thought for the day – Page 51 – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

January 8, read through the Bible in a year.

Today there are four chapters. Jesus points out that according to Jewish law, circumcision is more important than keeping Sabbath, so, if the eighth day is on a Sabbath, it must be performed, but healing on a Sabbath is out. Jesus then promises “Streams of living water”.

January 8: John 7, Genesis 15, Genesis 16, Genesis 17, (click on the chapter to begin reading)

In Genesis 15 God promises Abram a son, and Abram believes God and it is counted to him as righteousness.

But in Genesis 16 Abraham badly wants an heir, so Sarai, being too old, gives her handmaiden Hagar to be mother of Abram’s son, Ismael. Sarai regrets what she has done, and Hagar is sent away with Ishmael into the wilderness.

Thirteen years later, in Genesis 17, Ishmael is back with Abram, God promises Abraham his seed of promise, changes Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name becomes Sarah, and establishes it with an eternal covenant, the covenant of Circumcision, and it was performed on Abraham, Ishmael and all Abraham’s servants. A year later Sarah gives birth to Isaac, at the age of 90, (with God, nothing is impossible).

Circumcision is very important for Jews and Muslims (Sons of Ishmael). As for me, I am thankful for the streams of living water.

January 7, read through the Bible in a year.

Today there are four chapters, and they are significant.

January 7: John 6, Genesis 12, Genesis 13, Genesis 14, (click on the chapter to begin reading)

In John 6, Jesus performs two miracles, feeding 5000, and walking on water. In spite of this people demand a sign. Jesus is the bread of life.

Then in the Old Testament Abram is called to leave his home in Ur. He goes to a land he does not know, promised by God, and he obeys. Read it and marvel at Melchizedek, to which Abram gives tithe after God gave him success in battle.

Question: Who was Melchizedek, and why is that important?

January 6, read through the Bible in a year.

Today there are only 3 chapters, but they are significant.

January 6: John 5, Genesis 11, Psalm 2 (click on the chapter to begin reading).

John 5 describes how Jesus healed a man at the pool of Bethesda on a Sabbath, which offended the Jews. In addition Jesus claimed to be equal with the Father, for which the Jews sought to kill him, but Jesus defended His testimony.

Genesis 11 tells about the Tower of Babel, and how different languages arose, all by being disobedient to God.

Psalm 2 is then what happens when “the heathen rage” and this psalm ties together trends of today. The Tower of Babel is like today where the global internet, supposed to bring us together, divide us more and more into camps, where the same words mean different things, dependent on the audience. Jesus is controversial, his claims are being rejected by people thinking they understand biology and morals better than God. And hate is increasing, yet there are people that believe in the universal good of mankind, if they only could get rid of the concept of God.

Ponder this.

January 5, read through the Bible in a year.

Today there are only 3 chapters, but they are significant.

January 5: John 4, Genesis 9, Genesis 10, (click on the chapter to begin reading).

John 4 speaks about the first real evangelist, the woman at the well, scorn and rejected by her many husbands, yet used by God to tell the good news.

Genesis 9 speaks about Noah’s sin and “the curse of ham” in reality the curse of Canaan, ponder that!

Genesis 10 tells how the earth was repopulated.

January 4, read through the Bible in a year.

Today we come to the new birth chapter; you must be born from above, telling of the new birth necessary to enter into the Kingdom of God; and the new beginning signified by Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, eight in all.

January 4: John 3, Genesis 6, Genesis 7, Genesis 8, (click on the chapter to begin reading).

Ponder the new beginning in the New Testament, leading to eternal life; and the new beginning in the Old Testament, restoring life on earth.

January 3, read through the Bible in a year.

After 2 days with Creation and the fall. we now see what happened after the fall.

January 3: John 2, Genesis 4, Genesis 5, Psalm 1. (click on the chapter to begin reading)

In John 2 Jesus turns water into wine, cleanses the Temple, and gives the Jews just one sign. Genesis 4 shows the results of original sin with the story of Cain and Abel, Genesis 5 shows the Genealogy from Adam to Noah, and Psalm 1 is a beautiful poem about righteous living.

The take home for today is the first of Jesus’ miracles, the first murder, the first man (Enoch) to be carried directly to God rather than die first, and Jesus giving the sign of Jonah about his (and our) resurrection. Psalm 1 extols righteous living according to the Old Testament and the law, with the New Testament counterpoint as given by the Apostle Paul.

January 2, read through the Bible in a year.

Today’s reading of the Bible is short in chapters, but has enormous spiritual value if one is to understand it. It tells of a second, spiritual creation, the creation of Eve in Genesis 2, (click on the chapter to begin reading), and the fall from grace in Genesis 3.

Chapter 2 tells of how God created woman out of man, showing that creation was not complete without man and woman as a unit. God’s design is one man, one woman, one lifetime. This would still be the case if we let God chose our mate. If we had followed God’s intent, a lot of sickness would not exist, especially sexually transmitted diseases.

But, God created us with free will, and the fall is then described in chapter 3. The problem is in eating from the tree of good and evil, and in doing so we think we can do better than fellowship with Go.

The question to ponder is: Why did God create us with a free will? He knew the result from the beginning, and knew He would have to send His Son to redeem us back to Himself. In fact He knew it from before the beginning: “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8, NIV)

Answer: We are created in God’s image, male and female, not so much physical, but spiritual, and free will is part of the package. Without free will there is no fellowship with God, only puppetry.

January 1, read through the Bible in a year.

And so it began. The two chapters chosen for today, John 1 and Genesis 1

(click on the chapter to begin reading) both start with the words “In the beginning”. The gospel of John deals with creation spiritually, and Genesis 1 deals with the physical creation.

We are existing in time and space. The question is: What was there before time and space existed, before the beginning?

Answer: God, existing in three persons, God the Father, God the Son (the Word) and God’s Spirit, (the Holy Ghost).

They alone are eternal, everything else, including time and space, is created.

Thought for the day. The Pope, The Trump, walls and bridges.

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. (Proverbs 25:28)

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” Pope Francis.

The Vatican City’s old wall.

A sign they’re not Christians at all?

For the Pope said as much

about Trump, walls and such.

Humpty Dumpty did fall, I recall.

The moral of this story: Be careful not to make off the wall remarks.

Joking aside, I took a look at how many times the word wall was used in the Bible and where it was used. There are so many tidbits we can learn from a word study. The first is in Leviticus 25: 29-31 ‘Likewise, if a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, then his redemption right remains valid until a full year from its sale; his right of redemption lasts a full year. But if it is not bought back for him within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city passes permanently to its purchaser throughout his generations; it does not revert in the jubilee. The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall shall be considered as open fields; they have redemption rights and revert in the jubilee.

This is old Mosaic law, and gives clear guidance that the law in a protected place with borders is different from the law in places without borders, and property rights are clearly established. As a civil society we no longer follow Mosaic Law, that would be as ridiculous as if anyone demanded we should follow Sharia Law.

Moving on, there are the walls of Jericho, the wall of Jerusalem, Nehemiah rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem and the watchmen on the wall.

Then in the New Testament walls are not mentioned at all in the Gospels (In the parable of the tenants in Matthew and Mark it is literally a hedge, not a wall) and only Revelation describes the walls of the new Jerusalem. So the Pope is right, building walls does not appear in the Gospels. Neither does the word bridge appear anywhere in the Bible, so that part is extra-biblical, if one is to take his admonition literally. So if Sarah Palin as Governor refused to build “the bridge to nowhere”, does that make her a non-Christian? (A Limerick from way back comes back to memory)

Sarah Palin did not even think of Nantucket

when plans for that infamous bridge kicked the bucket.

But profligate waste

and spending with haste:

She ordered the spendthriftest Congress to chuck it!

Joking aside, the Pope probably meant spiritual walls and bridges, but by saying it right near the U.S. Mexican border it is easy to assume he meant a literal border. If so, where is the literal bridge?

Thought for the day. Is it for Christ or in Christ?

“Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.” C.T.Studd.

Only what’s done for Christ will last. This verse has often been used to motivate Christians to get on with it and join in the work for the Lord. And so it is, we get excited and work what we believe is for the Lord.

Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? We can see in Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The old hymn-writer John Newton understood this. The old hymns have a reverence for God and how we can praise and worship Him with the proper perspective.

So it was one crisp fall evening on the night of a full moon. Our church had a family hayride through the countryside, and we sang the old hymns, one after another. The next night, when it was time to put the children to bed, as it was time to sing the good night song for my five year old daughter she said: “Daddy, daddy, sing Crazy waisy.” There was no way I could figure out what she meant, but she said “We said it yesterday at the hayride” I was clueless so she helped me: “You know the one about lost and found”. This rang a bell so we both sang:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me,
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

This is what separates true Christianity from all other religions. It is not man seeking God. It is God seeking man.