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.