The One Year Bible - Day 261

God is generous in providing many physical analogies of spiritual truths in the Bible. Jerusalem at this time was a fortified and famous city. Physically, it believed it was mighty and largely untouchable but God tells them that they will be all but destroyed. For us, this is a metaphor for pride and the earthly kingdoms we create, even God forbid in the church, and the way in which we think these fortifications are our salvation. The numbers in the congregation, the number of ministries we are involved with, the number of countries and conferences we get invited to speak at mean precisely nothing, "unless the Lord builds the house". Sadly for Jerusalem, they didn't see that their house was not God-built and they were victims of an invasion that wiped out thousands of Jews before being taken away to Babylon. We think we learn from these stories but honestly do we? Do we pray enough (I know it is never enough but 10 minutes per week is nowhere near!), do we read our Bibles regularly? Do we take decisions based on the leading of the spirit? If not then I would suggest that we are building earthly kingdoms and they will one day fall down!

The One Year Bible - Day 260

Isaiah 25 starts with the verse, "O Lord, I will honour and praise your name, for you are my God."
This in itself is such rich teaching. It is also easy to pass over because the emphasis can be read incorrectly. We could read, "I will honour and praise your name, you are my God" which is not what is written but what we seem to read by default. The word "for" in this case represents something more powerful, "the reason I will honour and praise your name is because you are my God", "your identity is the only motivation I need to honour and praise your name". I goes deeper than religion whereby God is God and we worship him because we have to. This extends to every level of philosophy and understanding where God is quite literally life and creation itself, he is the superset of everything, the power source to everyone, he is all knowing and all powerful he is....indescribable - and that is why I honour and praise his name.

The One Year Bible - Day 259

So many prophecies concern Jerusalem in the Bible, perhaps not really surprising. Have you noticed, however, the difference between the existence of Israel and that of the surrounding countries? Jerusalem starts on a high as the chosen people of God, drops into disobedience and suffering and then gets forgiven and restored back to a high again - kind of like a smile. The surrounding nations on the other hand are the opposite. They start from nothing, become powerful and then get destroyed or dispersed by God - a bit like a frown. Who are the Babylonians? The Persians? The Greeks? The Egyptians? The Romans. None of these ever became the power that they once were and according to some prophecies some of them never will. Israel on the other hand has consistently come back from suffering and struggle and is extremely powerful and influential today - considering it's small size.
I want to be on God's side and if that means suffering at the bottom of the smile curve in order to rise up again, so be it!

The One Year Bible - Day 258

Kingdoms rise and fall all the time and Egypt is quite prominent in the Old Testament because of its power, influence and location. However, Isaiah prophecies that Egypt will be destroyed in punishment because of its pride before God.
One of our problems is we have such a short viewpoint on history that we judge quickly. At the height of its power, it would be easy to have seen Egypt and decided that it was righteous and holy and therefore successful. We can think the same about churches or people that become famous and judge their spirituality on their success. Of course, many of these fall again in our own lifetime sometimes to much shame and humiliation but this should just be another reminder that we need to judge things spiritually. I know we say that numbers aren't that important but honestly, they really aren't. Somebody's charisma or humour is irrelevant before God, only the kingdom fruit that comes about as a result of the work.

The One Year Bible - Day 257

When bad things happen, humans have such a large range of responses. Some people get angry, some fight, some weep, some rationalise and some try to avoid the experience or run away. What we realise however is that inside the sovereignty of the Lord, none of these will avail. If we are avoiders, avoiding will not work, if we are fighters, fighting will not work. In fact, the only thing that will ever work is aligning ourselves to what God wants, by listening to Him and obeying his voice. Rahab was a prostitute and humanly worthless but was saved with her family when the rest of Jericho perished for this simple reason - she listened to God's voice and obeyed it.

The One Year Bible - Day 256

I am determined to finish this blog for the Bible in a Year. As soon as it gets neglected, it seems harder to finish although I have now finished the Bible in a Year.
We are reminded again today that God does everything in His own time. Even when bad people seem to be winning, that does not mean that God will not punish them. But He will do it when it suits Him, for instance to teach or punish people. If we really struggle with suffering, we need to remind ourselves that God does know what He's doing and we need to pursue Him to get peace that suffering does not mean out-of-control.

The One Year Bible - Day 255

God's sovereignty is another of those massive themes that are present in the Bible but not really taught that much in church, perhaps because it is a bit difficult and is not the sort of thing you can teach with authority without revelation, it is much easier to teach about His love or even His justice. What we read is about how God is able to use someone like Assyria to punish Israel when they need to learn a lesson but then how Assyria themselves will be punished for their own sins. What it reminds us is that God does things in His own timing and not when we might think He should do it. We still have choices though, we also know that, we just need to remember that God's plan trumps anything we might try and achieve.

The One Year Bible - Day 254

I know some people who have been named by Christian parents to match what they feel God is saying about their future. How cool is that. How often do we do that though? Do we, as Christians, pray about our children and ask what they should be called? Hopefully we won't have to name them, "swift to plunder and quick to carry away" but yet that name, albeit unfortunate, was actually important enough for God to give to Isaiah's son to make his message known to the people. In the same way, the more we are open to God, the more we can be used to bring His message to everyone.

The One Year Bible - Day 253

I was thinking last night about the distinction between the spoken word and touch when used in ministry. The spoken word relates to authority who is embodied into the person of Christ, "The Word" and we read many times of Jesus exercising authority in His words. In fact, most of our authority in society is encapsulated in words, whether the oath we take in Court or the words used by the Police when you are arrested. Touch, however, is fundamentally about life and we also read of Jesus' touch that gives life to people, "contagious holiness" if you like. It is this that Isaiah experiences in chapter 6 when he is touched by a coal from the altar and this gives him life by taking away his guilt.

The One Year Bible - Day 252

I don't know if you have ever thought about it but almost all Old Testament prophecy concerns Israel, much of it related to the exile and return of the Israelites to Babylon but about Israel nonetheless. How strange then that many Christians have very little in the way of theology regarding Israel from the point of view of the church and Christianity. I would reckon that most Christians would either say that they have no view on Israel or else they would say that the Christian church has replaced Israel in God's heart. Sadly, this is simply not possible to marry up with the scriptures that make very bold and in some cases eternal promises to Israel. We need better teaching in the church if we are to understand these vitally significant people and not to get our 'theology' from the (seemingly) mostly anti-Israeli media.