by Suellen | Project 2013: Read The Bible
I Kings 14-15
There seems like there is no hope for Israel and Judah.
It’s been about 450 years since Joshua led these people into the Promised Land. They have been taught to remember the covenant and all of the miracles which God had performed on their behalf. He had delivered them from Pharoah with many signs and wonders, and had led them into this land. They had an unprecedented history with their Creator.
Of course, they didn’t have the Bible as we know it, but they did have the Law of Moses and all of the traditions handed down by the priests. The kings had been taught about the God of Israel and the importance of remaining faithful.
Yet what a mess! The kings are going after every heathen god imaginable, and observing their practices. All of this is an abomination.
In 14: 25-27 there seems to be a prophetic statement when the king of Egypt comes and steals all of the treasures out of the house of the Lord. These treasures were all of the gold implements put there by Solomon. There were shields, cups, vases, and many more works of pure gold. Rehoboam replaces the shields with bronze.
It seems that this is symbolic for the true worship of God being replaced with artificial. No longer real, but phony – a substitute for the real.
Unfortunately, there will never be another good king in Israel, which consists of the majority of the great covenant-people of God.
However, God keeps his covenant with the one remaining tribe. He still will lead Judah, because He had promised David that He would watch over his throne.
Then, too, the Lord needs to have a people who will be faithful so that they can eventually bring the Savior on the scene for us.
It’s hit or miss on Judah’s kings, but there is a hit on Asa. He removes the cult prostitutes, and he even removes his mother from being the queen mother, because she is worshipping Asherah.
As we are moving through this history of Israel, it’s a good idea to relate the incidents to modern times. A secular culture is always trying to penetrate the church and its teachings, and hearts are always being swayed.
We can learn some lessons, if we pay attention.
Luke 22:21-46
The hardest moment of Jesus’ life is about to come. For the first time in all of eternity, He is to be separated for His Father.
As He prays in the garden, sweat drops of blood fall to the ground. The stress is tremendous.
Several years ago, the Lord awoke me in the middle of the night and had me go into my den. He began to teach me from these passages, as He took me to every account of this Gethsemane experience, and He showed me what was happening.
While in the garden, Jesus knew that He was going to pull off the most extreme measure in the history of the world. He was going to be separated from His Father, as He died and paid the price for our sins. He was going into hell for three days, and then, after paying the full price to the devil, the Holy Spirit would come into Him and lift Him up from the dead for the greatest feat known to man.
The only assurance that this feat would work was Jesus’ faith in God’s plan.
You and I might be striving to enter the rest of faith as we undertake our challenges, but we’ve never faced anything like this. Think about what Jesus was going through.
He is a forerunner for us. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not by any means saying that what we do is as significant as what He did. I am just saying that there is a pattern here.
There are times when we know that God’s best is not being performed yet in our lives. As we pray and meditate on the Word, there are times when we know that our faith needs to improve. We just aren’t really believing what we have read yet. We are saying, “Lord, help my unbelief.”
As we follow the leading of Jesus and continue to pray, we will come through to a bright moment when we will know deep down within ourselves that we have what we are believing for. We won’t see it with our eyes, but we will know that we will be seeing it.
Our faith has become a reality.
by Suellen | Project 2013: Read The Bible
Judges 7-11
Let’s backtrack a little to get up to speed.
Gideon is one of the greatest heroes of the Bible. Yet he certainly has attributes with which we can identify.
If you ever feel discouraged, take a look at Gideon. If you ever feel small and insignificant, you might also take a look at Gideon.
Gideon is the youngest member of the “least” family of Manasseh, and as such, has no regard among his peers. An unimportant, unnoticeable individual. And that’s the way he sees himself.
Yet there is something about Gideon which arouses God’s attention.
We first see him as an angel appears to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”(6:13). (Remember, our Lord speaks things into existence. At the moment, Gideon does not appear as a valiant warrior).
The salutation elicits an explosion of frustration from Gideon. “If God is with us, why this and why that?” Have you ever felt that way? Of course, you have. All of us have.
However, God is ready to make a big move – and Gideon is just the man for the job. Our God doesn’t see as man sees. Man always wants to go to the high, the mighty, and the connected to get their job done. God goes after a heart which is willing to obey Him – and He seems to specialize in going to the “least.”
So Gideon tears down the altar of Baal, and there is no turning back!
If you are going to tear down the altars of idols, you’d better be ready to follow through with the alternative, and Gideon is ready. He is renamed “Jerubbaal” which means “Let Baal contend against him.” The Israelites now have their eyes focused on Gideon.
A huge crowd of men assemble for battle, but God rejects them. He doesn’t want men thinking that they are the ones to win the battle, so he calls for those who are afraid, to leave. 22,000 leave, with 10,000 remaining, but the Lord still says there are too many.
God wants an unmistakable claim to this victory coming up, so He calls them to do something absolutely impossible. He has Gideon bring the men to the water and watch how they drink. Everyone who laps like a dog, stays; everyone who kneels to drink, putting their heads down, have to go home.
Only 300 men survive the test, and God is requiring something totally impossible. A huge army, as “numerous as locusts” and camels as “numerous as sand on the seashore” awaits this tiny group. It’s impossible.
But God has a plan. The 300 are to hold a trumpet in one hand, and a torch, covered by a pitcher in the other. They are to, at the signal, break the pitchers, exposing the light, and blow the trumpets – all at the same time as they run toward the enemy. Fear overtakes the opposing armies, and they flee.
The rest of the Jews are called to finish the job, and Israel is delivered from the Philistines.
There are tons of lessons we can learn from this story. Of course, nothing is impossible with God, when we are walking in obedience.
Further, if God calls us to do something, we can do it through Him. We may think that we can’t because of our position in life, or our lack of education, or our lack of funds.
Yet, with God, truly all things are possible.
Luke 5
“I am willing!” We can’t hear this word enough in our society.
There is a tendency for people to say, “If it be Thy will, please heal me.” I don’t see in the ministry of Jesus where it was ever God’s will for people not to be healed. He healed all who came to Him in faith.
I really don’t understand why that error has gotten into the church. I guess when we don’t see things happen, we try to explain them away.
I would much rather go to the Word of God and prayer and get the answers. I know there are delays sometimes, but i never consider them to be the fault of God.
If we could ever “get it” that His love for us is beyond human imagination. His goodness is perfect. And His will is always to heal and restore, then we would have the faith we need.
There are times when any of us feel overwhelmed by the atmosphere of doubt around us – which tries to invade our minds. That’s when it’s important to draw aside to the Lord, and spend time with Him.
In those times if we would just praise Him and worship Him. Then let his Word restore our minds.
He has all the answers – and power to bring his will into our lives. His good, perfect will. We just have to reach for it.
by Suellen | Project 2013: Read The Bible
Today and tomorrow we will be doing some catching up on our reading, since we diverted some attention to Resurrection Day.
Judges 4-6
We are now in some of the darkest days of Israel’s history. It’s easy to see that the faithfulness of one generation doesn’t necessarily get passed down to the next. For the next decades, we will see a yo-yo effect happening. “Good” generations followed by “bad” ones, over and over.
Without any real explanation, we see Deborah come on the scene. (I say without explanation, because the society was unmistakably led by men, and here we see a woman rising up to judge Israel). For all women leaders, this should be encouraging, because it’s clear that even in early times, God was using women in leadership.
God speaks with her and gives her prophecy to bring deliverance to the sons of Israel. Barak is to go out against Jabin, King of Canaan. Deborah is so highly esteemed that Barak wouldn’t go without her going with him. So she does, and he does.
With the aid of another woman, Jael, Jabin’s army is thrown down, and Israel is free one more time.
What rejoicing we see. Deborah and Barak celebrate with singing and dancing…and Israel enjoys peace for another forty years.
But then…”the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”
Can you believe it? Will they ever learn?
Will we ever learn?
Luke 4:31-44
Jesus has authority and power everywhere He goes. He amazes those around Him as He heals all the sick and casts out demons. The crowds have never seen anything like this!
Interestingly, the demons recognize Him and say, “You are the Son of God.” But, rebuking them, He “would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ.”(v.41) Why would Jesus do that?
I think there are two reasons. The first is that Jesus stops many attacks of the devil at their source by stopping the words the demons speak. Since words have power, the demons could have created more warfare for Him – and created more confusion in the people around Him.
The second is related. The kingdom of God is built upon people who hear within their hearts that He is the Christ. Jesus is counting on Holy Spirit drawing men to Him, because only when the revelation comes from the Spirit is the foundation sure. The message is pure.
If demons are proclaiming Jesus, only great discord could be the result. Needless to say, a pure gospel would not be preached in that manner. So the demons are prohibited from speaking of Him.
Jesus and His mission are God’s business. Certainly the devil and his imps are to stay out of it!
by Suellen | Project 2013: Read The Bible
Road trip today! We’re taking a trip to Calvary.
It’s Good Friday, and Christians around the world are celebrating the three days of death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I thought it would be a good time to take a break from our reading schedule and delve into the subject of the cross. Why the cross? And what in the world happened there that made us call it “Good” Friday.
So let’s go to the prophecy which explains it.
Isaiah 53
There are some mysteries here for sure, but this is what we know. When God created the world and gave Adam delegated authority over it, to represent God in managing the earth, Adam blew it! He turned around and sold out to Satan, so that he lost his authority, lost his relationship with God, and set all of mankind on a path to perdition.
For some reason (and this is one of the mysteries), there had to be a second Adam to take back the authority. This man, since the world had been sold out to Satan, had to be a perfect man and had to go into Satan’s very headquarters just as Satan demanded, to pay the price for the sin of the world.
There was a dilemma, however, since there was no perfect man. Satan thought he had everything tied up forever – until Jesus appeared on the scene. He was obviously the Son of God and the son of man. He was born to a woman, but by the Holy seed of God.
Satan was nervous as he saw Jesus represent God on the earth, but he thought, “If I can just kill Him, then, I’ll win.” Little did he know that he was playing into God’s hands. It was God’s plan to have His Son crucified and go into hell. From there, God’s resurrection power would catapult Him out of hell, out of the grave, back to earth, and eventually up to Heaven.
So Satan took the bait, and God’s plan – the plan that was made before the foundation of the world – came into effect.
When we look at the cross, death, burial, and resurrection, all of the chapters we have been reading take on more clarity. God had to raise up a group of people who could bring His Son into the world. (And sometimes this took extreme measures).
He had to teach these people that He was a Mighty God and that He could be trusted. God had to teach them that He was a covenant keeping God, so that eventually we could understand the covenant we have with Him through Jesus.
He had to teach these people about the necessary sacrifice of a perfect lamb. Only then could they – and we – understand the sacrifice of His perfect Lamb, Jesus. He had to teach them that they would not be able to keep the law; only through Jesus would we have the empowerment to obey God.
Lesson after lesson, year after year, our Father led these covenant people to the culmination of all things.
As we read Isaiah 53, we see the prophecy foretelling the cross. (Especially notice verses 4-6). He took our griefs and our sorrows. He took our sin, our pain, our sickness. Oh, this is much more far-reaching than we can imagine!
Jesus paid the price not only for our sin nature, but He made the way for us to escape the result of sin. Sickness, poverty, and pain are all part of the curse which came on the earth when Adam sinned. We have been redeemed from all of that.
We’ve been talking about taking the Promised Land, and this is that! These are promises, but they don’t fall on us like the manna did in the wilderness. These promises are taken through “faith and patience.”(Hebrews 6:12)
To take the Promised Land provided by Jesus, we have to follow the rules of Joshua. “Ever place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given you.”(Joshua 1:3) We have to put our foot down to receive the abundance.
We still have an enemy who tries to trick us and rob us, but we have a Savior now. Our Savior has paid the price for an abundant life, but we do have to take it.
I am confident that when we get to heaven, we will be amazed to see what He paid for. It’s so easy to get distracted and settle for “whatever comes.” But there is more. Much, much more. If we will reach out for it.
My prayer today is that you and I will meditate on Isaiah 53 until we see beyond what we have before seen. He paid the price for us to go to heaven, and much more here on earth.
“What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” Psalm 116:12-13.
I want my life to be a witness to the goodness of God, don’t you?
by Suellen | Project 2013: Read The Bible
Joshua 10-12
Now things get really bloody. Yet if you look beyond the history, you will see some very important lessons for us today.
We are not fighting against flesh and blood to take our land, but we are fighting. It’s just that our enemy is unseen. We are fighting against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness,and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. In other words, we are fighting Satan and his kingdom.
Now these people who fought the kings were really fighting Satan, but they weren’t prepared to know it, so they had to fight the individuals to protect their nation. Now we are able to deal with the devil and his bunch, so we are more enlightened on our mission.
My husband and I have a saying that we are going to “take the head of the king,” or “put our foot on the neck of the king.”
In chapter 10, if you look at these kings, you can see why this is important. Let’s look at their names.
1. Adoni-zedek, which means “Lord of Righteousness.” He is a counterfeit for our true Lord. He could be the head of other religions or a spirit of religion that perverts or weakens the gospel.
2. Hoham, which means “Voice of a Multitude.” Usually if we listen to what the crowd is saying, we will not believe God.
3. Piram which means “Wild Ass.” This denotes instability. When we are darting here and there, up one day and down the next, we will never complete the mission God has for us.
4. Japhia, which means “Dazzling To The Eyes.” There is always a shiny object out there attempting to take your eyes off Jesus. Sometimes false preachers can be so full of hype that they pull people to them, but there is no fruit there. They are “clouds without water.”
5. Debir, which means “Oracle.” This is the false prophecy that can draw you away from what God is saying, if you listen.
So what am I saying? I’m saying that these kings, False Religion, Voice of a Crowd, Instability, Shiny Objects, and False Prophecy can lead you astray and keep you from fulfilling what God has for you. You and I need to make sure we have our foot on their necks.
If we listen to any of these kings, we will go astray – even if it is just in our thinking. These kings will keep us from taking the land. They will nullify God’s purpose in our lives.
No way. I am going to see to it that if I encounter one of these voices coming from another, or even one of these voices coming from my own mind, I will not listen.
I will see to it that those kings are rendered ineffective in their endeavor to lead me astray.
I only want God’s best for my life, and that’s all that I will allow myself to hear. What about you?
Luke 1:39-56
Elizabeth and Mary rejoice over their supernatural babies. One is pregnant after her childbearing years, and one as a virgin, so both of these babies are impossible to have. However, as spoken to Mary, “nothing will be impossible with God.”(v.38)
Can’t you hear the joy in these women as they meet? First, John leaps inside Elizabeth’s womb and she begins to prophesy. Then Mary herself prophesies.
Mary’s prophecy foretells the mighty mission of her son. To show mercy on God’s people,to scatter the rich and the proud, to feed the poor and the hungry, and to fulfill the word spoken to Abraham and his offspring.
There is one word which Mary speaks which has prodded me many times. “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”(v.4)
Not “blessed is she who heard a word.” but “blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment.”
When you hear words, either through Bible reading or through direct prophecy, do you believe that there will be a fulfillment? That’s where the blessing is. Not just the word itself, but the believing that it will happen.
Same principle we’ve seen over and over. How many ways can God say it? Blessed are those who believe.
Yes, Lord. I am a believer!
