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!