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!