetic words specifically ignored, and being slandered as actually not a true prophet of Yahweh. But this was his level of identity with God's people, weak as they were. After reading this verse, the spiritual weakness of others in the family of God should never again make us think that we want nothing to do with them. We need to stick with them as Jeremiah did.


day_number: 22/08
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
God has "prepared" an individual place for us in eternity (1 Cor. 2:9); we will each as it were have our own especially prepared room in God's eternal house (Jn. 14:1-3).


day_number: 23/08
text:
God tried to correct Elijah's despising of the other prophets of the Lord. Elijah was in a cave, and was also fed bread and water- just as the other prophets were. And yet Elijah didn't see, or didn't want to see, that connection- after having been reminded of this experience of the other prophets, he claims that he alone was a true prophet of Yahweh (1 Kings 18:22)- he wrongly believed that all other valid prophets had been slain (19:10). But the record shows how that during Elijah's lifetime there were other prophets of Yahweh active in His service (20:13,35). Yet God still works through the conceited, the spiritually superior, those who despise their brethren. God didn't give up on Elijah because he was like this, and neither should we give up in our relationship with such brethren.


day_number: 23/08
text:
Their motivation was simply to have a situation where they would experience good and not "evil", in the sense of disaster (Jer. 44:18). Yet they had claimed that they would accept God's word whether it meant good or evil for them (42:6). However, their agenda was clearly that they wanted good in this life, right now; rather than accepting evil now as a preparation for God's future Kingdom. The prosperity Gospel has likewise totally misunderstood this; through much tribulation in this life we shall come to enter God's Kingdom (Acts 14:22).


day_number: 23/08
text:
In 1 Cor. 3:9 Paul likens God to a fellow worker on a building site or on a farm; this shows the humility of God in being prepared to work with us as we try to help others to His Kingdom.


day_number: 24/08
text:
There is such a thing as feeling lonely and isolated when we needn't. Elijah is an example of this; he felt that he was "left alone" faithful in Israel- even though there were another 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal (Rom. 11:3). The Hebrew could mean that God reserved 7,000 of Elijah's brothers and sisters who potentially would not bow the knee to Baal. Yet Elijah didn't want to see the potential of his brethren. He set himself in a league above them, like the Psalmist, saying in his haste that all men are liars (Ps. 116:11).


day_number: 24/08
chapter_number_to: 46
text:
The disobedient Jews had fled to Egypt because they thought there would be support and stability there from the Babylonians. In Jer. 46:2 God prophesies that the Egyptian army would be destroyed and wouldn't be a strength to the Jews. Egypt so often becomes a symbol of human strength which God's people are tempted to trust in rather than in Him. His requirements are often counter-instinctive to obey; to remain in the ruins of Judah under Babylonian occupation was in fact the way to peace; but Egypt always looks the logical, more attractive choice.


day_number: 24/08
chapter_number_to: 5
text:
As taught in the parables of Jesus, we have each been given certain talents and blessings which we must use faithfully in God's service. If we don't use them, or use them for our own selfish advantage in this life, then we are not faithful stewards (1 Cor. 4:1).


day_number: 25/08
text:
1 Kings 20:28 shows that sometimes God gives victory to unspiritual people because He wishes to justify Himself or teach others a lesson through that victory. The fact God uses us doesn't necessarily mean we are therefore acceptable with Him.


day_number: 25/08
text:
The Philistines were another group of people with whom Judah were tempted to trust upon against the Babylonians; but here their destruction is foretold. They should of course have realized from Biblical history that the Philistines were God's enemies, and they ought to have driven them out of the land rather than think about making such alliances with them. There are so many possibilities from which we should just instinctively turn away.


day_number: 25/08
text:
1 Cor. 6:11 "Washed... in the name" is a reference to baptism. We also have committed [in essence] the sins which we are tempted to seek redress about in some form- in the Corinthian context, to take others to court over. But we were graciously forgiven through our baptism.  Therefore we should be forgiving to them.


day_number: 26/08
text:
1 Kings 21:4, as 20:43, shows that living with a bad conscience before God, endlessly seeking our own pleasure, doesn't bring happiness but rather depression and anger (1 Tim. 6:9,10).


day_number: 26/08
text:
"Therefore my heart sounds for Moab" (Jer. 48:36).The preceding verses are clearly God Himself speaking. Both His and Jeremiah's heart [:31] groaned for Moab, the continual enemy of God's people. God weeps for the arrogant, for the condemned, for His enemies (:42). We who at times fear His judgment of us should remember this; ultimately His love and desire to save is very great, and we unlike Moab have openly shown in baptism, daily prayer and the life of faith that we do indeed want to be saved.


day_number: 26/08
text:
Paul often sets an ideal standard, and yet recognizes God's concessions to human weakness. Thus he advises the single life, but makes a concession to marriage; in marriage, there shouldn't be separation, but if there is, then remain single (:2,11). This acceptance of different standards is to inspire us to choose the higher level ourselves, whilst being able to cut slack to those who choose lower ones.


day_number: 27/08
text:
God deceived prophets to speak things in His Name which were actually false (s1 Kings 22:20; Ez. 14:9). He chose Israel's delusions by making their idols answer them (Is. 66:3,4). Jeremiah feared God had deceived him (Jer. 20:7)- showing he knew such a thing was possible. God is constantly pushing people up an upward spiral of spirituality, or further down a downward spiral of unspirituality whereby He makes those who don't love His truth to believe a lie (2 Thess. 2:10,11).


day_number: 27/08
text:
God wanted to bring down the pride of Edom (Jer. 49:16). They were not His people, they were one of many Gentile nations. Yet God observed their pride and how they trusted in their mountain strongholds. His colossal perception of the attitudes of every human being on earth is perhaps beyond our full appreciation. If He looks with such detail upon the hearts of those who don't know Him, how much more does He look upon us, and also knows the hearts of all those who intersect with us His children.


day_number: 27/08
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
We can use knowledge, including spiritual knowledge, wrongly- even if the knowledge is theoretically correct (8:1). If we live in love, our concern will be to edify or build up others, and we will use and apply our knowledge appropriately and sensitively. The wonderful thing is that God knows us; not so much that we have some limited knowledge of Him (:3).


day_number: 28/08
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
Land and water were seen as barren and bad because they were salty (Dt. 29:23; Jud. 9:45; Jer. 17:6); to put salt into bad water to cure it was therefore counter-instinctive (2 Kings 2:21). But this is how God loves to operate; we have to recognize the badness and acknowledge that God can work through it. Hence in this case, salt was used to cure saltiness.


day_number: 28/08
text:
Time and again the prophets describe the judgments to fall upon Israel in the same terms as they speak of the condemnations of the surrounding nations (compare Jer. 50:3 and :13). The message was clear: rejected Israel would be treated as Gentiles. Even if we are separated from this world externally, we can still act in a worldly way, and share the world's condemnation (1 Cor. 11:29,32).


day_number: 28/08
text:
The tests God gives us may actually be beyond our ability to bear; but God gives us a way of escape (:3,13). Whenever we sin, we are therefore guilty and responsible; we can't justify our failure by 'situational ethics', whereby we reason that the situation left us with no choice but to sin. God promises that He will not allow this ever to happen. It's a great comfort as well as a challenge.


day_number: 29/08
text:
In 2 Kings 3:7, Jehoshaphat agreed to a wrong proposition, partly because the sister of Jehoram had married his son, and partly because he himself had been attacked by Moab recently (2 Chron. 20:1). He allowed family pressures and the desire for personal security to override spiritual principle; and that in essence is our abiding temptation likewise.


day_number: 29/08
text:
Babylon's destruction is as a stone being cast into the sea (Jer. 51:63,64). But Jesus also uses this very image to describe the judgment of those who offend one of His little ones (Mt. 18:6). To upset fragile believers by our rejection of them is to be as bad as proud, idolatrous Babylon who destroyed Yahweh's temple and slew His people. And it will meet the same judgment. We should therefore be extra careful not to reject our fellow believers, especially the "little ones" whose faith is new or fragile. Three of the Gospel records feature this saying of Jesus (also Mk. 9:42; Lk. 17:2); it is so very important.


day_number: 29/08
text:
1 Cor. 11:31 says that if we judge ourselves, we will not be judged. 'Judge' is being used in the sense of 'condemn'. We cannot avoid the day of judgment; but if we condemn ourselves in our self-examination today, realizing that we are not worthy, then, we will not be condemned. This will work out to be the greatest paradox of all existence.


day_number: 30/08
text:
According to the level of our faith, so life will be unto us. The more and the larger the containers borrowed, the more oil they would have. God's power and ability is unlimited; it is us through our faith who control the extent of His activity (Mk. 9:23).


day_number: 30/08
text:
Zedekiah's rebellion was of his own freewill, and God through Jeremiah had pleaded with him not to rebel but to surrender; yet in another sense, God confirmed Zedekiah in this stubbornness, because He wanted to express His anger against Judah. If we reject God's word as Zedekiah did, then we will be confirmed in the way to destruction we wish to go (Jer. 52:3).


day_number: 30/08
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
We become parts of the body of Christ by being baptized into His body. This is why baptism is so important; and it means that everyone who's truly baptized is part of the body of Christ, and we therefore should not be divided from others in the body (12:25); and we cannot say that we have no need of others in the body of Christ (12:21). The bread which we break at the breaking of bread is a symbol of the body of Christ; we are one loaf (10:17). We should therefore welcome at the breaking of bread all those who have been validly baptized into Christ. Seeing there is only one body of Christ, one loaf, one bread, we are effectively breaking bread with them anyway even if we (wrongly) refuse to break bread with them. The quiet or weak members of the body of Christ are very valuable- and we should recognize this (12:22).


day_number: 31/08
text:
2 Kings 5:18 disproves the theory of guilt by association. God was willing to tolerate this believer in Him still being associated with a pagan religion. This concession to weakness shouldn't be used to justify us in living lives which are indistinguishable from those of unbelievers; we are the light of the world, and if we hide that light, then it will go out (Mt. 5:14). But there are times when our faith in the true God is a matter of the heart, and our external appearance may have to be otherwise because of the life situation we are in; and God is understanding of that, as we should be towards other believers. And yet Naaman chose a lower level of serving God than he could have chosen. The higher level would surely have been, as Daniel's friends, not to bow down to an idol. And when we ask what the rest of the Jews in Babylon did on that occasion, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that they took the lower level which Naaman did- and bowed down. But when we choose a lower level of service, God works to inspire us to take higher levels.


day_number: 31/08
text:
God speaks as if He is married to Israel, and that even in their sufferings, He would suffer with them, as a husband suffers with his wife: "The destroyer will come upon us" (Jer. 6:22,26) even sounds as if God let Himself in a way be 'destroyed' in Israel's destruction; for each of us dies a little in the death of those we love. The idea of God being destroyed in the destruction of His people may be the basis of the descriptions of Zion as being left widowed (Lam. 1:1; Is. 54:1-8). We ask the question- if she was a widow, who died? Her husband, God, was as it were dead. The very idea of the death of the immortal God is awful and obnoxious. But this was and is the depth of God's feelings at His peoples' destruction, but it paves the way for the idea of God somehow being "in Christ" at His death.


day_number: 31/08
text:
To speak in a foreign language for the sake of it, just to show off, wouldn't help anyone; they'd need someone with the gift of translating to translate back to their own language (:6). The essence of what Paul is saying in this chapter is: 'Don't show off. Use whatever gifts you've been given to practically upbuild others, rather than abusing them to exalt yourself, to show off before others, to appear different and cool in the eyes of men'. And that principle applies to us today.


day_number: 01/09
text:
Naaman wanted to be a secret believer, even bowing down to Rimmon to keep his boss happy. God seems to have allowed this, but He worked in Naaman's life, so that his faith was no longer secret. For soon after his conversion, his master got the hunch that one of his courtiers was "for the king of Israel". And Naaman would have been the obvious suspect, as he had gone to Israel and been cured of his leprosy by an Israeli prophet. We then read that the army of Syria came against Elisha the prophet and sought to surround him in order to capture him. They were then judged by God. Could it really be so that Naaman would have led that army? Surely the situation arose so as to force Naaman to resign the job. Thus God worked to stop him being a secret believer, and to remove him from a position where he could not live with a free conscience before the Father. And so God will do in our lives- if we respond.


day_number: 01/09
text:
Jeremiah wanted his grief to be reflective of the grieving prayer of the remnant to their God. His grief really was and is to be the pattern for others (Lam. 2:18). Attitudes to prayer influence others. Doubtless it influenced the Lord Himself, who wept over Zion (Lk. 19:41), inevitably holding Jeremiah in His mind. Note that Isaiah had prophesied that God would not rest until Zion be restored. Watchmen would be set upon Zion's walls who would give Him no rest until the walls be rebuilt (Is. 62:1,6,7). At this time, Zion was felt by God to be the "apple of his eye" (Zech. 2:8). This prophesy started to be fulfilled straight after the Babylonian invasion when Jeremiah urged the desolated people to pray: "Let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no respite; don't let the apple of your eye cease". The prayerful remnant gave themselves no rest; and thus was fulfilled the prophecy that God would have no rest. Sincere prayer according to God's will meant that there was a strong mutuality between the Father and those who prayed to Him. The apple of His eye was also theirs; and thus the prayers were ultimately answered and Zion was restored. Our spirit and His are united. All this speaks of an incredible personal bonding in prayer between the Creator and each, specific one of His creatures.


day_number: 01/09
text:
There will be different levels of reward in the Kingdom, just as one star is brighter than another (:41); some will rule over five cities, others over two (Lk. 19:19), in reflection of the fact that some people in this life bring forth more fruit than others (Mt. 13:8). This inspires us to respond as far as we can to what we have been spiritually given; and to show understanding toward those who perhaps don't apparently respond as much as we do.


day_number: 02/09
text:
The utterly desperate lepers were chosen by God to be the heralds of good news- the Gospel. He uses desperate people today, even middle class comfortable people who perceive their desperation, as the means of His witness.


day_number: 02/09
text:
God now tries our hearts (Job 7:18; Ps. 11:4; 17:3; 26:2; 139:23). In likely allusion to the descriptions of God searching and trying our hearts in the Psalms, Jeremiah says that we should search and try our hearts- we should seek to know ourselves as God does, seeing ourselves as He sees us (Lam. 3:40).


day_number: 02/09
text:
It's possible to serve God without doing it in love- as Paul warns against in chapter 13. It's very important to do all we do consciously motivated by love (:4); not because we 'have to', not for appearances, nor from habit and tradition.


day_number: 03/09
text:
2 Kings 8:9 shows that even unbelievers in their extremity try to turn to God; there is in all people some level of conscience toward God, a sense of their need for Him, however deeply buried it is. The task of preaching is to reach down through their defences and connect with that sense.


day_number: 03/09
text:
Both Yahweh and Israel are described as kindling the fire of judgment; He responded to what they had done (Jer. 11:16; 15:14; Lam. 4:11 cp. Jer. 17:4). Those who will be condemned will be only those who really wanted it.


day_number: 03/09
chapter_number_to: 2
text:
2 Cor. 2:14 This alludes to the Roman triumph, whereby the victorious soldiers marched through the streets in glory and with the burning of incense after defeating their enemy. The victory of Jesus on the cross should fill us with such a sense of victory and glory.


day_number: 04/09
text:
Jeremiah's prophecies of gracious restoration were known by the exiles; but many passages in Isaiah, the Psalms (e.g. Ps. 137:7-9) and Lamentations (Lam. 5:20,21) indicate that the exiles had little conviction they would be fulfilled, considering Judah as "utterly rejected" by God, and just getting on with their lives in Babylon without any real hope in God's salvation. Considering the prosperity of their lives there, this was an all too convenient conclusion for them to draw. Once again we see that false interpretation of Scripture invariably has a moral subtext to it. Is. 40:1,2 speaks a message of comfort to the exiles: "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God". But [in full allusion to this prophecy], the exiles were like Rachael who refused to be comforted over her loss (Jer. 31:15); they claimed they found "none to comfort" (1:2,16,17,21). But they were wilfully refusing the comfort of God's repeated word of hope and restoration. They didn't grasp the plain teaching of the prophetic word because they didn't want to- it demanded too much of them, and a giving up of the comfortable Babylon life. Hence Is. 43:19 laments: "I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth [in the decree to return to Zion?], do you not perceive it?". And do we "not perceive it?" time and again in our own lives, as to the potentials God is opening up?


day_number: 04/09
chapter_number_to: 4
text:
"Boldness" is a word often associated with the preaching of the Gospel in Acts. We who are naturally shy and not confident in witnessing to others can be inspired with boldness by the fact we have a sure hope. If we believe we shall live eternally in God's Kingdom, we will find strength to share this good news with others (3:12; 4:13).


day_number: 05/09
text:
Jehu had been obedient to God's word about Ahab's family and Baal as an outlet for his own aggression, anger and pride. But Jehu clearly didn't really have a heart for God, because he only focused on those aspects of God's word which were convenient to him and reinforced his own personality type. An obsession with criticism of others for their doctrinal and moral weaknesses has often been passed off as zeal for God's word, when the whole spirit of God's word in other matters has been totally ignored. God asks for our devotion to His word in every part of our hearts and living, not just as a justification for what we naturally would like to do.


day_number: 05/09
text:
Ezekiel's opening vision of the cherubim was surely to encourage the captives in Babylon that above them was an awesome Angelic system, that was able to carry them with it back to the land- if they were workers together with God. Although it seemed that they were sitting still, nothing was happening, they were just passing time by the rivers of Babylon, above them there was an intensely active system of Angels working for their good. Asaph, writing Psalms in the captivity, perceived this when [surely referring to Ezekiel's recent vision] he speaks of how the God who dwells between the cherubim is in fact actively leading Judah somewhere (Ps. 80:1). Despite God's apparent silence, there is likewise a huge Angelic system whirring away over our lives too.


day_number: 05/09
chapter_number_to: 7
text:
Those who will be rejected by Jesus at the final judgment will be "found naked" (5:3; Rev. 16:15) because they have not developed anything in God's account. In a similar figure, Jesus tells us to store up treasure in Heaven with God by the way we live and think today (Mt. 6:20). 5:9 implies that if we die, we will be unconscious until He returns; but effectively, our death will be His return for us, because the next conscious moment for us will be the resurrection and being with the Lord Jesus.


day_number: 06/09
chapter_number_to: 12
text:
In response to the murder of her son, Athaliah murdered others. The cycle of hurt continues like this in so many lives, doing to others what was done to us. Only the gospel of grace in Christ can break this cycle.


day_number: 06/09
text:
Ezekiel was shown "what the house of Israel are doing in the dark" (8:12). To pass through human life with this level of sensitivity must've been so hard. Psychologically and nervously, the stress would've been awful. It seems to me that the prophets had to be somehow psychologically strengthened by God to endure living that sensitively in this crass and unfeeling world- hence God made Ezekiel and Jeremiah as a wall and "iron pillar" to Israel, hardened their faces, so that they wouldn't be "dismayed at [the] looks" of those who watched them with anger and consternation (2:4-6; 3:8,9,27; Jer. 1:18; 15:20). This psychological strengthening was not aimed at making them insensitive, but rather in strengthening them to live sensitively to sin in a sinful world without cracking up. And He will do the same for us, too.


day_number: 06/09
chapter_number_to: 9
text:
2 Cor. 8:15 implies some Israelites gathered more manna each day than others who were maybe weak or old. But those who gathered more shared their excess with those who couldn't gather enough. God puts things such as the needs of others into our hearts (:16), and we must follow His leading.


day_number: 07/09
text:
Elijah's example clearly influenced Elisha, both in the nature of the miracles which he performed, and in how when Elisha died, he was likewise seen as "My father, the chariot of Israel, and the horseman thereof" (2 Kings 13:14). How Elisha related to Elijah, was how people came to relate to Elisha. This is not only a neat cameo of the immense personal influence which we have upon each other; it reflects how Elisha learnt the lesson from Elijah, which we too must learn, of freely and totally absorbing ourselves in the progress of God's Angelic, cherubic work to bring about His glory and not our own.


day_number: 07/09
text:
This eating of God's word was to represent how Ezekiel wasn't merely to relay God's word as a disinterested messenger, but to assimilate it personally, receiving it into his heart before he spoke it to others (Ez. 3:10), just as we should in our witness.


day_number: 07/09
chapter_number_to: 11
text:
2 Cor. 10:7 "So also are we" implies that whatever we know of our own experience of Christ, not least His gracious love, presence and forgiveness of us, we should recognize is also experienced by our brethren in Christ with whom we may have differences.


day_number: 08/09
text:
We must watch out for the tendency to think that because a man has dug a hole and then fallen into it, well, that's his problem. But we have all done this, hopelessly so. We only have ourselves to blame. And yet God has rushed to us in Christ. He was grieved for the affliction of Israel, even though it was purely due to their own sin and wilful rebellion (2 Kings 14:26). If a man has fallen into his own hole, he is still down there and needs help, however he got there.


day_number: 08/09
text:
Preaching through these acted parables would've led to people thinking Ezekiel was mad or at least, very 'odd'; just as they may consider us when we share God's word with them as He asks.


day_number: 08/09
chapter_number_to: 13
text:
Love that is unresponded to is one of the hardest human experiences. But it is what God and Jesus go through more than any; for the more we love and are prepared to love, the harder is the rejection (12:15). Paul saw his converts as his spiritual children (:14). We can go through all the same emotions if we bring others to Christ.


day_number: 09/09
text:
"The sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin" is a phrase which runs like a refrain throughout the record of Israel's kings. The sinfulness of sin is that it leads others into sin; Jeroboam's sin influenced many generations to sin in the same way. The Biblical record so strongly emphasizes this. Our behaviour has more influence upon others, for good or for bad, than we may realize; and it continues after our death, even if in this life we may consider ourselves insignificant to others. Jeroboam's sin was in creating another centre of worship apart from the temple; thus he divided God's people. It could be argued that this sin of division was what was so extremely serious to God. Our divisive behaviour, or upholding the divisions created by others, will have serious consequence to the next generation of believers.


day_number: 09/09
text:
Ez. 5:11 "Will I also diminish you". The implication was that they had diminished God. It may be purposefully putting it in arresting terms, but all the same it's ultimately true that if we don't give God the glory we are intended to, then we are diminishing Him of what is potentially and rightfully His. This is the degree to which He has come down to our level in His interaction with men.


day_number: 09/09
text:
In Lk. 1:30, Mary "found favour". She had the spiritual ambition to ask to be the mother of Messiah. Hence her reaction was joy rather than "Oh no! I'm pregnant without a husband!". And she was likely an illiterate, barefoot teenager. She was of low social status (:48,53), but had such great spiritual ambition- an example to us all today.


day_number: 10/09
text:
The eyes of Yahweh could be a reference to the Angels. Although God can see and know and do all things directly of Himself, it seems He always prefers to work through some kind of mechanism. The Angels are perhaps the mechanism by which He is aware of all things in the lives of people on earth; we are continually in their presence, with them feeding back to God the situations on earth, and perhaps discussing them in the court of Heaven (1 Kings 22:22).


day_number: 10/09
text:
In Ez. 6:9 God says: "I have been broken". The God who is Almighty and so more powerful than us has become so involved with humanity that His heart was broken by Israel; and if it was broken in Ezekiel's time, we cannot imagine what His feelings were at the crucifixion of His Son. To truly love makes us weak and vulnerable, and the awesome extent of God's love has in a sense done the same to Him. Not that we are righteous of ourselves, but it's worth reflecting how our feeble efforts to love Him are therefore so thrilling to Him.


day_number: 10/09
text:
Faith is believing what we can't see but what has been revealed to us by God's word. The shepherds are a classic example of faith (:15). Therefore the shepherds rejoiced because their faith had been rewarded- they found everything exactly as had been said and as they had believed (:20). This was and is the joy of faith rewarded. You can experience it today.


day_number: 11/09
text:
"They followed vanity, and became vain". The idols are referred to as 'vanities'; those who served them became like them (Ps. 115:8; 135:18). Whilst we may not worship pieces of wood and stone, modern society is full of vain things such as never before. The internet has encouraged this to a huge extent, so that by the end of many modern lives all a person has done is to click a mouse and hit some keys millions of times in vain entertainment and frivolous social commentary, and watched thousands of hours of movies flickering on a screen. Yet the service of the true God provides us with opportunities to use our lives with ultimate, eternal significance and purpose. If we serve Him, the God of ultimate purpose, the antithesis of vanity, we shall become like Him.


day_number: 11/09
text:
The Hebrew word mishpat means [and is translated] both "crime" (Ez. 7:23) and "judgment" (5:7,16,20). Every sin is its own judgment, and brings us immediately as it were before the judgment throne of God. And yet mishpat is also translated "ordinance", in speaking about the commands of God (11:20). Acts of obedience are also acts of judgment; they too bring us positively before the judgment of God. The Greek and Hebrew words translated 'judge' mean both the process of discerning / summing up, and also the execution of judgment.


day_number: 11/09
text:
John didn't tell the soldiers to stop being soldiers, but to act within moral principles. God meets us where we are, calls different people in different states, and asks them within their contexts to act accordingly. It's the same with us today in whatever nonstandard situations we may be in.


day_number: 12/09
text:
"He joined with Yahweh". This is what God seeks- that we should intertwine our life and spirit with His. The Hebrew idea of 'joining' suggests marriage (Mt. 19:6), and by entering covenant relationship with God through joining to Christ in baptism, this is effectively what we have done. This is an amazing concept- that the God of the universe would join in such intimate relationship with tiny people on this earth. The difference between us is huge beyond words; no wonder we have such difficulty in understanding and responding to His love.


day_number: 12/09
text:
Any form of idolatry provokes God to jealousy. The vast extent of His love for us means that any unfaithfulness provokes His feelings of jealousy; love and jealousy are in this sense part of the same thing.


day_number: 12/09
text:
The popularity of Jesus was huge (:15). But He knew what people were like (Jn. 2:25) and so He avoided the pitfalls of success and popularity. We should handle any popularity or success in the way He did. His focus was upon glorifying God, getting that job done, and whether we stand with our backs to the world or have adulation of men, that must be our focus.


day_number: 13/09
text:
2 Kings 19:4 speaks of "The words which Yahweh your God has heard". God hears every word and is fully aware of the detail of every situation which we face. Isaiah picks up this sentence and rephrases it by telling Hezekiah to not "be afraid of the words that you have heard" (:6). The words we hear which so frighten us are in fact heard by God.


day_number: 13/09
text:
In some ways we can do nothing about the state of things in the world or amongst the people of God, because we cannot change other people. But what marks us out as God's people is that in our deepest minds [symbolized by the forehead], we weep for it all (Ez. 9:4). This was the characteristic which saved Lot when Sodom was destroyed (2 Pet. 2:8).


day_number: 13/09
text:
If Jesus needed to make time to be alone with God, so do we. It may require us to set the alarm clock 10 minutes earlier each morning (:16).


day_number: 14/09
text:
In 2 Kings 20:1-3 we see how God can state an intended purpose of His in very definite terms, as if there is no changing it- and yet such is His sensitivity to human prayer and love for Him, that He is willing to change it. He did the same when Moses persuaded Him not to destroy Israel as He planned (Ex. 32). There is often a gap between God's statement of His purpose and the fulfilment of it, and during that gap period we can reason with Him to act otherwise. His purpose is perhaps structured this way so that we can learn to pray more intensely and connect with Him more intimately than would otherwise be the case. It also inspires us to be spiritually ambitious enough to think of changing God's intended plan of action.


day_number: 14/09
text:
Ezekiel had to put his hand under the wings of the cherubim; and then there appeared permanently in the Cherubim visions "the form of a man's hand [i.e. Ezekiel's] under their wings" (:2,8). I take this to be indicative of how humanity can be so deeply a part of God's work; we are identified with Him and His Angels. The visions involved the whole system held up as it were upon a human hand; and God in the image of a man crowning it all in the Heavens. Truly God isn't far from any of us; and in a sense, "God is in need of man".


day_number: 14/09
text:
In Lk. 6:9 Jesus speaks of omitting to do good (in this case, healing the man) as doing harm and destroying life. Sins of commission aren't the only sins; sins of omission are as bad as proactively murdering or harming someone. Watch out for sins of omission today.


day_number: 15/09
text:
God has cast off His people (2 Kings 21:14; Zech. 10:6); and yet, because a minority of them will always accept Christ, it is not true that God has cast off His people in a total sense (Rom. 11:1). It was only because of this remnant that Israel have not become like Sodom (Rom. 9:29)- even though Old Testament passages such as Ezekiel 16 clearly liken Jerusalem to Sodom. Yet they are not as Sodom ultimately, for the sake of the remnant who will believe. In all this we see the very real tension within God, reflective of His extreme love for His wayward people.


day_number: 15/09
text:
When the cherubim lifted up, so was Ezekiel lifted up. Judah should have left Jerusalem when the Spirit told them to; and they should have upped and left Babylon when the Spirit told them to. But they were out of step with the Spirit, despite Ezekiel's acted parable of literally being lifted up and going where the Cherubim went. The equivalent of this for us is surely our sense of doing all for God's glory, of having this as the final deciding factor in all our decisions.


day_number: 15/09
text:
To touch coffins or dead bodies made a person unclean under Jewish law; but Jesus touched lepers and now touched the coffin to show His identification with the unclean. Those who realize they too are unclean will be comforted by this. He reaches out and touches you today, in all your sin and nonstandard situations.


day_number: 16/09
chapter_number_to: 23
text:
Josiah lived a life pleasing to God, as did others of his generation, and yet he was in ignorance of all the details of God's law. Full knowledge, even of some quite important things, didn't stop Josiah from being credited with doing what was right before God and not 'turning aside to the right hand or to the left' (2 Kings 22:2). He was judged according to how well he responded to that which he did know. And this may be a helpful window for us into how we should feel towards those who sincerely seek to follow the Lord and yet with imperfect knowledge. Time and again the prophets judged Israel according to their "ways", rather than according to their theological or academic knowledge (Ez. 18:30). We must bear this in mind in considering the status of those who only have partial access to or understanding of God's word. And yet once Josiah knew these words of God, he eagerly obeyed them as far as he could and asked for forgiveness for his disobedience to them- thus recognizing that sins of ignorance are still a felt offence against God. Our ignorance doesn't stop Him being hurt by our disobedience, just as others' ignorance doesn't mean they don't hurt us by their inappropriate words or actions. Hence sins of ignorance still required atonement under the Law of Moses.


day_number: 16/09
text:
"Perhaps they will consider" (Ez. 12:5) has huge implications. The Hebrew word ulay, 'perhaps', is significant in revealing how much God has given us freewill; for we are invited to understand that maybe God limits His foreknowledge so that He didn't 'know' whether they would "consider" or not. He speaks the same way in Is. 47:12; Jer. 26:2,3; 36:3,7. This 'uncertainty' of God as to how His people will respond to His word reflects the degree to which He has accommodated Himself to our kind of time. It has huge implications for us. With what eagerness must God Almighty look upon us as we sit down to read His word daily! 'Are they going to listen? How are they going to respond...?'.


day_number: 16/09
text:
Often we have been rushing to do something very important, and then somebody or something else demands our attention. The phone rings as we are rushing out of the door; a child insists upon having our attention as we are in the middle of an important conversation. In those moments of frustration, remember Jesus in Lk. 8:42. How calm He was, never flustered; how caring for people, to the point that He never ultimately ignored anyone's genuine need.


day_number: 17/09
chapter_number_to: 25
text:
To eat bread at the king's table was a sign of special favour (2 Kings 25:29). And yet Jesus, King of the cosmos, invites us to do this weekly, as if we are His specially favoured inner circle of friends; to refuse the table is strange indeed, and rejecting an amazing grace.


day_number: 17/09
text:
God is so sensitive to prayerfulness. He condemns the leaders of Israel for not stopping the gaps or building the wall, i.e. interceding, for Israel (Ez. 13:5). If only there had been a prayerful minority, God would have changed the whole course of His dealings with Israel. But petty materialism and small-mindedness was what stopped those leaders from doing their job.


day_number: 17/09
text:
We should rise each day and remind ourselves that we are to pick up the cross of Jesus "daily" (Lk. 9:23), accompanying Him on His 'last walk' to death. How we start each day is important.


day_number: 18/09
text:
It seems the genealogies of 1 Chron. 1-9 were completed at the time of the restoration from Babylon, when there was a problem in finding a High Priest and priesthood because it was hard to prove who was descended from Aaron, presumably because the genealogies were destroyed when the temple was burnt. The genealogies give much emphasis to the descendants of Aaron, far more than to the other tribes. There are a number of references to faithless men being punished by invasions (e.g. 5:6). Ezra 8 contains a genealogy recorded in similar style and language to these in Chronicles. Nehemiah made a special study of the genealogies in order to find an acceptable priesthood (Neh. 7:5,64). So there were Israel returning from captivity, led by a faithful remnant of the priests, looking back through their history, right back to Abraham and beyond, and seeing that their history was shot through with failure. Such self-examination extended even to considering the names parents gave their children, which frequently included the names of false gods like Baal. Marriage out of the faith was a problem at the time of the restoration (Ezra 9:1,2), and therefore the records of the genealogies stress how this had been a problem in the past- and had still not been forgotten by God. The prophets foretold that Israel's restoration would only come once they achieved a suitable recognition of their sinfulness. The priests who wrote those records in Chronicles were writing down the result of their national self-examination. This was the record of their lessons from Chronicles. Ezra 2:62 records Judah being 'reckoned by genealogies', using the same Hebrew word which is the hallmark of 1 Chronicles (4:33; 5:1,7,17; 7:5,7,9,40; 9:1,22). And in this context, Is. 40:26 compares God's 'bringing out' of Judah from Babylon with His 'bringing out' the stars by their individual names, all wonderfully known to Him. Ps. 87:6 had prophesied something similar about the restoration of Zion's fortunes: "Yahweh shall count, when He writes up the people, that this man was born there". Each individual was and is significant to God.


day_number: 18/09
text:
People who were worshipping idols in their hearts still wanted to come and hear God's word from the prophet. (Ez. 14:7) Like those people, we are tempted to worship the true God as well as idols, rather than making a clean break. People come to God's word as it now is in the Bible, but they are confused by God in the message they hear from it because they come to His word with idols in their hearts. Mere Bible reading won't make us righteous; the attitude of mind we bring to it is all important. If we come with idols in our hearts, then reading God's word will lead us yet further from God.


day_number: 18/09
text:
Greetings in the East took a long time. In telling them to "greet no one" (:4), Jesus didn't intend them to be rude, but to be urgent about their mission, and dispense with niceties to fulfill it. Do we have that intensity and urgency about our preaching the Gospel?


day_number: 19/09
text:
Boaz's marriage to a Gentile is not highlighted; simply "Boaz begat Obed", whereas others' marriage out of the faith is recorded in the same chapter (1 Chron. 2:3,34). The same action- in this case, marriage to a Gentile- can be done by different people with different motives. For one it may be an act of righteousness, for another- a sin. Thus when Uzziah acted as a priest he was condemned for it (2 Chron. 26:17-21), but when David (as a non-Levite also) did the same, it was a reflection of his spirituality. Seeing the inner motives and spirituality of others are hidden to us, we must be very careful not to judge by outward appearances; and we must resign all ultimate judgment to God, not least because of our total inability to make it.


day_number: 19/09
text:
There in Babylon they were as the vine tree, burned up and fit for no work; and yet, still used to perform God's work, by grace alone. And these men were truly types of us. Even before they were burnt up, the vine tree of God's people wasn't good for any work (:3), and had no superiority over the other trees (:2). God's people aren't better, of themselves, than the peoples around them; we're not good at works, even if we think we are; the way God uses us is a reflection of pure grace, and how He delights in using the humanly worthless and useless to do His work.


day_number: 19/09
text:
It is good for us to tell God in prayer that we forgive our enemies (:4). But this makes this simple prayer hard to pray truthfully. For we must forgive others if we hope for forgiveness ourselves.


day_number: 20/09
text:
Solomon wished to imitate his father David; his own real personality only came out in the Ecclesiastes years, when he took to alcohol, materialism, women and idolatry.It took the influence of his parents many years to wear off. David had weaknesses for horses (2 Sam. 8:4) and many wives; and Solomon followed in these steps too. Note here that David had six sons in seven years by six different women, including Gentiles. And in addition to these, David had children by "the concubines" (1 Chron. 3:9). Doubtless Solomon reasoned, albeit deep within his psyche, that such behaviour was legitimate because David his father had done it.


day_number: 20/09
text:
The abomination of their sexual perversion is placed last in the list of their sins, as if to emphasize that all the other sins were just as much sin. Likewise Paul writes to the Corinthians about their failures, but he doesn't start where I would have started- with their drunkenness at the memorial meeting. Instead he starts off with their disunity. Those things which we may consider as lesser sins, the Bible continually lists together with those things we have been conditioned into thinking are the greater sins. Clearest of all is the way Paul lists schism and hatred in his lists of sins that will exclude from the Kingdom. The worldviews of many societies have taught that sexual sin is so infinitely far worse than a bit of argument within a church, or ignoring others' poverty. But is this really right...?


day_number: 20/09
text:
God knows our basic need for food and clothing and will provide (:30), as He did for Israel after their 'baptism' in the Red Sea and journey through the wilderness. Their shoes didn't get worn out, and He gave them bread and water daily. David says he never saw the children of the righteous begging bread (Ps. 37:25). We must really believe this promise, and be prepared to accept nothing more than the bare basics in our journey to the Kingdom. Jesus was speaking to poor people when He appealed for generosity in :33. The poor can easily assume that all Christ's teaching about wealth and generosity are for the attention of rich Christians only. But this is not the case. The poor, too, are asked to be radically generous.


day_number: 21/09
text:
1 Chron. 4:24 says that "The sons of Simeon were Nemuel, Jamin... and Shaul". But Gen. 46:10 shows that Shaul was Simeon's son by a wrong, casual relationship. Yet this is not recorded in Chronicles, even though so many other weaknesses are. Perhaps this is to demonstrate how if God imputes righteousness for a repented of sin, there really is no record of this kept by Him.


day_number: 21/09
text:
If Judah had accepted their domination by Babylon as a just punishment for their rebellion against Yahweh, God potentially had set up a situation whereby this could have been fruitful for His people (Ez. 17:8). Wriggling out of our sins never brings the blessing God has prepared for those who accept their sins and the consequences of them.


day_number: 21/09
chapter_number_to: 14
text:
The "man" who owned the vineyard [Israel] is God (Lk. 13:7); the "vinedresser" is Jesus. The three years are the three years of Christ's ministry. Jesus knew God so well that He asked Him to delay His plan to destroy Israel, to give them yet more opportunity to give spiritual fruit (:8). Moses and other Bible characters showed us that we can reason with God, and in some cases He is prepared to change His stated intentions. Prayer is so powerful! Earlier, Israel were the vine and the Lord Jesus the vinedresser. But now we are the vine, and God Himself the vinedresser (Jn. 15:1). We are in good hands; and the Father and Son, who through Biblical history showed themselves so sensitive to spiritual fruit, are the very same ones who will meet us in the last day.


day_number: 22/09
text:
1 Chron. 5:26 "God... stirred up the spirit of Pul". God is able to work directly on the mind or spirit of people, even of unbelievers. What we are desperate for is spiritual mindedness, strength of mind / spirit against the flesh; and surely God is willing to directly give this to us if we ask Him.


day_number: 22/09
text:
Ez. 18:22 "Remembered against him" implies that in some sense, at the day of judgment, there will be a 'going through' with the wicked of all their sins; whereas for the righteous, these will not be remembered and instead their good works will be recounted to them (:24). The parable of Mt. 25:36-44 says as much.


day_number: 22/09
text:
Her dowry was all that a woman possessed (:8); even her body wasn't hers. To lose a dowry coin was therefore to lose part of herself; this is how hard God takes when He loses one of His people. She searched "until she finds it"- God, and we too, should search for the lost with the attitude that we will search until we find them. We certainly should not exclude any of God's people from His house; we should search passionately for any who leave.


