365 Reflections

In Ezekiel 29, the prophet is in full force calling out the nations around Israel who disparaged or harmed them during their slide into abandoning God. Here, the target is Egypt.  Ezekiel 29:1–3 (ESV) In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; 3 speak, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’ Egypt had a long relationship with Israel. It was her captivity, her incubator as she grew, and eventually the first triumph upon her birth at the Red Sea. But there was always a forlorn desire in some to return or to trust this former captor when facing challenges from other nations. Some people can leave Egypt without letting Egypt leave them.  Many of Israel's pagan kin...

Deuteronomy 31:9–13 (ESV) Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. 10 And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. 12 Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, 13 and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” Look at this command. God had Israel gather together every seventh year to release all slaves and cancel all debts. At that same time, during the feats of tabernac...

When you really think about it, all we have is land. Our homes come from the trees that the land produces. Our precious metals are hidden in the land. Our vitamins and healing agents come from mixtures of the components in the land. The Bible opens by telling us that we come from the dust of the land. The land is our life. We eat its produces, we enjoy it's shade, we marvel at it's natural undisturbed beauty. The land is truly God's gift to us. And yet the land reminds us constantly that it is NOT ours. It is unruly and hard to manage. It requires extraordinary patience and incredible amounts of work to get it to produce for us. It is also subject to the curse of sin and awaits its own redemption at the appearing of the Son of God. We need the land, use the land and we must appreciate the land. Leviticus 25-26 is about the Land that God is going to give to His people. Leviticus 25:2 (ESV)   “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the lan...

John 10:9 (ESV) I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. John 10:11 (ESV)   I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. These two "I am" statements of Christ beautifully depict the nature of His love for us. They also reveal what God is truly like. First, being the "door" and the "Shepherd" could mean the same thing. For a shepherd would lay down at the entrance of a sheep pen to keep watch over his sheep at night. Jesus certainly laid it down for us, allowing Himself to be nailed to a cross on which he was laid. He's the one who stops the thief then from coming in and us from wandering out. Second, He is the good shepherd that puts his life out there in exchange for sheep. I think of David's 23rd Psalm who said, "The Lord is my shepherd."  David was a shepherd who understood the sacrifice of caring for his father's sheep. H...

John 4:4 (ESV) And he had to pass through Samaria. In Jesus' time, Jews NEVER needed to go through Samaria. They avoided it like the plague. Samaritans were half-breed sell-outs who had their own temple and their own version of the Bible. And Jesus had need to go through there to sit at the well and minister to a woman of ill-repute.  For as blind as Nicodemus was, that is how passionately Jesus searched out the lost and lonely. The ones others avoided (like a woman coming to draw water at 12 noon in the beating Palestinian Sun) are the ones Jesus sought to save. How different Jesus is from us. We would look at a rich and powerful man like Nicodemus and bend over backwards to impress him and capture his attention for our self-fulfillment - be it a sports star or rich friend, etc. Jesus instead confronts Nicodemus with difficult truth and then moves on to someone who has nothing to offer Jesus or His ministry.  Why is Jesus like this? Because He knew Hi...

We Christians need to get something straight. We are bound to each other. The privileges of a community where we give and receive love inevitably limits our freedom. Freedom for the Christian is not some sort of self-actualization wherein I can become the real me at the expense of others, refuse to receive correction and live how I want to live. Consider the case of 1 Corinthians 8. The chapter on food sacrificed to idols. In the church, some had no problem eating such meat while others were terribly disturbed by such an action. Paul makes clear that we understand idols are false, there is only one true God. Therefore, any meat offered to some pagan deity was actually offered to nothingness. The freedom of knowing the truth of Christ and His Gospel allowed for any Christian to eat as one wished. However, there were some in the church who were "weak". They could not allow themselves to partake due to conscience. God had saved them from idolatry. How could they continue in ...

It continually astounds me how often the Bible, 2000 years old now, continues to be backed up by observable science. Observable, as in we can touch and see it. Not philosophical guesstimating as to how old the Earth is. Consider the following statement from Paul to a Church filled with sexually immoral people: 1 Corinthians 6:18 (ESV) 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body . Sexual sin is different. It just is. It hurts your body. Any cursory study of the STD epidemic in the world will prove this scripture 1000% reliable. The world has no problem flaunting sexual immorality and the Church needs to have no problem talking about it plainly! Today sex sells and sells and sells. Is it any wonder why? Who does Satan hate almost as much as he hates God? You and I. What will destroy us faster than any other sin? Sexual immorality. Nevermind the diseases physically, there are co...

I'm reading Mark 7 tonight while this week I've been preparing to preach on the Miracle of Water to Wine in John 2.  So I might have to make a slight divergence to cover some depth to this passage below: Mark 7:1–3 (ESV) Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, Jesus and his disciples didn't need to wash their hands ceremonially any longer.  In the miracle at Cana in John 2 Jesus had the servants fill 6 waters jars used for such washing to the brim and THOSE jars carried the water turned to wine. John's Gospel covers the first year of Jesus' ministry while the Synoptics cover the last two.  So I can imagine the disciples snickering a little when the Pharisees and scribes got ...