Resource Manager Posted July 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2017 26 July 2017 2 Samuel 12Jeremiah 16Matthew 27 "WHY HAVE YOU DESPISED THE WORD OF THE LORD" Today the great majority of people "despise the word of the Lord," it means nothing to them. Less and less people own Bibles and if they do, how regularly do they use them? Is this affecting us? The godless 'spirit' of life that surrounds nearly all of us is surely affecting us all in some degree. We must try harder to push 'the world' completely out of the range of our mental vision. Jesus poses the question (see Luke 18:8) asking "when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" James was inspired to write, "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord ... Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." [James 5:7-8] The coming of the Lord has always been as near as the day the believer falls asleep in death. Remember what Paul wrote, "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." [1 Corinthians 15:51-52] This future is for those who have not "despised the word of the Lord"! Yet even if there is a situation in which we have there can still be a future. We learnt this today as we read 2 Samuel 12. It reveals the message the prophet Nathan brought to David. David had had a 'blind spot' in his life and this led to his adultery with Bathsheba. God's message via Nathan was "Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife." [2 Samuel 12:9] What do we mean by 'a blind spot.'? We mean we are so carried away by some situation that our awareness of the all seeing eye of God gets blotted out in our thinking for a time. As a result we are - for a time, long or short, swept along by fleshly thinking! This is a tragedy that is going to have its after affects in some way it certainly did on David as we are going to read in coming days. We can be guilty of despising 'the word of the lord' every time the fleshly temptations of the world provoke us into fleshly thinking a prelude to fleshly actions. An appropriate final thoughts jumps out at us, as it were, from Paul's words of warning in his letter to the Romans 2 from Romans 2:4. Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience … God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works. Do we really know the condition of our heart? Those whose 'works' are ungodly show by their actions that they 'have despised the word of the Lord'. What do our actions show has our daily reading of God's word really influenced all that we do each day?-------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted July 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2017 27 July 2017 2 Samuel 13Jeremiah 17Matthew 28 "BLESSED IS THE MAN THAT TRUSTS IN THE LORD" What a meaningful, indeed spiritually powerful message came to Jeremiah that we read today in Jeremiah 17. May we all be able to take it to heart in such a way that his words become guiding principles in our lives. Sadly, as in the time of Jeremiah, today very few do this; but the Eternal Lord and His Son are looking for individuals who daily 'trust in the Lord' and who absorb from His word the guiding principles that 'rule' their lives. We read today (from Jeremiah 17:7) "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." May we not cease to bear fruit in the 'drought' of genuine spirituality that surrounds us because our 'trust is the Lord'. This is an extra dimension to trusting in Him. May we be inspired to do this because we meditatively read his word every day, being particularly inspired by verses such as Psalm 34:8-9 "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!" That is, they have 'no lack' of the things that matter, the things that lay the foundation for eternity. A final thought today comes from the last book in the Bible! Yes, in Revelation 15 where we read of the time when 'the song of the Lamb' is sung. It will be the time of ultimate blessing for the one 'who trusts in the LORD' and has been 'like a tree planted by water' the 'water of life.' And what is the 'song of the Lamb'? "Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! … All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." Surely, this will be the ultimate experience of the man that trusts in the LORD.-------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted July 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2017 28 July 2017 2 Samuel 14Jeremiah 18Romans 1; 2 "PRAISED FOR HIS HANDSOME APPEARANCE" What a challenging set of readings we have today, powerful lessons as to the wise way to live before God can be drawn from all 3 of them. Our chapter today in Samuel [2 Samuel 14] provides us with the lesson "the LORD looks on the heart" as we saw in the 1 Samuel 16:7 when the prophet was sent to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as the next king. In Samuel second book we again have a lesson as to how appearances are deceiving viewing from the human perspective. We read today how "in all Israel there was no one so much to be praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him." [2 Samuel 14:25] The lesson for us should be obvious what is the 'appearance' God looks for? In his final letter in 2 Timothy, Paul gave him and us some invaluable advice and a prophecy about 'the last day' our days! We are to 'understand this' wrote Paul, "that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self" [2 Timothy 3:1-2] Absalom was any outstanding example of this, no doubt enjoying the praise 'for his handsome appearance.' Let us take to heart the warnings of Paul about conditions in the last days. He predicted that people will be "lovers of money, proud …. swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God," Paul said they would have "the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." [2 Timothy 3:5] As with Absalom, appearances are attractive but deceiving. Let us make sure our 'appearance' in words and deeds is genuine then it will be 'praised' by our Lord when he returns. The words of Jesus to the 'Scribes and Pharisees' we read a few days ago are most appropriate as a warning to us. You "outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy" [Matthew 23:28] Let us never cease trying to be genuinely righteous. A final thought today comes from our readings in Romans 1 "… the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith'" [Romans 1:17] and we show faith by our actions not just words.-------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted July 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2017 29 July 2017 2 Samuel 15Jeremiah 19Romans 3; 4 "THAT IS WHY IT DEPENDS ON FAITH" How important it is to get into our minds a balanced picture of the reasoning Paul develops in his letter to the Romans. With his background training and practice from when he was a Pharisee he was more conscious than anyone else - that to have a real relationship - from our hearts - with God - through his Son Jesus Christ - was vital. May we all realize the wonder of this relationship and make sure ours is real from our hearts not just in our heads. Paul appeals to the Romans (and all other readers) to have a correct understanding of the foundation promises made to Abraham; these were given by God long before the law was given through Moses. Paul writes, "For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith." [Romans 4:13] Is that an understandable phrase, " through the righteousness of faith"? For 'faith' to be genuine - it has to be fully focused on the object of that faith - what we have faith in! Some Jews had been 'converted' to belief in Christ - yet still felt they had to keep all the precepts of the law. This was made even worse if they were influenced by the way the Pharisees had embellished them. Therefore Paul is building up some 'powerful' reasoning - to set their thinking on the right path: no one had kept the Law perfectly, so in the end "the law brings wrath" [Romans 4:15.] We are seeing this graphically illustrated in our readings in Jeremiah. The climax to Paul's reasoning is from Romans 4:16, "That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, 'I have made you the father of many nations'. Yes! also to us - as being among those nations! Paul is quoting God's words to Abraham in Genesis 17:5. Let us make sure we are part of the "many nations." Our chapter ends with Paul's reasoning about belief in Jesus - "who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." Think of 'justification' as meaning 'righteous-ification'! Let us get our minds around that! Finally look at the first verse of the next chapter, for the chapter break is in a poor place. "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in ..." How real is your faith? Real faith leads to us being sure Jesus "was raised for our justification" and we can truly "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." -------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted July 30, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2017 30 July 2017 2 Samuel 16Jeremiah 20Romans 5; 6 "THAT GRACE MAY ABOUND" What is grace? Simple question, but the answer is not exactly simple. The 4 words in our heading, "that grace may abound" are at the start of Romans 6 in today's reading from Paul's letter to the Romans. Let's try to understand the way in which 'grace' operates. The word 'grace' became a special word for Paul! He had been persecuting believers; he had put them in prison and had been complicit in the death of the first martyr, Stephen. But the Lord Jesus had picked him out as a "chosen instrument" [Acts 9:15]. We must put the word 'grace' in its context; regrettably, in much popular Christian preaching, this is not done, the Catholics set the example long ago by selling 'indulgences'. Twice in Romans 5, which is also our reading today, Paul makes the point that those who have sinned, following the example of Adam (and this is everybody) can experience the "free gift" [Romans 5:15,16,17] of grace, which means unmerited forgiveness; their sins are blotted out of God's sight, Paul experienced this. Wonderful! What then? Paul writes, "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" [Romans 5:20]. Some read this as though it is saying that it does not matter how much you sin, grace keeps on abounding! If they, or you, think that, they are completely missing Paul's point. He realized how much grace had abounded for him at his conversion; and now he has a faithful race to run on the 'narrow path' - look at what he writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 – drawing a parallel with the original Olympic Games. There is a misleading slogan, 'Once saved, always saved' but it is a distortion of the words of Scripture. Note Paul's question, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" [Romans 6:1-2] This immediately causes us to ask, how can we 'die to sin' when we are surrounded by it. Our world has become so utterly godless, it constantly bombards all of us with a great variety of temptations, visual temptations! Consider what Paul next writes: he says the result of having 'died to sin' was "in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin" [Romans 6:6] He previously knew of Christ, but what he knew he completely misunderstood. All that changed at his conversion. Not only did he put on Christ's name through baptism, he now belonged to Christ. As he moves toward the climax of this most challenging epistle, he writes, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." [Romans 13:14] Having a genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus is the vital factor. More texts will challenge our thinking on this as we come to Romans 7; 8 tomorrow.-------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resource Manager Posted July 31, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2017 31 July 2017 2 Samuel 17Jeremiah 21Romans 7; 8 "ANYONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST" How challenging – to our minds – no, more than that – to our hearts, are re the words of Paul that we read today – the words he addressed to the believers in Rome. Romans 7; 8 among the most challenging chapters – for our meditation – in the whole of Gods word! They demand our heart-felt meditation. There are two ways before us – two options as to how we should live our lives; it is fatal to just drift along: our hearts and minds must have a clear focus on the way ahead.'In this respect let us see our minds as a spiritual camera, a camera that does not have an automatic focus. The more we read God's word then the more our minds will come into focus – on things Divine. It will become evident in our conversation and our actions that we have done this. Looking for a moment at the other side of the coin – how 'eternally' meaningless each day is the conversation and actions of those who never read God's word! They do not sense the reality of God – especially his all-seeing eyes! However, the time is coming when they will no longer be able to do this! Let us recall what we read in Isaiah last month, he was caused to write of the time coming when, natural (and spiritual) people "will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel." [isaiah 29:23] Wonderful – but let us reflect on the warning in the words of Paul we read today! "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." [Romans 8:9] How challenging! Let us ask ourselves – to whom do I belong? How vital that we 'have the Spirit of Christ!' But, as we read, in particular in Romans 7:22-23, having 'the Spirit of Christ' leads to a sort of 'battle' in our hearts and minds as we strive to "serve the law of God." [Romans 7:25] Let us read again – and again – Romans 8 - to see how it provides the triumphant sequel to the battle. Romans 8:9 is the one we should, indeed must, memorise! "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." Let us read the Spirit-inspired word every day – this alone lays the foundation for truly developing 'the Spirit of Christ.' -------- DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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