The One Year Bible - Day 251

Isaiah was around during teh reign of 4 kings, good and bad. I wonder what he was like as a person and how much pain he saw during the reigns of the bad kings compared to those of the good kings? Do you think he used to say, "in the good old days" or was he so pure that all that was important was "God says..."? I would really like to meet these people one day and find out whether they eat cookde breakfasts and laugh a lot. Whether they prefer to whiskey to wine and what sort of music they like. Not sure if that is the plan for heaven but would be cool.

The One Year Bible - Day 250

There is something unusual when we are in love. Although love is not material or physical, it causes physical reactions in us, something which the materialist atheists would presumably put down to survival! But there is something very deep and fundamental about the love which causes our hearts to skip, which causes us to smile, which means we cannot wait until our next contact. Sadly, I think we treat Jesus like someone who is always hanging around and is therefore boring rather than someone we enjoy so much that we are pleased to take Him with us into every situation. When was the last time you really looked forward to prayer or praise as an opportunity to spend time with God?

The One Year Bible - Day 249

Song of Solomon is a great book because it is both an explicit love song between men and women but it is also an intimate metaphor of a life between humans and God. The feelings that the colourful language invoke can easily be seen as those that we feel with another that we love but how much harder for us to relate to our relationship with Jesus? How often does that make us blush or feel distracted? How often do we talk about that relationship to the annoyance of others? This intimacy is available with Jesus in a spiritual way, we just have to pursue it. Love can fade in human relationships without effort, how much more so towards God?

The One Year Bible - Day 248

We are told that a great evil occurs when kings give positions of authority to fools. We might chuckle and distance ourselves from the principle (we are not kings!) but have we thought what this might actually mean for those of us who are managers in the workplace or leaders of the church? Who do we put into positions of authority? People who are proven, gifted and humble or just people who might have been around a while or who complain a lot unless they are kept busy. Are we brave enough to stand up to these 'fools' and not allow them into areas of influence that they are not called to or do we just try and keep the peace?

The One Year Bible - Day 247

Must keep up, must keep up.... Today we consider what is really valuable in life. Ecclesiastes talks about a good reputation and we might all nod in agreement. Of course wisdom, honesty, character etc are the most important things in life but what do we really spend our time and effort on? If you're like me, a lot of time is spent trying to get more things. A newer car, a better job, more respect or influence. In reality, I do very little to encourage reputation, honesty and character. It might mean not spending time with certain people or in certain situations which we know can harm our integrity. It might mean giving things up that are preventing us from praying and reading the Bible. In might mean loads of things but this is certainly another area which is good in theory and very weak in practice.

The One Year Bible - Day 246

Ecc 5:1 As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. Enough said!

The One Year Bible - Day 245

The beautifully entertaining and insightful book of Ecclesiastes comes to us courtesy of the wisest man who ever lived Solomon. His advice? Everything is meaningless. He was actually talking about the pursuits of man rather than everything but his advice is sound. If there was an old head I would want on my shoulders, it would be Solomon's. If he can say that he has tried everything and it was meaningless then I should trust that chasing women, power, influence or popularity will not bring any more meaning to my life - it might in fact bring less. Pursuing God however is another matter. Why spend 99% of our time on matters that will not exist in eternity? Pursue God and everything we invest in lives forever.

The One Year Bible - Day 244

Today is particularly relevant to me because we are reminded again that men speak with such massive boasts. The ridiculous contrast between the amount we think we know about everything and the reality of how small and insignificant even the most powerful king is cannot be described in words. We talk like we know how to run the world, like we can sit in judgment on everyone else despite knowing so little about even ourselves. God is gentle with Job but humility really needs to be our foundation here. The only judgment that should ever come from our mouths should be from God's revelation only.

The One Year Bible - Day 243

One of the things that is quite hard to understand is passages like this in Job 37 which imply that the weather is actually directly related to God's activity, an almost medieval idea that thunder is God getting angry. It is hard because we know of physical reasons why these things happen although it is challenging to be reminded that just because God is spirit, doesn't mean he is not intricately and inexplicably linked to the physical world in a way that might just cause these things to happen!?
I remember reading once about particles that seem to move freely through time and space on a sub-atomic level that exist in all physical matter. I can't remember if this is the Higgs-Boson (God particle) that has been mentioned more recently but it made me think that these particles might well be pure spiritual energy that "sustains all things by his powerful Word". Amazing really.

The One Year Bible - Day 242

Elihu points out the fault in Job's line of thinking. Job has assumed that since he is righteous, God must be unjustly punishing him although he realises he can't do anything about that. Elihu shows him that God by definition is righteous, all other theology must be built up from this. We know reading the book that Satan was tempting Job to sin so it wasn't related to Job's sin but in the absence of that possibility, Job has compromised his theology and made God the weak link. In the same way that "neither this man sinned nor his parents, but this happened for the glory of God". We don't need to understand why things happen (although it is sometimes nice) so we simply need to ask sometimes, "God, if this is my fault then point it out so I can sort it otherwise Your will be done!".

The One Year Bible - Day 241

Need to catchup, catchup, catchup....
Today, Job decrees that if he has done certain things, then he invites punishment. For instance, "If I have strayed from his pathway, or if my heart has lusted for what my eyes have seen, or if I am guilty of any other sin, then let someone else eat the crops I have planted. Let all that I have planted be uprooted"
I wonder if you could say that about your own life? I couldn't. I should though, if I am contrite about my lifestyle, I should honestly be able to say the same thing. I can't.

The One Year Bible - Day 240

Job speaks about wisdom and again it is something that is so important a principle and in some ways very obvious but yet something which we easily forget. True wisdom is not found despite God, it is only found in God. Although the chapter uses a long analogy of mining and how good men are at examining all things, it reminds us that we cannot find wisdom outside of God. This is interesting because there are many people who would claim to have wisdom despite God but if wisdom is proved right by her actions, how many of these people really stand the test of time? How many of their decisions are so incisive, so profound that they make whole families or communities improve? None, I would suggest unless some of their wisdom is 'borrowed' from God. To forgive people graciously is a Godly concept frequently borrowed, to reduce someone's loan interest, to love our neighbours as ourself are all Godly pearls of wisdom that are borrowed.

The One Year Bible - Day 239

There is something interesting about the way that Job struggles. It is hard to imagine quite how much he suffered emotionally, physically and spiritually but the significant thing was that he never doubted God. He was operating in a place of "I don't know why this is happening but I trust God" rather than his so-called friends who have distorted the truth to try and make it fit in with what they know (or think they know). This is a human trait because we like to think we have a good understanding of life but we need to be quicker to say, "I don't know" when we don't know so that God can teach us the truth in His own time.

The One Year Bible - Day 238

There is a theme that comes out a lot in Job which should be a challenge to us. How many times have we thought that our life was really tough (whether spiritually or just physically) and then looked at others and wondered how they've done so well? How comes I work hard and struggle to pay the bills but John over there bought his house from the council for pennies and doesn't have a mortgage? How is it that at work, I am very skilled and able but I get paid half of what some idiot gets paid in senior management? It is easy to think like that and of course sometimes it is true but also there is much we don't see in these situations. If we knew all there was to know about someone, would we swap our life for theirs? Probably not. Would you take more money at work if you had to have the divorce or the mistakes from their youth? Their criminal record perhaps or a family who hate them? I wouldn't.
We need to learn to be content and to work hard and provide for our families despite what we think other people are enjoying!

The One Year Bible - Day 237

Job in many ways is a challenge about being judgemental. When you see someone suffering, is your instinct that they must have done something wrong, or they chose their path? Sometimes this is true but do we think that they deserve their fate when we accept grace from God instead of our fate? Job challenges his listeners to encourage people out of suffering rather than to judge them. That is not to say that we shouldn't expect people to take a stand and be responsible for themselves but it does mean that we should understand people from a perspective of love.

The One Year Bible - Day 236

Wisdom belongs to the aged and understanding to the old but true wisdom and power are found in God; counsel and understanding are His.
This is a statement that we can never forget to remind ourselves of. The human instinct is to accumulate knowledge and understanding to "make ourselves better" but what then happens naturally is to push God to a lesser position as we decide we don't need His help so much any more. We might get wiser with age but that wisdom must be borne of God to ensure it does not become fleshly and self-defeating.

The One Year Bible - Day 235

Bildad's angle is quite simple. God is true and God punishes sinners, therefore Job must have sinned to deserve his bad treatment but his argument is also wrong because his equation is not complete. I would love to write a book about Christian equations and what we often think logically being very wrong but Bildad has not allowed for the fact that God does not always allow suffering simply as a result of sin but sometimes to teach and train us and sometimes to bring His glory another way.
One of the best ways to find out how dodgy our logic can be is to discuss these things with friends and make a bold statement such as "women are not allowed to teach" and see why people disagree with it. You will find in some situations that somebody has a revelation of another factor which you haven't considered in your 'logic'

The One Year Bible - Day 234

Throughout Job we are told that he was a righteous and upright man, yet Eliphaz insists that Job's suffering must be related to sin and after all, are we not all sinners before God? It is a subtle but religious mis-understanding that since we have all done things wrong, that we all stand as sinners before God. In reality, it would appear that God is much more forgiving of people than that. He doesn't stand there and point the finger every time you do something slightly wrong. Of course, in New Testament theology we are fully freed from sin by the cross but we mustn't be too tempted to think that every little thing we see wrong in someone's life gets as much head-shaking from God as it does from us.

The One Year Bible - Day 233

It is easy to dismiss stories in the Bible as simply stories, fiction rather than fact but there is a clue at the start of Job that suggests this actually happened. The fact that it mentions that Job was from Uz puts some real world context into the story. It would be slightly misleading to say this if in fact it was made up unless Uz has other significance but other than the fact it might mean, "not here" or "close by" it is hard to infer that.
Why am I saying this? Because if this is real, it gives actual insight into what happens in the spiritual world where angels and demons converse and discuss but ultimately where God is overall Sovereign! That is to say that when we suffer evil things, God knows what He's doing - we don't always believe that.

The One Year Bible - Day 232

This is really interesting that "what the king has sealed in his name cannot be revoked". This is a mostly alien concept to us today because we are not generally people of our word. We easily change our mind and would think nothing of saying, "I know I said that before but now I am saying...".
The thing which was subtly different was that the king of Persia was treated like a God who was incapable of making mistakes which was why repealing a decision was not available. For this reason, Xerxes had to find a way to counter the previous order by doing something new.
I think if we were more careful with our words, we might have less reason to repeal what we say but at the same time, we have to remember the only One who never needs to repeal his orders since they are eternal. We might change but He doesn't, praise the Lord!

The One Year Bible - Day 231

Haman went very quickly from honour to destruction and we need to be reminded of how easy it is for our own quick descent to spring from mistakes. I was thinking the other day how many people have sex outside of marriage and tell themselves it is OK. If you are a Christian, how quickly would you lose your position of authority if you made somebody pregnant or caught some disease that you couldn't keep quiet, or if you are married, that your wife finds out and kicks off? Something that the devil tells you that, "everyone else is doing" or just, "be careful and you'll be OK" turns into a big problem that never goes away entirely. Be ruthless with your integrity people!

The One Year Bible - Day 230

We read today at the start of Esther about the importance of people in leadership being responsible since they influence other people. Queen Esther, whether or not she should have gone when the king asked, was a role model whether she accepted that or not. We often like to think that we are not role models, not because we think it is a bad idea but because we want to be able to do things we know are not very good and get away with it. Even casual things like swearing, smoking, rebelliousness or lack of commitment are picked up by others, inside and outside the church. It is a fact that if someone else does something bad but sees everyone else doing it, they justify it and lower their standards. If on the other hand, we keep our integrity (in a non-judgemental way) then people are reminded that they need to sort out things in their own life and are hopefully compelled towards Christ.

The One Year Bible - Day 229

I think we often over-emphasise praise in churches. Perhaps because we like music, perhaps because we can always sing songs whatever the spiritual condition of the church but really praise needs to be about who God is and also what He has done. If we don't see Him work in our church, it is hard to genuinely thank Him. We should pray, receive, do and thank God in that order.

The One Year Bible - Day 228

10% were chosen by sacred lots to relocate to Jerusalem. This is interesting because it makes me wonder what it means to set aside a part of our church to be dedicated to spiritual things. I am not a big fan of paid pastors in general but in our church we do have people, often retired, who have more time to dedicate to pray, visit other churches and generally give us as a body a much more in-tune view of what God is doing. In some churches there will be no such people in which case the leader or leaders have all responsibility to decide what is right. This is tiresome at best and at worst means we become disconnected. Always look to identify and encourage those people who work extra for the kingdom.

The One Year Bible - Day 227

We notice some language that is unusual for us, "You handed them over", which again implies that God is pulling more strings than we perhaps realise. This makes me realise how much of our language is unhelpful and sometimes downright heresy. When we say, "are you going to church", we are misrepresenting what church is (in my opinion this is very serious). If we say, "are you a Christian" we are using a term that is not particularly well defined and does not equate directly with people who are born-again believers or not. It depends on the person as to whether they call themselves a Christian or not. We must not be too afraid of strong words but it is more useful to use phrases like "on a journey towards Christ" which is helpful for people who do not know whether they are allowed to call themselves things like "born again" or a "Christian". Just be careful with your words, that's all I'm saying.

The One Year Bible - Day 226

A bittersweet day today. The people are being reminded of the book of the law of Moses and it understandably makes them weep as they realise how far they have fallen. Nehemiah then tells everyone not to mourn but to celebrate because of the opportunity to make things right again. I guess we sometimes get things the wrong way round, we celebrate when we have nothing much to be proud of and then get miserable despite living in victory over sin. Oh that we would be more in tune to the Spirit.

The One Year Bible - Day 225

Sanballat's servant approaches Nehemiah with a letter full of lies and asks for a response, so Nehemiah tells him that it's all nonsense and sends him away. How many of us would have done the same? We often have a more political bent than Godly people should have. What do I mean? Well do we avoid confrontation at all costs or are we able to tell people when they are out of line? Sadly, it seems most of us think that confrontation is not Godly and we do all we can to accommodate. Fortunately, I am at a church where the pastor is able to confront people when they are out of line and can deal with issues before they become too big.

The One Year Bible - Day 224

In Nehemiah 3, they are rebuilding Jerusalem. In a way that is quite unusual for the OT, it is everyone who is doing the work, not specialists or hired help. I heard once about a church in Sweden where the building got erected by everyone in the congregation. This was probably quite cool in a team building way but in a Spiritual sense, is our church 'built' by everyone or just a few people? The Bible is quite clear that everyone has a place but does our setup allow for that or does it encourage and allow a few people to dominate most ministries? Sadly, most churches seem to do the latter, especially with employed workers who are understandably expected to do more work than people who do it in their spare time but therein lies the problem. Should we have so many people working for the church or should we have more part-time volunteers? Even someone working for free is in danger of doing too much at the expense of others.

The One Year Bible - Day 223

Sin by omission, not something we think or talk about very often. It is easy to see sin in the things that we do but what about in the things that we don't do? We might sin by lying to somebody but what about when we don't help somebody. The passage in Matthew 25 say that we sin by omission as well as by action! Be warned.

The One Year Bible - Day 222

We must read a hundred times in the OT about people being so convicted and so sorry that they cry, tear their clothes and put ash on their heads. Have you ever done that? I might have cried a few times but generally I am nowhere near that level of conviction. Does that mean that I am a good person or just that I am not open to what He wants to sort out in my life? As we suddenly realise that something is badly wrong in our church, how upset does that make us? Do we feel the guilt we should feel and repent or just try and sort it out with minimal fuss?

The One Year Bible - Day 221

Ezra bless him, he is worried about the dangers ahead of them when they travelled, but quite rightly, he didn't want to ask the king for protection since he believed in a God who was mighty and powerful. It is these sorts of situations that actually test our theology though. We can easily say that God is able to do everything but we often to struggle to know whether He will do any of these things. When it actually comes to it, do we put our faith in men or in God? Would we have asked the king for protection since "God has given us common sense"? Or trusted the King who made the heavens and the earth?

The One Year Bible - Day 220

"because the gracious hand of the Lord was on him". Note that Ezra was not a priest, he was a scribe although he was a Levite. I like to think he was simply a spiritual, practical man who demonstrates that God does not only use airy-fairy spiritual types to make things happen. He warns us not to undervalue those who although spiritual, are mainly practical in nature and put out the chairs or fix the buildings or unlock the building for services. We mustn't under-appreciate these people. Not because we are spiritual and they are practical but because practical people can be spiritual too and are sometimes just as able to teach, prophecy and pastor those as the people who are not really practical at all!

The One Year Bible - Day 219

Ah yes, the opposition to rebuilding Godly things. We expect opposition but who from? We can take opposition from non-Christians because they are obviously not going to understand the things of God completely. But these opposers were local people, potential allies, not foreigners. They represent for us other parts of our faith, whether other denominations or just groups of people within the church network who have the things of men in place of the things of God. How do we deal with these people? We confront when we need to, we defend and we carry on!

The One Year Bible - Day 218

In cryptic crosswords, there are 'signpost' words, words that suggest what sort of clue this is. The same must be true to a certain extent in the Bible. We read that the Israelites needed to "rebuild" the altar of God before they were able to make sacrifices to Him. This must be a analogy (again) about how much preparation we need sometimes in a church setting to put in place the foundations of a genuine place of worship (not musical). What is the altar and what does it represent? I think it relates to purity and righteousness, surely the only way we could rightly come before God. But wait, you might argue that we are never righteous so how is this possible? Well firstly you had to be clean before you could sacrifice but also, the altar was where you laid your sacrifices. What else would result in the place where we sacrifice things in our lives that need to be given over to God? Purity/holiness/righteousness, whatever you want to call it. How do we build this in our churches? By recognising places where we are acting unrighteously and cleaning these things. Is it because our prayer life is lacking or we don't study the Bible enough? Is it because we are more religious than loving or the other way round?

The One Year Bible - Day 217

I love this verse in Ezra 1 which says that God stirred the heart of Cyrus the big, bad, evil king of Persia to allow Israel to return to Jerusalem. What is interesting is that our default mindset means that everyone who isn't a 'Christian' could not possible be used in God's kingdom. I'm afraid this verse puts paid to that. It does not say whether Cyrus was a God seeker or simply that God used him anyway but use him He did. We really need to challenge our perception of God's sovereignty when we think that so much of what happens is either caused by us or is at least something we deserve because we have disobeyed God and He is punishing us. God does not allow this to punish us, he allows it to make us return to Him and all the blessing that entails - He does it for our good, not His!

The One Year Bible - Day 216

Poor Josiah. After a life of genuine dedication to God, he lost the ability to discern God's voice from king Neco of Egypt. This mistake cost him his life. It is so easy to come awry after a period of 'success' (if we can call it that) once we start shifting from God-focussed to me-focussed. We can't say it too many times people - check yourself before you wreck yourself!

The One Year Bible - Day 215

Josiah pursued God at the age of 16! He had been made king at the age of 8 and although he had help from Hilkiah, it was clear that this boy had a heart after God. Where are we releasing our young people to pursue God? Not in that patronising way where they are only allowed to do young people's work or special youth services but full-on church involvement?

The One Year Bible - Day 214

I love it! Imagine, you are besieged by a massive army from a country who has been undefeated against every other nation. You are cornered in your city with limited supplies and you get threatened. What do you do? Well Hezekiah cried out to the Lord in prayer and "and the Lord sent an angel who destroyed the Assyrian army with all its commanders and officers". Haha, take that Sennacherib!
We need to keep on realizing how much resource we have in Christ and start living on that truth. Forget fear, let's live in victory!

The One Year Bible - Day 213

Do you ever have arguments at work about following processes? There tend to be people who follow them to the letter and others who take them "more as a guide"! Well Hezekiah ends up celebrating the passover at the wrong time because the preparations started late and the priests weren't ready. You could imagine God not liking this because it wasn't "to process" but actually Hezekiah understood that the act of the Passover was more important than when it took place, certainly in this one-off situation. In the church, we also have processes, either formal or informal and sometimes as leaders, we have to make a decision uni-laterally which is not necessarily malicious but simply to ensure the Spirit wins over the procedures!

The One Year Bible - Day 212

It seems it is not enough for someone's successor to be more Godly than the person they take over from but they need to take positive action to restore what has been lost. In the OT it was mostly destroying pagan shrines and asherah poles but nowadays, there are similar idols in the church that need not to be simply ignored or even denounced but to be destroyed. Sadly the Christian life has to be cycles of blessing and then tidying up as we notice the rubbish start to collect in our lives.

The One Year Bible - Day 211

Uzziah did what was pleasing to the Lord. It seems clear that if we maintain a position where we are doing what pleases the Lord, then many things prosper under our leadership. Here we read of fertile valleys, a strong army and success over neighbouring nations, not because of talent or strength but as a result of favour.
I guess we easily fall into the trap of "doing" to earn some sort of brownie points instead of simply "being" before God. Our time spent "being", which is prayer, Bible and meditation should always balance or perhaps be much greater than our time spent doing!

The One Year Bible - Day 210

We read again today in Chronicles about how much God actually does despite what we do. If it were up to us, we would take a large army to fight someone. However the Arameans won the war with a small army because God allowed them to win over a Godless nation. I fear what our nation is becoming as we feel we are advancing in our own eyes but all that will happen is God will allow a catastrophe to occur to remind us that we need to be dependent on Him. I also think we easily dismiss what God chooses to do in place of the free will that we think we have in all matters.

The One Year Bible - Day 209

"Jehoram was 32 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 8 years. No one was sorry when he died".
For some of us chasing a dream, to reach that dream feels like a major success. We might want to be a sportsman, a president or a pop-star but the reading today displays that these things count for nothing in eternity.
Jehoram became king and this would have been an amazing experience so why was his first act to kill his brothers? He should have simply done what God required of him as king and died another hero but we read that he was so hated, there was no celebration when he died and he was not buried in the royal cemetery. He could have done something great with a legacy in eternity but rather he squandered his chances and ended up as a swear word.
We could be in the same situation. We could be the leader of a church and perhaps even popular at one point but if we seek our own ends and not Gods, we will be remembered with little interest or excitement. Let us be like King David and not like Jehoram!

The One Year Bible - Day 208

"Always think carefully before pronouncing judgement. Remember that you do not judge to please people but to please the Lord"
We can read this and think, "yeah, I agree" but do you ever wonder to what extent we might need to take it? I was interested to read about Glenn Beck, the US commentator who has gone to Israel and told them to trust in God and not be swayed by world opinion and I realised how much guts it takes to go that far.
How many of us when we look at Israel, simply see a normal situation of conflict where the best way would be to please as many people as possible and find some sort of compromise and how many of us rely on what the Bible promises concerning Israel despite many well-know and respected people on the world stage (including Christians) who would denounce this view.
Our judgements are our responsibility and should be based on our own revelation and conscience, not on someone else who has better credentials or more experience. That is the reality of basing our views on what God wants and not on what people want. Not an easy game.

The One Year Bible - Day 207

"Then the fear of the Lord fell over all the surrounding kingdoms so that none of them wanted to declare war on Jehoshaphat"
Do you ever wonder about situations like the Iraq war or the government stance on terrorism or society? Do you ever say that there is no real answer to these problems and the government simply has to decide what they think best and accept the consequences?
Something we are reminded of today is that devoting yourselves to God as a community is enough to remove some of these problems. Not just because you might get Godly wisdom to deal with things but because God acts on your behalf in the spiritual world and does things to protect you!
I always wonder how much the MPs and politicians really pray about their decisions?!

The One Year Bible - Day 206

There is a continuous theme in the OT Kings that involves good kings smashing Ashera poles, shrines and foreign temples and the bad Kings building them up. We can look at these and think it strange that something so obvious happened in direct opposition to God's command but actually, we all do exactly the same things.
In our lives, we build up foreign Gods, either in general or specifically in the church. We venerate people sometimes above God, we talk about ministries as if the success is due to people, we talk about certain churches like they are special despite God rather than because of.
If we are taking over a ministry, does our Spirit tell us to smash these Gods and work to remove things that distract us from God? Do we specifically avoid praising men rather than God? And more importantly, do we actively rebuke people or situations that say things related to idolatry?
I expect mostly not!

The One Year Bible - Day 205

We read today about something that is subtle but actually does occur in our lives. We have someone who was doing something evil that was obviously born of the flesh but which actually got stopped because God told him to stop. I think it demonstrates that our lives are not ones of black and white but all of us have a balance between our Godly minded-ness and our human minded-ness. We should strive to be more God-minded so we can avoid incidents and mistakes in our own lives where this happens.

The One Year Bible - Day 204

Solomon made a big gesture today. He moved his foreign wife from Jerusalem to another palace because he realised that she should not be 'on holy ground'. The law dictated that the Israelites should not marry foreign women since they would be led astray yet Solomon, who we know had a fondness for the ladies, had done exactly that. He had at least done something about this and made sure he separated his 'unholy' wife from the area of the Temple. I somehow feel this was half-hearted though and it would be like saying I will leave my alcoholism at home and not bring it into the church. What Solomon should have done, as the returning Exiles did in Ezra, was to divorce their wives and send them back to their own lands. To completely deal with the compromise and not try and ignore it. What do we bring to church or perhaps 'leave at home' which we should actually get shot of? Something obvious like addiction?, an un-Godly relationship? Perhaps something more subtle like fear, bitterness or pain? God has the power to deal with these things, why on earth do we allow them to continue?

The One Year Bible - Day 203

Solomon dedicates the Temple with a very sincere prayer. He asks that God will always dwell there. Many church congregations treat their buildings like the Temple even though we are told that we are His temple but yet we don't treat it fully like a Temple. Personally, I don't see the building as the temple but I go to an Anglican church and that is certainly how it is perceived in many people's eyes. We use phrases totally freely like, "Are you going to church", "I didn't see you at church", "He is over in the church", despite many people openly acknowledging that the building is not the church/Temple. What is half-hearted though is that although we sort of treat the building like the Temple, we do not fully consecrate it. We do not metaphorically wash before going in, we do not restrict the activity in the building to what is suitable for a Temple (at least not in our church). In some ways, I have a respect for the high churches who do go the full 9 yards and treat their buildings with reverence. It might be Old Testament but it is consistent. I feel that a lot of newer churches are inconsistent and are pehaps guilty of discarding some religious concepts but holding on to others.

The One Year Bible - Day 202

We read today about some of the items made for the temple by Solomon and the one I was struck by was called "the sea" and was a massive bronze bowl which could hold 16,500 gallons of water! The priests used this as their means of ritual washing before they offered service in the Temple. It would be easy to use parallels in the spiritual world for what 'washing' means to the Christian but I have been challenged recently to ask what this meant physically. My opinion is that God is not a God of formality and religious liturgy rather than a practically minded and spiritual God. If we ask therefore what it meant to be clean before God to the priests, we can ask what dirt is or perhaps what it might be. Is it possible that if the priests hadn't washed and took a significant amount of bacteria or viruses into the Temple, that the reaction that would occur in the presence of a Holy Almighty God might well cause these priests' death? We can easily read that God requires us to do certain things otherwise in some way He will 'punish' us but this does not match up too well with a loving God who is aware of our weaknesses, so we need to ask therefore what God is asking of us and it must relate to His ultimate will which is that we come back into a relationship with Him and must throw away everything that hinders. The question is, what about this uncleanliness hinders?

The One Year Bible - Day 201

What would you ask for if God told you he'd give you anything? I think most of us, would automatically think of something material like money, a house or perhaps that 'dream' job. Solomon asks for wisdom however. On your top 10 list of things to ask for, would this honestly be one? For many of us, sadly, I think we are still very much earthly minded and not heavenly minded much at all. This might not be as blatant as full-on materialism, although that might lurk underneath, but it might well be in the way that we carry out our Christian ministry. By definition, we need to ask God for direction in all things spiritual but honestly, how much time do we spend praying. If we spend more time doing than praying, we are probably still too earthly minded.

The One Year Bible - Day 200

1 Chronicles 29 and a great passage about people giving freely to God's work. What is important here is that there is communication first, David no doubt explains and imparts his vision for the temple which is then caught by the others and which enables them to be willing to give generously to the work. We must be careful to spend appropriately on God's work (i.e. generously) but only off the back of a well communicated vision. If people are not catching the vision then it needs to be back to the prayer table!

The One Year Bible - Day 199

Organisation. It is a hard thing to balance in a church setting. We end up in a number of scenarios. We might decide that organisation is basically un-Godly, since we must trust Him for everything and probably our church is quite sloppily run as a result. We might decide that organisation is very important and might end up therefore restricting what God can do because it doesn't fit into the organisational plan. Otherwise we might end up with some sort of balance.
In Israel, we see David being very keen on organisation and we can learn a few things about what works and what doesn't. The key things here are gifting and trust. We cannot imagine David picking a weakling to run the army or an idiot to run the storehouses. He was apparently gifted himself in spotting talent and using it - something important to do in churches. The other thing was then trusting these people (with some accountability of course) to do what they were good at and were entrusted to do. There can be interference from people above us if there is a lack of trust or some lack-lustre performances from people in positions they are not gifted in.

The One Year Bible - Day 198

1 Chronicles 25 is one of the few passages about music in the Bible. It is interesting that we place a massive emphasis on it in today's churches whereas the Bible places much more emphasis on the Kingdom, integrity, love and power. Anyway, the one thing that struck me was how seriously they took their music. There were people appointed who were directed by musical directors. We can easily shy away from such things in the church because we are afraid of excluding people who might not be very good. Of course you can arrange music with people are aren't that good, you just have to limit what they do to what they are able to do. If we were playing for the Queen, we would prepare and practise loads. For some reason we don't feel the same burden to do so for the King of Kings even though He is infinitely greater.

The One Year Bible - Day 197

We read in 1 Chronicles 22 a great passage about what it means to leave a legacy. We mostly want to get the glory, as A W Tozer said, "We say that God gets all the glory but we enjoy the fringe benefits". So the idea that we might only be preparing ground for someone else is not good for our egos. We want to reap what we sow, or perhaps even more. David realises that he will not build the temple but rather than simply leaving it to Solomon to do his own work, David draws up plans and prepares building materials in advance to aid Solomon and in doing so leaves a legacy. Of course, this could be seen as David trying to get some of the credit but we read that David is concerned that Solomon might not have the confidence since he is young and wants to reduce the burden of the job.

The One Year Bible - Day 196

I was wondering today about the way in which foolishness incurs a debt that is not always easily repaid. Look at Hanun the new king of the Ammonites and the way he foolishly not only mistrusted the gesture from king David but also then humiliated the messengers instead of perhaps sending a message back. He then mustered a war machine and allies in preparation to fight and then lost hopelessly twice. It is hard to imagine what it must be like to have 40000 soldiers killed in a battle but this was a result of foolishness, there is always less debt when we acknowledge mistakes as soon as possible and deal with them. Trying to hide behind pride just leads us to a fall.

The One Year Bible - Day 195

We see today the correct format for serving in church. The leadership arrange for the practical people to carry out their operations. This is important because lots of churches seem to have a continual tension between leaders who decide things by themselves without regard to the operations and practical people who feel they are not free to do things properly or who are not allowed to make decisions such as where to spend money. It is important that the practical people are empowered to run things practically as the Apostles dictated to the Deacons in Acts and it is also important that the Leadership are happy that the practical arrangements being made for the running of churches are appropriate to the vision of the church. As with many things in life, a balance is required between hands on and hands off. I remember a church leadership discussing for 2 hours whether to buy a mobile phone for emergency church use (there was no land line) even though it would only cost £30 or something!

The One Year Bible - Day 194

David had learned his lesson from the first time he tried to move the ark and Uzziah reached out to steady it and ended up dead. God had told them that the ark was to be carried on poles by Levites who would have done all the necessary preparation and not on a wagon pulled by Oxen, funny how we think we don't always think that God knows what He is talking about. If God says it, it is important! God doesn't say pointless things. It is easy for us to do the same thing with what the Bible says, to dismiss the bits we don't like or don't agree with.

The One Year Bible - Day 193

We are counting all these warriors that have chosen to fight for David and it is easy to miss what it says about the tribe of Issachar: "All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take". What a great thing to be said of someone. It is akin to being prophetic and saying that somebody can see more than the physical and emotional and can actually see the reality of the situations they are in. There are those in the church who can see through nonsense that sometimes happens in churches although they are sometimes labelled as trouble makers and people who are not encouraging enough!

The One Year Bible - Day 192

We read again today about the amazing exploits of David's mighty men. It is interesting that although David was obviously all-round good and Godly, some of these people excelled in fighting more so than David himself. A single man who killed 300 with a spear in a single battle! It makes me think that in churches where the main leader might be known as a good all-rounder but where individuals are more gifted than that leader in perhaps every field - the difference between a specialist and a general practitioner. The question is whether we give those people the chance to use their gifts since they are not the main leader!

The One Year Bible - Day 191

We have a slight confusing set of passages today as the first talks about exile to Babylon even though this is much too early on for the full exile that occurs when Israel is attacked by the Babylonians and everyone is taken prisoner. This must therefore refer to an earlier smaller exile that we read about in Kings when the Babylonians attacked Judah and took prisoner the people who lived there. What is strange is that at this point, the kingdom had not even divided, remember that Saul was the first king of Israel! Your homework therefore is to work out what is going on here!

The One Year Bible - Day 190

We read about various tribes of Israel and their descendants. I've never really compared the numbers but one of the wonderful things is that they are not considered equal in size or skills or relevance to what God is doing. Life is not about equality, it is about being faithful with what you have, whether much or little.

The One Year Bible - Day 189

"They cried out to God during the battle and He answered their prayer because they trusted Him"
This is easy to agree with but in reality, our attitude needs to be more than just, "Oh yeah, God supplies what we need" but we need a much more fully surrendered helplessness before God. If we don't have that, then we are presuming that God only needs to top up the areas we are weak in rather than to provide everything from the ground up.

The One Year Bible - Day 188

1 Chronicles 4 and we read of Jabez. There was quite a famous book called the "prayer of Jabez" which is perhaps drawing quite a lot from 2 verses but think about his prayer. Does your attitude match his prayer? Does your heart want God to expand your spiritual territories? I'm not sure about the keep me from trouble and pain bit but it appears that God honoured an honourable man. At the end of the day, it is a matter of whether we consider God a necessary burden in our lives or as the source of all blessing.

The One Year Bible - Day 187

Today is my birthday and we have a raft of family information to trawl through. We can easily pass these passages by and assume there is little useful information for us but we can still pray that God teach us something from these passages. For instance, why was it that Solomon succeeded David as king even though he was not even close to being the eldest? Who were all these other sons of David? What did they do? How were they treated by David and by others? Was it possible to be a stranger to your father because he had so many children?

The One Year Bible - Day 186

As we enter Chronicles, we read many of the same stories as we have in Kings. Some of them have slight differences though that are worth considering as are the meanings of people's names. One of the reasons for the genealogies is to prove that these are not fairy tales but historical stories, the other though is that as we learn what people's names mean, we can understand more about OT life. Remember Ichabod son of Phinehas? His name means, "the glory has departed" which was so relevant at the time when all sense of reverence for God had been lost. What do the other names mean?

The One Year Bible - Day 185

We see a few places in the OT that a king is killed or taken prisoner and one of his brothers is installed in his place. I'm not sure whether you've ever thought about it but if your brother was killed by someone who then wanted you to be king, what would you say? It would appear however that some people are so addicted to power that their integrity is passed by to gain an opportunity. It also reminds us that some people would rather have someone in leadership who agrees with them rather than someone who is the right person for the job.

The One Year Bible - Day 184

We are challenged today with what it means to restore the temple to its former glory. We are told in 1 Cor 6:19 that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. The obvious NT analogy of this fixing of the temple therefore is for us to restore our lives to the full glory of what God wants to do through us. One of the first things that is discovered as this happens is that the King is reminded of the Book of the Law. We would also find that we are led to the Bible as we seek to repair our relationship with God. The question is, I guess, how sad does it make us when we realise how short we are falling? Sad enough to tear our clothes?

The One Year Bible - Day 183

We read today about one of the differences between men and God. We regard our death as completely tragic and something that we should avoid for as long as possible but to God where 1000 years is like a day, whether you die at 30 or 90 is not as important as what you achieve in that time.
Today, Hezekiah cries to God when he realises he is to die and as a result, God allows him to live longer. That 15 years however is not great and starts with envoys from Babylon spying out his land and then preparing to invade the land.
As well as our life, we also need to consider our ministries. Sometimes God wants them to finish or at least to be passed to someone else. If we hold on to them, we can incur problems, lose the Spirit and also affect God's plans.

The One Year Bible - Day 182

In 2 Kings 18, we see a real stripping back of the wealth of Judah, in this case to pay off the king of Assyria and we can read it and feel that somehow it was like defeat to lose so much to the enemy. What we actually see however as a result of this is Hezekiah losing all of his supports and confidence and having to rely on the Lord only for victory.
I guess this is not something that God wanted to do so much as it was what He needed to do since the years of disobedience to God had taken their toll on Judah and they needed to re-connect with God.
We have the same times in our lives when everything is stripped away and which we should not react against because it should make us decide what is actually important in our lives rather than all the shiny nice things that we often enjoy at the expense of God.

The One Year Bible - Day 181

We read today, "so Hoshea was forced to pay heavy tribute" after he was attacked by King Shalmaneser from Assyria. This happens a few times in the OT and was a common old-world practice. An empire would invade another area and usually at minimum demand a tribute and perhaps people for military service. If they refused, they would go to war.
As a spiritual analogy, we actually sometimes pay tribute to things we shouldn't. In other words, we reap the consequences of a lack of victory against our foes. These might be things we suffer from (like abuse) or they might be things we have actively done (like made a girl pregnant who we didn't then marry). The tribute we pay is often emotional and psychological but could also be practical or financial and can continue for the rest of our lives. There are two lessons then that we need to learn. Firstly to avoid making the mistakes that lead to tribute, i.e. keeping our character and not sinning and then secondly, we need to learn how to get victory over things that we suffer from (and which it is possible to get victory over) such as the emotional suffering we might endure from certain situations. God is a protector but He is also a saviour!

The One Year Bible - Day 180

The divided kingdom has suffered in many ways. The kings of Israel are generally evil in God's eyes and they go from disaster to disaster until ultimately, it seems that whoever kills the king becomes the new king with no reference to God at all. Although Judah is better in this respect, it is still said of most of these kings that they did not serve God wholeheartedly. That they still allowed pagan shrines and incense to be burned there. I often wonder about churches that on the surface are successful and could be said to be "doing good before God" but which have little hollows with things hidden that are un-Godly. Whether bad relationships, idolatry of people or buildings or certain teachings or whatever rather than destroying everything that is not of God. I wonder how much better these churches would be without that and whether the reason why many churches do very well and then not so well is not due to people getting bored but with issues not dealt with! We then get a bad egg in king Ahaz as we sometimes do in church who decided to marry the church with the world and to join forces with a foreign king. Would we do that nowadays? What would that look like?

The One Year Bible - Day 179

Yesterday we read about the final years of Joash. It seems a shame that he was generally a good king and followed God but presumably didn't have the courage of a soldier. When Jerusalem is threatened with attack, he simply pays off the attackers which of course prevents the attack but costs him dearly and betrays a lack of trust in God. I wonder sometimes when we make decisions that work out but which could have had better outcomes if we had asked God instead. We might pay off an unfair parking ticket whereas God would have us contest it and win. Even in spiritual matters, we might try and take the easy way out of a damaged relationship rather than accepting the confrontation and the solution that God can bring through that!

The One Year Bible - Day 178

Joash was 7 years old when he became king! We read again today about the relationship between the king and the priest. In this case, the priest had to instigate revolution in order to bring back the kingdom of Judah to God. He did this despite the fact he was not the king. I wonder what this means for the Christian today. Is the king a bit like the pastor and the priest is like a prophet? Does this imply that we need to ensure that we have people who can challenge us and even perform certain duties in order for us to perform ours? If we are leaders, do we surround ourselves with "yes men" or with people whose spirituality we recognise and respect, even when they disagree with us?

The One Year Bible - Day 178

"At about that time the Lord began to cut down the size of Israel’s territory". It begins with disobedience and carelessness and ends up with our 'territory' being reduced. Has your territory reduced? Was it because you were careless and/or disobedient? Well the good news is that it is totally reversible and requires a fresh dedication of yourself to Himself so that you can start to defeat the enemy in the parts of your ministry that have suffered. Take it back people! Whose Kingdom are you fighting for?

The One Year Bible - Day 177

Jehu replied, "What do you know about peace?"
What do we know about peace? We know that we sort of like peace because it's easy and relaxing but Jesus famously said, "I have not come to bring peace but a sword". But if Jesus is the Prince of Peace and if we can have a "peace that transcends all understanding" why did Jesus say that He did not come to bring peace?
It is because like a lot of things, we don't really understand the difference between human peace and God's peace. We want human peace but God's peace is not about comfort and easy lives as much as it is about being at peace with Him. The peace of God requires work and confrontation as well as boldness and suffering. In other words, we have to sometimes forfeit our peace for His peace.

The One Year Bible - Day 176

Today Elisha warns the woman from Shunem to go and live in a foreign country because of a famine. The problem with famines is that there is much suffering and people die so it is natural that we would avoid famines. It was because of this woman's closeness to Elisha and therefore God that allowed her to know about and avoid the coming famine. I wonder how many of our famines we could have avoided if we had listened to God in the first place?

The One Year Bible - Day 175

A great story today of how God has many arrows in his quiver - or many ways of fixing a problem. If you asked a human how to fix the famine and deal with the invading army, you might have thought of planning an effective attack, planting a lot of food and attempting to wait around until it had grown enough to eat. Not so with God, he made the Arameans think they were being chased so they all fled! Interestingly the officer who had not believed in God died as a result of what God did - he died in his unbelief. We must not restrict God's hand by praying for our solutions, we should take Him the problem and let Him decide the best way to deal with it!

The One Year Bible - Day 174

There is an OT parallel of the feeding of the 5000 in 2 Kings 4. Elisha tells the people to share out a small amount of food between many people and God multiplies it. Even in the OT, God was in the business of allowing those things we consecrate to Him to be blessed and multiplied to the benefit of many others.

The One Year Bible - Day 173

We read about two instances of holiness blessing those you are in contact with. Elisha helps the 3 kings because of his respect for Jehoshaphat and we also read about the widow being blessed because of her association with Elisha. We often think of ourselves as primarily defensive people whereas the Bible teaches we are contagious and have the ability to bring blessing to people rather than constantly fearing spiritual attacks.

The One Year Bible - Day 172

Another remarkable OT story today where Elijah calls down fire from heaven onto the soldiers who are sent to arrest him. Ignoring the obvious sad fact that these soldiers were punished when they were only carrying out orders, the bigger picture is about King Ahaziah who has not acknowledged the word of God into his life and has tried to pit his human power against that of God. The result needless to say ends in disaster for Ahaziah (and the soliders) but we are once again reminded of the power and holiness of God. God rebukes Ahaziah for looking for answers amongst foreign Gods and it costs him his life.

The One Year Bible - Day 171

Good old Jehoshaphat. Although he has decided to do something, the caveat was, "Let us see what the Lord says". Too often we all follow good ideas, even 'Christian' good ideas without seeing what the Lord says. Inevitably these end up in various levels of disaster and the same happened many times in Israel. We might end up with an ineffective mission, we might create a problem we might have to live with or something much worse. With so much at stake and with the ability to pray and seek God, why do we fail so often?

The One Year Bible - Day 170

It is hard to imagine what the times were like in ancient Israel. Here was Ahab, an evil and presumably confident man being brought to a place of fear by an imminent attack, possibly because of the sheer scale of the invaders. When asked for too much however, Ahab decides to rebuff the attackers and comes out with the immortal line, "A warrior putting on his sword for battle should not boast like a warrior who has already won."
We read of an intervention however from God. Despite Ahab being evil, God has already promised to protect Israel and that is what he does via a prophet who tells Ahab how to approach the battle so they win.
We sometimes think of life in quite simple terms like the Jews did, "God helps righteous people and ignores the unholy" but God is much larger and deeper than that and works to bring everything about for His glory and purpose. How amazing is that!

The One Year Bible - Day 169

Is this strange today? Elijah has just triumphed at Mt Carmel (or rather God did!) and then the very next moment, he has got scared of a death threat and done a runner. No doubt Jezebel was a powerful and evil woman but where did his courage go? I wonder if it was simply a case that when Elijah was at Carmel, he was very much 'in the Spirit' where his courage came from. However, now that was finished, it was just ordinary Elijah with all his fears facing a challenge. It is much harder to have faith when God is not noticeably present but we are assured from this story that God both knows and cares when we face these challenges in our 'normal' life. We also don't face the same level of danger as Elijah so we should be confident that God knows what is going on and we need never think that we are alone in our fear.

The One Year Bible - Day 168

I love today's recollection of Elijah vs the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. It is one of those situations that reminds us of how powerful God is but how many important points can you pick out of the story?
The first point is that God spoke to Elijah and Elijah heard and went to Ahab. We tend to presume God is always speaking but how many of us hear and how many of us go?
Next Elijah has the boldness to speak the truth to the evil king Ahab. Sometimes we have to speak the truth when we know it will not be received well, sometimes to people who 'could' kill us in return.
Elijah then tells the king to summon the prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel to prove that God is the Lord. We tend to forget that despite Elijah's background and track record, this would have been hard to say both taking the risk that it would not work and also knowing what would happen if it did.
Then rather than simply denouncing the prophets of Baal, he allowed them the chance to prove what they believed.
He then setup a trial for God in a way that only God could perform. By the time the alter was soaking wet, there was no way that a human could have tricked people into starting a fire. He didn't try and make it easy for God (or perhaps easy on his faith) - not that God needed it to be easy of course. You could also say that the alter represented worship which was important to prepare the ground as it were.
Of course God came through and the prophets of Baal were not forgiven and sent away but were slaughtered. Again, killing was more common in the OT it seems but this wouldn't have made it easy for Elijah to command their execution but he did it because God told him to.

The One Year Bible - Day 167

There is a recurring theme throughout the books of Kings in the OT where a king dies, his son becomes king, "and he did evil just as his father did". Sometimes we also have, "however, he did..." and we are reminded how easy it is to inherit ungodly practices, theology or attitudes from those who are our earthly or spiritual fathers. For some of us it might be said, "however they did..." but of how many of us could it be said, "He was righteous and did good unlike his father"? How many of us avoid the passive approach of simply carrying on what we have taken over and not questioning the whys and the wherefores of what we do? How many of us take the line that we are 'mostly' correct and this is good enough and how many of us are like David who had humility and a daily relationship with God to enable him to constantly learn and be guided?
We also read about Elijah being fed by Ravens. Ravens are clever birds and this might be a metaphor for us being willing to be fed by the wise people around us when we have lost vision and passion in a difficult situation.

The One Year Bible - Day 166

1 Kings 14 and we read about a very sad state of affairs in Judah. It is clear that the glory had well and truly departed. There was sin and unfaithfulness and to cap it all, even the Temple which was supposed to be the glory of God had been robbed of its beauty and had cheap substitutes put in their place, a bit like people who spent thousands on their house and give their church all the cheap rubbish that they don't want any more.

If we are the church, do we look like someone has stolen the glory and we have covered it up in cheap rubbish/pretense/religion? The glory is always there for the taking back so if we are like that, let us take it back by going before God on bended knee and repenting.

The One Year Bible - Day 165

1 Kings 13: A prophet denounces the king and is then punished with death for disobeying God even though sometime (untruly) said that an angel told him to disobey God. Why so harsh? I think God deals with people harshly if they have more responsibility. From those who have been given much, much is expected!
The prophet quite simply knew the seriousness of his message otherwise he wouldn't have taken the message to Jeroboam so he also knew that when God said, "don't eat anything", He meant, "don't eat anything"!
A new Christian might have excuses before God but those of us who have been believers for ages have no excuses!

The One Year Bible - Day 164

Oh the joys of marriage. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. That is a lot of sex my friends! But as the Lord had warned, they turned his heart against God. How often do we hear God's laws and think that we don't need to follow them all, perhaps not to the letter anyway!? We know how to walk the line and to be safe and God doesn't really know what he's talking about does He? Then BAM, something happens and we ask, "why didn't we trust God?"
There is of course no point in telling you this because the history of the human race shows how mush we think we know apart from God!

The One Year Bible - Day 163

How many times do you read about Israel following other gods and think, "oh silly Israel, how can you turn away from God?".
Let me ask you another question. How much time do you spend trying to get more money? More possessions? More power and influence? How much effort trying to save up for the latest car/jeans/jackets/perfumes?
Yep, we're all exactly the same as Israel!

The One Year Bible - Day 162

The ark is once again brought back to the centre of Israel's country. I was reading the fact that the only things left in the box were the two stone tablets of the law. What happened to Aarons rod and the manna that was put in before? Well if the rod represents testimony and the manna represents spiritual food, they were no longer there since the presence of God had been absent for so long, there was no testimony and no spiritual food but there was still the law!
Why is that important? Sometimes our walk is dry and hard, sometimes we have no spiritual food and no testimony and feel it is all going wrong but there is still the law! Is the law to make us realise how useless we are? Absolutely! It reminds us of a holy God who is perfect and requires a holiness in humans, something we are unable to achieve, it therefore leads us to fall on our knees and beg God for forgiveness and blessing. Amen!

The One Year Bible - Day 161

I don't know about you but I sometimes wonder why the Bible goes into such great detail about the way the tabernacle and temple were built. I mean, it's all great and stuff but we don't have the temple any more, it was just a building so why all the info? One of the things that we need to be challenged by is both the investment and the attention to detail that occurred when the temple was built.
If you like to consider your own ministry as a kind of temple, what is your investment? A few hours a week when you are not busy doing something else? A couple of prayers before a meeting or a life immersed in the ministry God has called you to. What about attention to detail? Well, of course, God is who we are focused on but do we consider everything that we do and ask whether it is of God? Whether it is done in the right way? With the right amount of time given? Whether it is still something God wants us to do?
We need to invest in our ministry and we need to pay attention to details.

The One Year Bible - Day 160

How often do you invest in the kingdom? Solomon built a temple because he had entered a time of peace. What do we do when all is good with the world? Use it as a chance to focus on God and invest in the kingdom or become complacent and start thinking about ourselves and that we don't need God because everything is going so well?!

The One Year Bible - Day 159

Have you ever wondered what you would choose if God offered you anything you wanted? Would you think instinctively of money or power or like Solomon do you understand that wisdom offers many more rewards than money? God rewards Solomon for asking for something pure-hearted but I think it is another way of God showing the richness that comes from wisdom and wisdom comes from a thirst for Godly knowledge. Human wisdom is not bad at best but God's wisdom can divide between soul and spirit, bone and ligaments, between good and bad or perhaps more accurately between good and great!

The One Year Bible - Day 158

Joab is an interesting character. He has been loyal to David for a long time and perhaps walked a fine line between loyalty and big-headedness but then to be the commander of the army was no mean feat. Today though, David tells Solomon that he must punish Joab for sins committed earlier on when he murdered two people in cold blood when his head got the better of him. Sometimes we think we have gotten away with something. Perhaps we think it is forgotten or maybe no-one will ever find out but God knows and one day, we will all pay the price for things we have done wrong in one way or another by punishment or by living with the consequences. No amount of good we have done balances that sin out which is why we need Jesus because we need forgiveness, not justice.

The One Year Bible - Day 157

Today we see David's son Adonijah set out to become king now that David is getting old. We also read about 4 characters who represent different people. Joab the commander of the army and Abiathar the priest desert David while Nathan the prophet and David's body guard stay loyal. One thing that is clear from the Godly people of the OT is that whoever is annointed king remains king until he dies, regardless of how good they are or whether God withdraws his Spirit. The calling is irrevocable. What we see here however is David's son trying to line himself up with the job of king, something that he should not so much want to do but would do out of duty if God called him. The same can be said of positions of authority in the church. We should not want to do them but should do them from duty if God calls us. As soon as we put ourselves forward, we imply that it is us who will bring success to the position rather than whoever God would choose.
Interestingly, Joab who represents power deserts the ailing king and also one of the priests who represents false religion. It is the prophet, the friendships and the true priest who remain with the true king.

The One Year Bible - Day 156

We read of one of these confusing passages where the will and sovereignty of God interferes with the will of men. We know or at least assume we have free will, something which shows the providence of God but we also know that God has a will and purpose that is being carried out. The difficult wording is in 2 Samuel 24 and says that God was angry with Israel and caused David to harm them by taking a census. The census represents human boasting, a means to know that you have x thousand soldiers or people in your country. There are many things that represent the spirit of census in churches and are all based in the ego of man. It seems harsh that it reads that God made David do it and then blamed him but the text must simply reveal that God allowed David to do the thing that was on his heart, perhaps another reading would be, "God was angry and gave David an opportunity to do something evil that he had stored up in his heart". The fact that David is blamed must mean that it was fully David's choice, God is not going to punish him for something that God made him do but we do see this sense of God's sovereignty in the language, "He caused David to harm him".

The One Year Bible - Day 155

Great verses today about how to deal with adversary in the Christian walk, "But the godless are like thorns to be thrown away, for they tear the hand that touches them. One must use iron tools to chop them down; they will be totally consumed by fire."
We can get far too complacent about dealing with un-Godly things, whether curses, uncleanliness, bad habits or opposition. We can think that we can handle it because we believe. These verses remind us that we tear our hands if we engage directly with these and the way we need to deal with them is with tools of iron, prayer! Iron represents strength and the only strong tools I can think of to deal with opposition is prayer. We know how easily iron tools cut through thorns and we should have the same faith when we pray that our prayers tear through opposition in the same way.

The One Year Bible - Day 154

2 Samuel 20 tells us about a woman of peace who Joab meets at the town of Abel. She does not represent either an enemy or a friend but represents a third-party who is neutral and also who is wise. People who have worked abroad in non-Christian areas are familiar with these people who are often the first people who we bring into our teams and even if they are not believers, they understand the wisdom of the Kingdom and are prepared to help even if not out of genuine motivations. Interestingly, God still uses these people to help us and we must not belittle or devalue their contribution to the Kingdom of God despite the fact they are not "Christians".

The One Year Bible - Day 153

Amasa is an interesting character and it is hard to read between the lines to find out what is going on below the surface here. Firstly we have David promising him the leadership of the army despite Joab still being around and despite the tribe of Judah being the last to welcome King David back into the kingdom after defeating Absalom, it is hard to see if this is some kind of trick on David's part or whether it is a genuine offer. The role doesn't last long however since on his first errand he doesn't report back to David in time and presumably this implied he was either rebelling or otherwise was inept and Joab finishes him off with a dagger on his way to do what Amasa was supposed to do. I guess sometimes in life we have a chance to do something for God but the offer is only short lived and if we are simply demonstrating rebellion or ineptness, God will get someone else to do it.

The One Year Bible - Day 152

We read of even more weakness in David's heart when it comes to his son who David has instructed to spare. Herein is the danger since Absalom clearly deserves to die for his rebellion but David loves him too much and once again, his heart is interfering with his duty. It takes Joab to put a stop to this conflict and he kills Absalom and then eventually also rebukes David who becomes so sad at his death that he withdraws and brings bad morale into the people. Do we have lieutenants or friends who are able to rebuke us sometimes when we indulge our heart too much? We need these people because none of us would ever presume to have perfect character or decision making skills so we need to put these safety checks in place before we need them!

The One Year Bible - Day 151

There is some great Godly subterfuge going on today and it reminds us from the saefty of our own country how dangerous it was to exist in the times of the Old Testament. Execution was routine even for things as basic as treason (against whoever was or thought they were in charge) and today we read about two men hiding in a well and the family who hid them there. Praise God for people like this who court rebellion against men in order to be obedient to God.
We also read about Ahithophel who was not too happy about having his advice ignore to the point where he killed himself. For some people, the power of giving advice, especially if it was for someone else to follow, is a staple of life but where it comes from the ego instead of the spirit, it is a poisoned chalice waiting to devour the person who gives it.

The One Year Bible - Day 150

I like reading the Bible for it's punctuation marks rather than it's sentences. It is not the fact that the Israelites under David are leaving Jerusalem but what happens before or afterwards to cause this. Perhaps our own lives are like this? We spend time when we are just existing and living out whatever has happened most recently in our lives, good or bad, but then we have moments, decisions, turning points which are critical and which we must give to God in order that our next existence comes from a Godly decision and not from a human one.
Verse 25 has an interesting belief from David, one which might be fatalistic or perhaps a resignation of self-doubt but something which is indeed true and that is "if God wants to, he will bring me back to see the Ark". It is interesting because the ark represents God's presence and therefore this decision seems to imply that David has willingly allowed the presence of God to stay in Jerusalem and him to leave - if you like a choice to leave the presence of God rather than taking it with him. Again, this is like times in our lives where we are not so much giving up on God but sort of taking a step back and allowing God to bring us back in when it suits Him.

The One Year Bible - Day 149

We read of this unusual anti-Hollywood ending between David and Absalom today. Absalom had initially fled from David after killing his half brother Amnon and rightly fearing what he will reap in return for his actions, even though they are revenge for the rape of Absalom's sister. We read that David missed Absalom although for some reason, he had never sent for him. Perhaps what we are reading is simply the classic battle between head and heart. David didn't know what he should do to Absalom since he had taken the law into his own hands but at the same time he loved him and couldn't simply order for him to be brought back or punished. In the end, it is Joab who intervenes on Absalom's behalf because he knows how sad David is but this reconciliation, although it brings about a seeming peace between father and son, it then begins a rebellion which is to cost David and Israel dearly. It is obviously never easy to decide between our head and our heart since we know that our head is correct but our hearts are heavy. The only advice can surely be that we need to take these things before the Lord and then be prepared to accept whatever He tells us to do about it. We shouldn't risk our heart towards God by allowing our hearts towards people to dictate our lives.

The One Year Bible - Day 148

Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar. On the back of the previous story where David has pretty much done the same thing, we read that Amnon is not forgiven, never humbles himself and ends up murdered in revenge by his half brother Absalom. Can we deduce that he ended up punished because he did not repent? We cannot really say, we all know people that have suffered more or less because of their sin but there is obviously no specific cause and effect, some people simply suffer more than others.

The One Year Bible - Day 147

Do you ever wonder what it was like for someone like Nathan to bring God's prophecy to David? Despite us knowing that David was a Godly man, the king was still to be feared. He was a warrior and no stranger to killing and here was God asking Nathan to rebuke him. It is easy for us to say that "when God sends you, you go" but it must have been incredibly hard and yet he did what he had to do. At the time when David had stopped fearing the Lord, there was someone else who hadn't.
The question is, what would have happened if Nathan would have bottled out? Would David have become proud and even more sinful? Would the history of God's people been much worse?
We must deal with difficult situation as they arise and God directs us to. The dealing might be very painful but the alternative is unthinkable.

The One Year Bible - Day 146

David and Bathsheba, a very famous passage involving the sin of one of the Bible's most Godly men. When we step back from the impulse to simply judge David because he committed "such a great sin", we need to remember how powerful he was, how much temptation he would have been under constantly and we remind ourselves that we all have a weakness in one or more areas. Perhaps we are weak with money or the lust for power or attraction to women generally or specifically?
We do see in detail however the way that sin plays out in our lives. Right from the outset, the passage tells us that David should have been out at war but he stayed at home, "the devil finds work for idle hands"! Then, was the initial temptation when David sees Bathsheba. At this point, he could have averted his eyes and walked away but the temptation leads to curiosity and he asked his servants to find out who she was. When he found out she was married, he definitely should have backed off but he sleeps with her straight away and she becomes pregnant. He has now crossed a line and as is so common when we do wrong, we are slow to make ourselves right and spend more effort trying to cover it up. Despite his best efforts to try and get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba so everyone can think the baby was his, it doesn't work and again, rather than David coming clean, he decides to take the ultimate step in what he thinks will put paid to the sin - he arranges for Uriah to be killed which would release Bathsheba from her marriage and allow her to marry David. Of course, he thinks he has gotten away with it until the prophet Nathan comes and passes judgement on what David has done at which point the full effect of his sin is made known and the son born to Bathsheba dies. Interestingly, Bathsheba is also the mother of Solomon who we read later on has the opportunity to build the Temple and is very much a man after God's heart so we should still be gobsmacked at how God has not only forgiven David his massive sin, but also makes things alright again.

The One Year Bible - Day 145

2 Samuel 7 is prophetic on two levels, God is telling Nathan both about Solomon who will build the temple and also Jesus who will build a 'temple' both are David's descendents. The temple that Solomon made was a physical building, the one Jesus created was the church! The living and breathing temple of God where His presence lives and can be taken by each believer to millions of places at the same time. Oh how we pine for Jesus to be here when His power and presence has been given to us by the Holy Spirit as if we were millions of Jesus' Sometimes we need to stop looking at what we are not and consider who He has made us in Christ!

The One Year Bible - Day 144

We read about God bringing about the reunion of Israel under King David but under the unfortunate human hands of Recab and Baanah who had decided that Ishbosheth needed to be murdered. They ended up executed but still you wonder what might have been if they had not intervened. Somehow in scripture there is a way in which God's will occurs even if carried out by the hands of humans (whether knowingly or not). There is a part of me that thinks they shouldn't have killed Ishbosheth but then another part where I can see God knowing that His will was done to reunite his people. Sadly later, we read that Judah and Israel separate again and we wonder whether it should have happened another way.
We are then reminded that even after 'success' we must not run headlong into new experiences without staying in check with God. David asks God about conquering the Philistines rather than just going ahead with it.
We then read about the Ark again (remember this represents God's presence) which has been in exile in some far flung corner of Israel. We read again about both its holiness and also its blessing as an object for the Israelites. We can understand David's anger that Uzzah died but we must remember that God is holy and is not to be toyed with. God had told them how to carry the ark and it was on poles carried by priests. The fact that they had used a cart and this resulting in an Ox stumbling should be no surprise. We need to constantly remind ourselves not to treat His presence with contempt otherwise He will simply go somewhere else.

The One Year Bible - Day 143

Notice today we have witnessed the start of the divided kingdom. In a shortish space of time we have gone from being the people of God to the peoples of God and we see the Spirit of denomination. Why? Well God had anointed David to be the king but some people could not accept that and decided to set up the nation of Israel while David stayed in Judah (Judah is the tribe of kings). The first act of celebration for this new partition? War.
It says a lot about denomination or party spirit that we spend more time fighting than we do working together. So massively sad and also anger inspiring. All these great leaders we look up to across all these world denominations and they still struggle to work together because of (mostly) minor differences in doctrine that honestly are really not that important.
You also read about the sad death of Asahel who obviously didn't learn when to stop pursuing, another lesson for us today. We can get an idea in our head so strongly that we pursue it to the point of death.

The One Year Bible - Day 142

An Amalekite (another foreigner) comes to tell David of Saul's death and ends up killed. Why? Because he killed Saul since Saul's suicide was apparently not successful. David still considers this treason. It is along the lines of, "Well he was finished anyway so I helped it along". Compare this to his armour bearer from yesterday who feared God and would not kill the king.
Our challenge is again not to try and help God do God's work. The ONLY thing we are called to do concerns ourself and own behaviour and character. God might well call us to do things involving others but this should only be those we are in authority over and only when God tells us to.
Authority is what keeps our house in order, lack of authority leads to Anarchy which leads to getting nothing much done!

The One Year Bible - Day 141

This passage is interesting because we see David offering to fight with the Philistines (arch enemies of Israel) against Israel and therefore against his own people. This is the same man who protected Saul because he was 'God's anointed one'. We obviously don't know whether David was planning some kind of coup against the Philistines mid-battle or whether he had got to the point where he was so tired of running away from Saul, he simply enjoyed the security of a foreign land. What we do see is God intervening and simply not letting David do it. This occurs via the other leaders (how does God do it without forcing His will onto them?) and results in David being unconnected with the slaughter of the Israelites.
We finally see Saul and Jonathan killed, interestingly we see Saul attempting to kill himself with his own spear to avoid the shame that he feels in defeat.

The One Year Bible - Day 140

I mentioned yesterday about how we need to let God deal with people who are out of line and just look after our own position before God. However, what we read about today involves other people. Imagine that you really can't stand someone and you secretly want to punch them in the face. You might decide that you shouldn't but if someone else did, you would be more than happy. This passage shows that this attitude is also wrong. Just because someone else does the 'dirty work', doesn't absolve you from blame.
If someone asked you if you wanted them to punch this guy in the face, what do you say?
1) I can't possibly comment (i.e. yes please)
2) Yes please
3) Well if you did, I wouldn't mind
4) It would be wrong to punch him

The One Year Bible - Day 139

David spares Saul's life. We can understand this because where we live, killing is not common and we would probably never pick up a sword or spear and kill anyone. For David and the people who lived at that time however, it was very much a part of life so it wouldn't have been strange for David to have killed anyone, let alone his arch-enemy.
What David recognises however is that Saul was anointed by God despite any objections he might have or any character issues that Saul has and for this reason, David will not touch him. Could the same be true of leadership in your churches that you can pick holes in and justify 'killing' so that you can step into their shoes? This betrays a lack of understanding of God's sovereignty and the fact that He can deal with people that need removing without us having to 'help' God. This troubles us because we like to think we know what is right but then again the root of all human suffering is the fact that we all think we know what is right!

The One Year Bible - Day 138

Doeg the Edomite. You could presumably write a PhD on the psychology of this man but the simple truth is that he was looking for the favour of man rather than the favour of God. If he was God-fearing, he would have not spoken up to tell them where David was. What is interesting is that several times in the OT, the people who do these things are foreigners and represent people who exist today. The Edomites were friends and relatives of the Israelites because of their help when the Israelites were coming into the Promised Land but the point was they were not Israelites, they therefore might well represent people who are closely linked with the church or Christians but who are not genuinely believers. I guess they most closely represent religious people who have no faith and therefore are prone to make decisions from human understanding or praise from men and not from the things of God.

The One Year Bible - Day 137

We read today about the fascinating friendship between David and Jonathan. People have suggested it is a homosexual relationship but that betrays the way in which our minds have been distorted from what real love actually means and that love does not necessarily mean sexuality.
In this situation where David is incredibly fearful because of Saul and particularly the fact that he doesn't know what he's done wrong, we read about powerful is the friendship that can sustain you through the hard times.

The One Year Bible - Day 136

Fear is a strange thing. We read that Saul feared David and yet David feared Saul. How many things in life can be so two-way? Domination is usually one way, talent is usually one way, creativity or technical ability are mostly one way. In other words, in most areas of life, someone will always have the upper hand over someone else in a certain area. Only with fear can it travel so strongly in two directions. David feared for Saul's violence, Saul feared David's popularity and we all know that fear is a large powerful anchor that weighs us down and prevents us from being who we were made to be. Contrast with Daniel who showed no fear at any point and we see the Godly view on fear: If we trust God, fear has no hold on us!

The One Year Bible - Day 135

Sometimes I like to draw metaphor and deeper meaning from Bible passages but David and Goliath is so simple, it does not need complication.
David had faith, he trusted God and he slayed a giant, a giant that no one else even had the guts to face.
It is amazing and reminds me of Philippians 4:13

The One Year Bible - Day 134

Today we read about the results of modifying the plans God has given us. God quite clearly told Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites but Saul had decided to spare the king and kept the best of the animals alive. This ended up costing him dearly. It proved that his heart was not aligned to God's and ended up with Samuel slaying king Agag - I guess the metaphor would be the spiritual mop-up that we have when we do not follow God's plans. How many times have we suffered from a person or situation that we should have dealt with and didn't?
What is interesting however was that although God had rejected Saul, he was still king until he died. Why? Because God is not in the business of imposing himself directly onto men's systems. "If you want Saul as king, have him as king". God had already decided that David would be king and soon had even anointed David but Saul stayed in his office, as if the gift and calling are irrevocable - Romans 11:29

The One Year Bible - Day 133

Jonathans daring plan, to approach the Philistines with just him and his armour bearer and prove that the Lord is who He says He is! It appeared that the glory had departed the priesthood at that time and it therefore took a non-priest to cause God's will to happen. How sad throughout history when the church has failed to do God's will and He has chosen someone outside to do it instead!
The root issue here was quite simple to Jonathan, a simple but challenging premise: God is able to save us from the Philistines, therefore even two of us will be able to defeat 20 men.
We then read of the foolishness of man (Saul in this case) who decides that making an oath about his men not eating is some sort of way to motivate them to success. We cannot motivate each other to success, success only comes as we align our will to Gods. The result, almost calamity as the person who had followed God (Jonathan) nearly suffered execution. Fortunately, God intervened and Jonathan got to be an influence on his father for many more years.

The One Year Bible - Day 132

We often misunderstand the idea that God can be both loving and also allow us to suffer. The Old Testament uses phrases like "His hand will be heavy on you" and we get all confused and decide that God in the OT is not the same as the God in the new. We need to understand that the things that God does are all for love, even allowing us to suffer so that we realise where we have gone wrong and therefore return to God. The warnings for Israel apply to us as Christians as much as the Israelites all those years ago because they are based on the principle that God will do whatever He needs to do to bring the best outcome - some of that can be very ugly. If, however we remember who God is and pay Him the honour due to Him then we might find that we don't suffer in the same ways. I don't want to put too fine a point on it since some people suffer for no obvious reason and others who are bad people don't seem to suffer but we should always seek to do what God wants and the best outcome will always result.

The One Year Bible - Day 131

Preparation, what does that mean? In the workplace, we sometimes find that before we get a promotion, we have the chance to try out some of the tasks required to prove we can do it. In the church, the same could be said of people who are earmarked for leadership. We need to pray, to be tested, to take the counsel of others and various other preparations before we would presume to take over a role.

Sadly, too many people lack this preparation and find themselves ill-equipped to handle the challenges of their new roles.

The One Year Bible - Day 130

I wonder what parallels we can draw between 1 Samuel 8 and the modern day church. The original plan was that the people of Israel had people who told them what God said and they followed it. To be led into a decision was to enquire of the Lord. The people wanted a king however and this is what God gave them.

The same thing could be said of the vicar/pastor/leader model of church where you have a single person with ultimate say in issues, not necessarily that they make these decisions alone but that you have a single figurehead to "follow". Of course it makes many things easier since it is simply a case of, if you don't agree, go somewhere else whereas the kingdom of God should be about deciding what is right and pursuing that in prayer and ultimately agreement.

The One Year Bible - Day 129

The presence of God has the effect of causing great plagues in the Philistine towns. Is this because God is malicious and is punishing them? I don't believe so, I think what we see is the simple cause-and-effect of taking something that is holy into somewhere that is not. The fear is not so much that God punishes unholy people (otherwise most of us are screwed) but that if we, as unholy people, approach God, why would we expect anything else?

Even the Israelites are subjected to death when some of them look into the Ark, something they were clearly forbidden to do.

Although this can make us think of God as a bully, we need to remember that God actually gave instructions on how to deal with the ark to enable it to be used correctly. His presence is like carrying some radioactive material which is massively powerful and useful but also dangerous when mishandled.

The One Year Bible - Day 128ii

Another thing we see is Israel who are generally lacking any experience of God, try to force His presence in the camp by taking the Ark to the battle against the Philistines. God had clearly told them to leave the Ark where He told them to leave it and only move it when instructed, something that Israel had clearly ignored. It also mentions again that the priests are there in the thick of it, no doubt trying to get some glory in front of the people with what was a purely human endeavour. No doubt all the people were sucked into it and thought it was some amazing celebration of God and His presence when God had nothing to do with it.

As is usually the case in these situations, the people took a battering and in this case also had the ark (and therefore the potential presence of God) removed with it.

Is this still possible when we fake God's presence in our services? Is it possible that by treating the presence of God with contempt, we lose the ability to experience it until we repent and have it restored?

The One Year Bible - Day 128

We read today of Eli getting the law laid down by God. We might think it was unfair that he was being blamed for his sons actions but it was clear that he had full knowledge of what his sons were doing and had done nothing about it. Why? We don't know but we do know that God considered Eli just as guilty as Phinehas and Hophni. The result of this disregard for God was a warning that the tribe of Levi would start to die out and God would choose another to act as priest. Prophetically, believers are these people who become a new priesthood, whether Jewish or Christian believers in Messiah but we are again warned about people who presume to be religious leaders but who have major issues with their integrity and character. Perhaps we are too proud to think this refers to us but how often do we honestly sit down and question our own motives?

The One Year Bible - Day 127

I love the story of Samuel, a simply story of faith, integrity and ultimately power and authority. I noticed, that once again, Samuel's family are from Ephraim "the hill country". I'm not sure what was special about it but it seems that many people who are great in the Bible come from nowhere places. Perhaps that is simply to prove the point that God wants character rather than the big and famous names of the big cities or maybe it is because people from humble backgrounds have an environment that helps to foster a relationship with God. Perhaps both.

We also read of the terrible behaviour of the two sons of Eli the High Priest and the way in which they treat the things of God with contempt. We are sometimes guilty of that and mock what God is doing because in our proud eyes, we judge it is poor quality or lacking spirituality. How many times have you seen a simple children's club or old people's project in a small church and thought it was a bit lame rather than appreciating that God works in many ways, irrespective of whether we agree or not!