It took less than a day of reading to get a deeper understanding of why one can study the bible for a lifetime and still glean new things. In truth a lifetime is not enough. As Saint Augustine said, "The bible is shallow enough for a child not to drown, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim. Each verse opens up a new thought, a new question, a new understanding of what God has done and sometimes a confusion of why He is doing it. In moments of questions research is good but there are times where I need to submit to His authority remembering what A.W. Tozer said in his book Pursuit of God, "God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints."
On to week 14. Yes, week 12 & 13 didn't happen. Well, technically they happened. I read and gleaned and read and was confused and read, but being Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday life needed more communicating and fellowshipping than typing. Today, April 8th, marks 98 straight(ish) days in the Word and 19 books completed. This is a HUGE deal. That's 98 days of asking God's word to wash over us. 19 books full of stories and wisdom that tell of Jesus or point to Jesus. None of these words have left us unchanged. Whether in life-altering ways or small thoughtful ways, His Word moves within us, doing what is needed. Bring on the next 267!
Leviticus 5-12
Leviticus is surprising me in two very different ways.
The first is how disgusting life was. Seriously, hearing detailed descriptions of the sheer amount of blood and guts and fire and ashes. Blood being rubbed here and splattered there and poured out over there. Guts washed in water and burned. After reading in weeks 12 and 13 of the planning and creating of this beautiful intricately made tabernacle with the finest of cloth and gold and the careful construction of all the pieces of Aaron and his sons' priestly garments only to have them all splattered with the blood of sacrifice is just, well it's yucky, to put it mildly. And the time, oh man, the amount of time it takes to make just one sacrifice, which leads me to the second thing.
The second thing is that Leviticus is convicting, which I was not expecting. Between sacrifices for unintentional sin, and sacrificing for intentional sin, and sacrificing as a pleasing sacrifice of thanksgiving, and being unclean until night if this and this happens and so on, you could spend everyday doing nothing but walking back and forth from your pasture to the tabernacle. God's people had to know and understand so much because of the law. They had to work, literally work, to please Him, to make a "pleasing aroma." And, like in the case of Aaron's sons who ended up being consumed by fire, there can be intense consequences at times for not doing what is commanded. But, we don't.
I'm not going to get into the why of it all now. Why they needed the law then, why we need the law still, but why we can't and don't have to live strictly by the law because of Jesus. All I'm trying to get across now is, in reading Leviticus and it's gross descriptions of sacrifice, I see how much I don't appreciate enough the freedom I have to walk straight up to the throne of God and speak to Him, directly to Him. Without being cleansed first, without sacrificing for my sins first, I, because of Jesus, can enter His throne room and lay it all down in frustration, in joy, in anger, in thanksgiving and he hears me. He hears me and he holds me and he comforts me because when he sees me he doesn't see the stains of sin, he sees the holiness of his son. Y'all. That's amazing.
Psalms 3-14
Psalms can be hard for me to read. David speaks so much of his "enemies" which in turn makes me want to plug the names of my "enemies" in to the verses. It's not the same, that's not supposed to be what I do. I'm not supposed to read Psalms wishing that my enemies' bones will be ground into dust and whatnot. Psalms can also come across as whiny went I'm not in the mood to read. I want to tell David to get over it. Then I remember, Psalms are prayers, Psalms are David and others, laying it all out, their frustrations and fears and grief and pain, and then at the end having them be turned in to thanksgiving as they remember again and again what God has done in the past and what he will do again for them in the present and future.
3:3-4 you are our shield, you lift up our heads, you answer us from your holy mountain
4:6 you light will shine on our faces so that they can see that there is Good
9:1-2 I will thank you with all my heart, declare your wondrous works, rejoice and boast about you, sing your name. Lord, help make this an I Will instead of an I Should!
When we feel like the enemy always seems secure, when it seems like all loyalty has disappeared from the human race, when we remember that in us there is nothing good, let us remember that...
13:3 You can restore the brightness to our eyes
13:5 You will treat us generously
14:7 Deliverance has come now because of your Son and we can rejoice and be glad.
Proverbs 20-26
Seek righteousness and wisdom. In a nutshell, this is Proverbs. There are handfuls of quotable verses, ones I need to read again and again, some to remember and some to finally understand for the first time. But in each there is a driving force to the basics. Righteousness and Wisdom. If this is what you are seeking then the rest seems to fall into place. Does this lead to a perfect life? No. But it will lead your heart and mind away from other things so that you don't fall prey to them.
Colossians 3-4, Thessalonians 1-5
Paul's letters are indescribable. I love them so and can never get enough. There in them lie the instruction we all long for. Our to do list so to speak, but not in a legalistic way, in a because of Jesus we can do this way. Because as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, we can put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. We CAN do this because we are His.
Reading the end of Colossians and then the book of Thessalonians we see Paul reaching out to his friends and sheep reminding them of their identity and what they are able to do because of Jesus. We all need to be reminded of this, and often. We are His so we CAN... I read this beautiful books of loving instruction differently than I used to. Instead of feeling guilty that I wasn't living how they instruct and trying harder my view has been altered so that I now feel capable of living this way even when I'm not. It's no longer guilt pushing me, it's love guiding me. I want to Devote myself to prayer as it says and encourage others by my faith and I am encouraged by theirs. I want the Lord to increase and overflow with love for another but I also want to recognize when he is overflowing in another for the sake of me.
As Thessalonians ends like a grandma getting out every bit of advice as you back out of the driveway, we are reminded that He who calls us to all of this is faithful. He will do it in us. Him, not me. Him, through me.
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