11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:
“He is good;
his love to Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.

13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

• I want to be a part of a group like this. Some were unbelievably happy to see the beginning of a new temple being built, signaling a time of return to their religious roots. Some were unbelievably saddened to see their old temple completely covered over and lost forever. Either way they were deeply impacted by the establishing of the new temple and felt it deeply. I want to feel deeply when it comes to matters of the heart and things I believe.

Ezra 4
Key Passages

23 As soon as the copy of the letter of King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum and Shimshai the secretary and their associates, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and compelled them by force to stop.

24 Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Hosea 6
Key Passages

1 “Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.

2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.

3 Let us acknowledge the Lord;
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.”

6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

• I love how both these sections stress acknowledgement of God. He wants us to be in relationship with Him and actually listening to what He says. He is here. He is with us. How can we ignore Him? “He will appear, He will come to us like the winter rains, like the springs that water Earth.” Father God I ask that you appear to me and show me yourself. I acknowledge your presence in my life. Give me the desire to know you for who you really are. Not who I've heard you are. Not who I've made you out to be in my own mind. Show me who you really are.

Acts 23
Key Passages

11 The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

• “... the Lord stood near Paul and said, 'Take courage!'...”

• There have been many a time in my life when I needed to hear that very thing from the Lord. There are times in my life right now when I need to hear it. Take courage, He has a plan, and you're in the midst of it. Be patient.

Acts 24
Key Passages

14 However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets,15 and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

16 So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.

• Something I've loved to see happening here in this area of acts is that we are exposed to the genius of Paul, or I guess we could say the genius answers he is given by the Holy Spirit when questioned by all the officials. The guy knows how to get out of trouble if there is any possible route out of it, and he knows how to answer every question in a very well thought out God honoring way. Not to mention he's under some pretty intense pressure here...

• Verse 16 reflects how Paul is able to answer and be completely God honoring. He seeks to keep a clear conscience before God and man.

24 Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus.25 As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That's enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”

• I find this section humorous considering the next section. Felix was made afraid as Paul was speaking of righteousness, self-control and judgment to come. He was talking about these things to Felix, who we find out in the next verse was meeting with Paul in hopes that Paul would offer him a bribe. Not exactly the most righteous or self-controlled thing to do.... and worthy of coming judgment.

26 At the same time he was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, so he sent for him frequently and talked with him.

27 When two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, but because Felix wanted to grant a favor to the Jews, he left Paul in prison.

24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul's defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.”
25 “I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable.26 The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.

27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”

28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

29 Paul replied, “Short time or long–I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

• I love the insight we are given into the heart of Paul here. He truly cares that all men would come to know the Lord. He doesn't care how long it takes. His only care is that we would all become the kind of person he was, because he is talking to us today as well.

• What type of person was Paul? He was a Christ follower. The most authentic and genuine form of Christ follower you can be. He gave his entire life for furthering the message of Christ.

17 The Israelites who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days.18 The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem. 19 This Passover was celebrated in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign.

• What an amazing event and day that must have been really to see an entire nation return to the God who chose, loved, and delivered them. What would that look like in our nation? I'd love to see this happen here in our nation.

Hosea 3
Key Passages

1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

• “Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites....” How difficult is it to love an adulteress spouse? I am blessed that this is not something my own marriage relationship has fallen into, because I can't imagine what it must feel like to have a person you love, trust, and cherish turn their back on you and seek someone else to share their most intimate of relationships with.

Acts 18
Key Passages

9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.10 For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”

• The Lord is with me as he was with Paul. The difference is that I have literally nothing to fear because no one is going to attack me for talking about God. So why am I still silent?

Acts 19
Key Passages

1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John's baptism,” they replied. 4 Paul said, “John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”5 On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

• Paul asks them if they received the Holy Spirit when they believed, and it seems to me that he is eluding to the question of whether they had shown signs of filling of the Spirit... speaking in tongues and prophesying... They say they have received the baptism of John which Paul then calls a baptism of repentance. My question then becomes how many have received the baptism of repentance, but not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist himself says in Matthew 3:11 that “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” I have a desire to have this baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I want to receive it as the people here received it. They had no idea what was going to happen. They were not privy to debates about tongues and prophesy as we are today. They simply received this baptism of the Holy Spirit and things started flowing out of them that they couldn't explain other than to say that the Holy Spirit had invaded them. I want the Holy Spirit to invade me as He did here.

11 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. 13 Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. They would say, “In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.15 One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” 16 Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. 17 When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.

• This story is comical and amazingly powerful at the same time. I think its hilarious how the evil spirit just decimated these 7 guys who were using Jesus' name as some sort of tinker toy power tool. Then we are told what happened immediately after this... the hearts of the people were revealed as well. They had all been treating His name in the same way. They all made little of him as if the could wield the power of the Holy Spirit anytime they wanted to accomplish their goals and glory. At this event it says they were seized with fear, because they were all thinking the same as these 7 sons. When they realized the power they were up against and that Jesus' name was really the only thing powerful enough to defeat it, they began to genuinely believe and cling to the truth of who Christ was. He wasn't just another trinket for them to throw in their purse and pull out to bring about some glory and recognition for themselves. He was the real deal, and the only thing that could save them from the power of evil and deliver them from their sin.

23 About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way.24 A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in no little business for the craftsmen.25 He called them together, along with the workmen in related trades, and said: “Men, you know we receive a good income from this business.26 And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man made gods are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” 28 When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”29 Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and rushed as one man into the theater.30 Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. 31 Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater. 32 The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there.33 The Jews pushed Alexander to the front, and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. 34 But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 35 The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Men of Ephesus, doesn't all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven?36 Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to be quiet and not do anything rash.37 You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess.38 If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges.39 If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly.40 As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today's events. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.” s41 After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.

• I gotta say the first thing that struck me in this story is that the Ephesian people who were rioting still seemed more reasonable than a lot of other people the apostles had encountered. They did riot, but at least when reasoned with and confronted on what they were doing, they calmed down, the crowd left, and no one was hurt.

• I also have to wonder how much these silversmiths and workmen in related trades actually cared that Artemis was being “dissed” by Paul and the message coming from the apostles, or if it was all just that they were losing money and livelihood.

• Seems beyond imagination that an 8 year old was made king to rule over Israel. I see my son now who is almost 7. I can not imagine him as a king over a nation. Yet this young man did rule a nation, a tumultuous one at that, and he did it in a God honoring fashion even from such a young age. If God can use an 8 year old boy to rule a nation and bring it back to Him, then he can use me as a father and husband to be the spiritual leader of my family.

Hosea 2
Key Passages

7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’

• Chasing after other lovers is the past time of choice for most people including myself. I go after whatever I think is going to make me happy. I've chased other lovers, and have not caught them because they can not be caught. I've sought happiness wherever I thought I could get it, and found that it is not in any of the places I've looked. I need to get back to my first love. The only love that satisfies.

14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. 15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.16 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ 17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.

Acts 16
Key Passages

14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.

• Lord open my heart to respond to your message. Lord give me a desire to know you the way you are. Reveal yourself to me Lord. Open my heart Lord so that my desire is to respond to You.

18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

• There is so much power in the name of Christ. It says “At that moment the spirit left her...” there was no hesitation. That spirit knew what it had to do, and the authority that flowed out of Paul through the name of Jesus Christ showed no hesitation, fear, or doubt. The spirit that possessed that young girl had only one response and that was flee simply at the name of Christ spoken in authority and power by Paul.

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

• The first thing I would be doing if I were thrown in a jail cell is praying. I'd be praying like crazy. I know for a fact that I'd be praying unceasingly and I know this because I know myself. My prayer would definitely be much different than Paul and Silas' prayer though. While they were praying and singing praises, I'd be sitting silently probably scared to death praying that God would get me out of there. The last thing on my mind would be to sing praises to God. This is a true testament to the power of God in these men's lives that they thought to praise God in a very bad situation that I am positive they didn't want to be in. They saw their imprisonment as a blessing, and the other prisoners were listening to them and being ministered to through it. I hope that someday my life would be changed sufficiently so that in my darkest moments of life I would sing praises to God and have no fear.

Acts 17
Key Passages

10 As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

• “...they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

• God give me that same desire so that I receive your message with great eagerness, and I examine and study your word every day.

23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

• God determined the times set for us and the exact places we would live and he did all this so that we may reach out to Him. God set us in the place and time we are because He wanted us to reach out to him. He engineered our lives so that we'd be placed in the best position possible to reach out to him. And in this place He has placed us, His Spirit dwells, and we quite literally live and move and have our being in Him.

10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.11 So the Lord brought against them the army commanders of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh prisoner, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.12 In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

13 And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

• Another great story of a completely wicked and twisted man, made broken by God, who turns his life around and is completely changed by the grace of God.

Hosea 1
Key Passages

2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.”

3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

• Gomer symbolizes the people of Israel in that day because they had forgotten their first love and become completely adulterous. What an amazing symbol God gives of His love for His bride, despite her adultery.

Acts 14
Key Passages

8 In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked.9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed

10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

• Another amazing healing story that actually leads the people of Lystra to believe that Paul and Barnabas are gods... Paul tries to tell them that they are not gods, and he tries to point them to the one true God, but the crowd still is trying to sacrifice to them, and then all the sudden...

19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.

20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

• Ouch! Fickle crowd I guess. One minute they were calling them gods and trying to sacrifice to them, the next verse they are suddenly trying to kill Paul by throwing large rocks at his head. Paul wakes up from his beat down and what does he immediately do... he goes back into the city. The city full of the people who just stoned him. Ballsy for sure... The next day they leave for Derbe. So was Paul doing ok at this point or did he have some broken bones? Maybe a few huge knots on his head...

21 They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,22 strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

• Derbe seems to go much better... then you'll notice they go back to the towns that they were just in where they got treated like crap, and stoned. They went to encourage the believers there, and how do they encourage the brothers in those towns, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”... That message probably delivered while Paul was still healing up from a severe stoning he received in their town.

• We get another reference to fasting... fasting combined with prayer.

Acts 15
Key Passages

5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question.7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

• An encouraging word from the apostle Peter... we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, just as we are, not because we have done anything... stop trying to earn what you already have...

36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them,38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work.39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

• Maybe the first recorded story of a “church split”... sort of. However you see that they did not make this into a big deal. They disagreed, they parted company, they left commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. It doesn't talk about how their split destroyed anything because it didn't. They split and their disagreement actually served to further the spread of the gospel because it was going to more places now. They didn't trash each other.

2 Chronicles 32
Key Passages

6 He appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate and encouraged them with these words:7 “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him.

8 With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.

19 They spoke about the God of Jerusalem as they did about the gods of the other peoples of the world—the work of men's hands.
20 King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this.

21 And the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons cut him down with the sword.
22 So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all others. He took care of them on every side.

30 It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook.

31 But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.

• I am curious how this test turned out. It doesn't say here in this passage how Hezekiah faired in the testing God put him through

Daniel 12
Key Passages

1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

10 Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.

• Am I wise...? Do I understand? This is actually a fear of mine, that I will somehow miss the boat when God arrives or I'll be looking the wrong direction

Acts 13
Key Passages

2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

• There seems to be lots of fasting to go along with their praying... Is this something I should be doing? It sure sounds that way. What is the role of fasting?

26 “Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent.

• This message was sent to those who were already believers in God. The message of salvation through Jesus was sent to them. So the message is for us today... salvation is found in no one else. Now take that to the world around you.

38 “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.

48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

• “... and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”... what does that mean exactly that those “appointed” believed? God chooses us specifically. There is a whole debate wrapped up in this verse.

49 The word of the Lord spread through the whole region.50 But the Jews incited the God fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.51 So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium.

52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

• I love that the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit upon being kicked out of a town. It seems as though this had to come as a sign to them that they were on the right track with what they were doing. Jesus told them they would face persecution and this type of thing. So they knew they were fulfilling their calling from God because what He said would happen... happened.

Matthew 17:20
“Faith as a grain of mustard seed...”

Key Passages

• We have this idea that God rewards us for our faith.

• … we do not earn anything by faith; faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God His opportunity.

• You earlier life of faith was narrow and intense... then God withdrew His conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith.

• You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony.

• Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him – I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

My Own Thoughts

This is actually a really encouraging passage to read. Hearing that sentence, “You are worth more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony...” that is right where I am at and right where I want to be. I always ask the question “why can't things be like they were?” You know like back when I was new to Christianity and I was very young and all life seemed easy. Then I moved out, went to college, got married, and had kids... now life has gotten complicated to say the least. Things aren't so simple in the world these days. Faith becomes more real in times like this, at least for me. It's not just a word you say... its something you have to practice because there are some times when all you can do is believe that God is real, and trust that He is in control.

Something strikes me lately, and convicts me... and this is pretty much unrelated to this post... I can read books about the Bible very easily, but to actually jump into the Bible and read it and take down my thoughts has proven quite the challenge for me for a very long time. Lately God has been convicting me of this... I don't believe it to be wrong that I have been reading Oswald Chambers and taking notes, but I have done it at the neglect of reading the actual Word of God... so in regards to this I think I am going to be changing my (somewhat) daily entries here... instead of entries from Oswald Chambers, I'm going to read through a section of the Bible and take down some notes and thoughts to share with the 1 person who reads this blog entry :) I am not sure where I am going to start yet, but I'll start somewhere. Maybe I'll start going through the 1 year Bible, or jump into a gospel... who knows... We'll see what happens. Your relationship with God is just like any other relationship, if you want it to work, you have to spend time with that person. How do we spend time with God? Prayer... reading the Word... so I need to start actually doing this...

There's my confession to you. I haven't been reading the Word, or at least not consistently and not for a very long time. How can we challenge each other to do this? How can we spur each other on towards stronger and deeper relationship with God? We must get into the Word and keep each other accountable. Who's got my back?

Hebrews 11:6
“Without faith it is impossible to please Him.”

Key Passages

• Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into a right relation.

• Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails.

• To turn head faith into a personal possession is a fight always, not sometimes.

• God brings us into circumstances in order to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make its object real.

• Faith is the whole man rightly related to God by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

My Own Thoughts

“To turn head faith into a personal possession is a fight always, not sometimes.”... That really feels like the fight I have been in for about 3 years now. Taking all this stuff I was told and taught and making it my belief. Not just something I say I believe, and regretfully do not live. I can see God working in lots of circumstances in my life, which makes it all the more amazing that I struggle so much... I know He's there, I see Him moving, I see Him acting, and yet I fail miserably at living the life He wants me to live. The life of bringing the kingdom to those around me and those I come in contact with in any way... I love that line “... the nature of faith is to make its object real.” I can feel that. I no longer sense a desire to believe, but I sense an amazing to desire to see what I have believed in. I know its there, I just want to see it clearly, without the veil. Even if its just the edge of his robe, the train of His glory as He passes by me...

The other night I was at a worship event at my church and it had to be one of the most intense worship experiences I have been a part of, at least in a very very long time. I had trouble settling into the service for a while because I felt like I needed to get something out of it. Like I needed to be ministered to. Then about 3 songs in, something in my head snapped. I realized suddenly that I was there to worship God... this is not a time for me to be worried about getting anything out of this. This was a time of giving God glory no matter what the circumstances were in my life, and what I thought I needed to get out of this experience. I had to worship Him because He is God, and that is all there is to it. When this snapped into my head I had a sense come over me like a warm blanket that He was in the room with me right at that moment. I almost felt like I could see Him. My faith for that instance seemed to be more real than ever. Then we took communion, and I've never taken a communion like it before. It seemed very literal and real. When they elders who were handing out the bread and wine said “this is Christ body broken for you” and “this is Christ blood poured out for you”, I've never felt a closer connection with communion. It basically ruined me... I lost control of myself emotionally for a little while and it took a lot of work to get my usual tough guy persona back. But through the experience and afterwards I was so amazed at how real my faith became when I stopped thinking of myself and what I needed, and I was able to praise God simply because He is God and He deserves our praise.

So the short of it, take your eyes off yourself and your own need for one minute and see how real God can become. Stop thinking of yourself for just a little while. God could show up and do something amazing, or He might choose not to sometimes. Either way, He is worthy to be praised, despite how we feel.

Substitution

2 Corinthians 5:21
“He hath made Him to be sin for us... that we might be made the righteousness of God...”

Key Passages

• The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin.

• Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us.

• What is taught in the New Testament is that “He died for all” (not – He died my death), and that by identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have imparted to me His very righteousness.

My Own Thoughts

Sometimes I find that I ignore the Father and the Spirit because we are focused on the life of Jesus. I feel like they get left behind because we focus on Jesus. While obviously its not wrong to focus on Jesus, we gotta realize that He is part of the triune God. The Father loved us so much, that He sent His son... (John 3:16-17), Christ died for us out of obedience to His Father... (Philippians 2:6-8). When we believe in the sacrifice of Christ and repent and turn from our ways and follow the way that Christ laid out for us to live, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-8) which empowers us to live the way that Christ prescribed for us to live. This is the Kingdom Life. The life that God wants for all His children to live. The life that brings His Kingdom to where we are now. This is not some promise delayed for when we die, but it is the life we are able to live now. All this brought about by the Father's love, Christ's obedience, and the Holy Spirit's work in us...

Jude 20
“Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.”

Key Passages

• There was nothing either of the nature of impulse or of cold-bloodedness about our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into panic.

• Impulse is a trait in natural life, but our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple.

• Impulse is alright in a child, but it is disastrous in a man or woman; an impulsive man is always a petted man.

• Impulse has to be trained into intuition by discipline.

• … it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through the drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus.

• It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes.

My Own Thoughts

I am an impulsive guy. I live my life by feeling. I know this because I recently took a personality test that told me as much. I get an impulse I move on it... although sometimes its a blurry line whether that impulse should have been entertained or moved upon. I've been really wrestling with this idea of “living in the drudgery”. I feel that inbred desire or impulse to do something or to be a part of something exceptional for God. I don't think its a bad thing, other than I keep sitting on my hands and waiting for that exceptional thing to come along. I think to myself, when this thing happens, when things get rolling in this direction, then I can really serve God. Meanwhile I am not serving Him where He has me. What if the grand exceptional thing I am looking for never comes along? Will I never have served God? How will I look back on my life when I am 80 years old and I realize that I have wasted my whole life waiting for some grand calling that never came along, and all He really wanted from me was to live the life He described to live all the while....

Everyone should read this passage. We have this crazy idea in our culture that amazing things are going to happen to us in life. That we are all going to be celebrities and we're all going to be famous and doing amazing things, at least in the world's eyes. Well, that most likely just isn't going to happen to us (didn't I hear this speech in the movie “Fight Club”?)... It's so true though, Tyler Durton had it right. We all think we're going to make it, and we keep waiting for that and looking for it, and even trying things that would make us appear crazy in an attempt to make it happen. Forget it! Live your life now, where you are at, where God has placed you. Live the life he described for us to live where He has put you. I am screaming this at myself right now.

There's lots more to say on this subject, but I'd love to hear from anyone out there reading. If there is anyone...

John 18:36
“My kingdom is not of this world.”

Key Passages

• The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with God.

• Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for lo the Kingdom of God is within you,” a hidden, obscure thing.

• The central thing about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to Himself, not public usefulness to men.

• You have no idea where God is going to engineer your circumstances, no knowledge of what strain is going to be put on you either at home or abroad, and if you waste your time in overactive energies instead of getting into soak on the great fundamental truths of God's Redemption, you will snap when the strain comes; but if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in God on the unpractical line, you will remain true to Him whatever happens.

My Own Thoughts

Here is something I need... I need to soak in the great fundamental truths of God's redemption. I need to stop reading books about the Bible and hearing what others have to say about the Bible, and I need to actually read the Bible.

The Key To The Master's Orders

Matthew 9:38
“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.”

Key Passages

• The key to the missionary problem is not the key of common sense, nor the medical key, nor the key of civilization or education or even evangelization. The key is prayer.

• Naturally prayer is not practical, it is absurd; we have to realize that prayer is stupid from the ordinary common-sense point of view.

• We are taken up with active work while people all around are ripe to harvest, and we do not reap one of them, but waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities.

• Our Lord calls to no special work: He calls to Himself. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,” and He will engineer circumstances and thrust you out.

My Own Thoughts

Dear Father, I'd only pray tonight that you'd call on my heart and bring me into a right relationship with you. Take away all my thoughts of some grandiose vision that I could be part of and give me the vision of simply living my life for you wherever I am at, and whenever I am there. I don't believe the vision to be bad or wrong, but help me not to place all my hope on some future maybe while I let the current opportunities to share you slip through my fingers. Help me to live the missionary life for you now Lord.

The Key To The Missionary Message

1 John 2:2
“And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Key Passages

• “The Lamb of God which taketh away the since of the world!” - that is limitless.

• The missionary message is the limitless significance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is one who is soaked in that revelation.

• The missionary message is not patriotic, it is irrespective of nations and of individuals, it is for the whole world.

• When the Holy Ghost comes in He does not consider my predilections, He brings me into union with the Lord Jesus.

• A missionary is one who is wedded to the charter of his Lord and Master, he has not to proclaim his own point of view, but to proclaim the Lamb of God.

My Own Thoughts

I want to be soaked in the revelation that is Jesus as the payment for my sins. I want to know my sins. I want to know just exactly what it is that I am saved from, and I want it before my eyes at all times. Honestly I struggle sometimes to see my sinfulness. There are other times that it is at the forefront begging my attention, but sometimes it slips from my conscience and I forget my great need for Savior. I want to be a missionary soaked in the revelation of Jesus Christ giving His life as the great payment for my sins, and I want that message to seep from every pore in my body. I am tired of myself really. I can't do anything right. Even when I am doing things right I quickly realize and forget my need and get prideful. When will I ever not need God? There is no time when that statement will be true. I will always have great need.

The Key To The Missionary

Matthew 28:18-19
“All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.”

Key Passages

• He does not say the heathen will be lost if we do not go; He simply says - “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.”

• If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know him for myself, and how to get alone with Him; I must take time to worship the Being Whose Name I bear.

• “Come unto Me” - that is the place to meet Jesus. Are you weary and heavy laden? How many missionaries are! We banish those words of the universal Sovereign of the world to the threshold of an after-meeting; they are the words of Jesus to His disciples.

• “Go ye therefore...” Go simply means live. Acts 1:8 is the description how to go. Jesus did not say – Go into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, but, “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me” in all these places. He undertakes to establish the goings.

• “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you...” - that is the way to keep going in our personal lives. Where we are placed is a matter of indifference; God engineers the goings.

• “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself...” That is how we keep going till we're gone.

My Own Thoughts

As usual, Oswald just has a way of putting these things into words. I might as well have copied the whole chapter today. “Go simply means live”... what a truth to live by. Wherever we are at, at any given moment is where we are a missionary for God. That is where we are to reflect Him. “Come unto Me”... this is said for us now. We are promised rest now, not just in the future. The rest of God is here for us now, if we will come to Him. Just like any good relationship, it is based upon spending time together. You have to soak in the presence and the very essence of what God is like. How do we know what God is like? We look at Jesus... Jesus says “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you”... we must soak in His word and abide in it. Live in it. Take as much in as we can. This is a terrible weakness for me. I tend to go to other books first. I can read books about the Bible all day. I can read commentaries and devotionals, and theology or whatever else about the Bible, whenever. But I struggle immensely to simply come to the very Word of God and abide in it. I am a child of our culture for sure. I want the instant gratification of having someone do the hard work for me instead of digging and and finding the truth myself.

Dear Father, I want to abide in you. I want your word to saturate me. Give me a thirst for your presence and your word Lord.

Individual Discouragement And Personal Enlargement

Exodus 2:11
“Moses went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens.”

Key Passages

• In the beginning Moses realized that he was the man to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in the individual aspect, but he was not the man for the work until he had learned communion with God.

• We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and we start to do the thing, then comes something equivalent to the forty years in the wilderness, as if God had ignored the whole thing, and when we are roughly discouraged God comes back and revives the call, and we get the quiver in and say - “Oh, who am I?”

• We have to learn that our individual effort for God is an impertinence; our individuality is to be rendered incandescent by a personal relationship to God.

• If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a big personal enlargement ahead.

My Own Thoughts

Dear Father, you know me better than I know myself, and definitely better than I give you credit for. You know what makes me tick. You know what brings me up, and what takes me down. You know the vision I have had because you have given it to me. You also knew I would try to make it happen myself, and ever since I started trying I've been nothing but discouraged. And so I give myself to you Lord, I render my will to be yours and I wait as the silence is tearing me apart and making me into what you want me to be.

Genesis 5:24
“Enoch walked with God.”

Key Passages

• The test of a man's religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on.

• The worth of a man is revealed in his attitude to ordinary things when he is not before the footlights.

• It is difficult to get into stride with God, because when we start walking with Him we find He has outstripped us before we have taken three steps.

• It was said of Jesus, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged”, because He never worked from His own individual standpoint but always from the standpoint of His Father, and we have to learn to do the same.

• God's Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before.

• Getting into stride with God means nothing less than union with Himself.

• It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it, and before long you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose.

My Own Thoughts

Dear Father, I want to be on stride with you. You've outstripped me by more than 3 steps thats for sure. I want that new vision and new purpose Lord. Make me into the person you want me to be whether it be in the ordinary times or the exceptional times.

Reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:21
“For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Key Passages

• Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God.

• Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin.

• The first thing Jesus Christ faced in men was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the Gospel that the message of the Gospel has lost its sting and its blasting power.

• The revelation of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took upon Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took upon Himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch.

• … Our Lord bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy.

• He deliberately took upon His own shoulders, and bore in His own Person, the whole massed sin of the human race...

• A distinction must always be made between the revelation of Redemption and the conscious experience of salvation in a man's life.

My Own Thoughts

This is hard to comprehend, truthfully. The very fact that Christ took on sin, in total, and bore it in His own body. All of the darkness and the complete saturation of every single act of ill will was placed upon His shoulders. From the seemingly most insignificant and sometimes nurtured thought of harm to another person that we sometimes play off as harmless because its just in our heads... to the complete destruction and genocide of a people group. From a quick second glance at an attractive young female to child molestation and sexual slavery. Every form of minor act of sin such as a white lie right down to the darkest and most complete forms of human depravity and brokenness. Christ took the full impact of that within Himself and bore it so that the human race could be made right with God. I find it hard to comprehend. It's not just that He died for us, He did it while feeling the full impact of the judgement of God on sin, and He walked into it knowingly. He knew what was going to happen, and He did it anyway. Simply because He loved us. Could I bare the darkness that Hitler created? That's just one man who was made very public. What about all the complete atrocities that happen all the time in the world that go unnoticed simply because no one is there to hear the voices of the victims. It is amazing to me that God would have anything to do with us.

The real trick for me is to realize that I am no better than Hitler. If a thought is as bad as the deed, then I am right up there with the worst of the worst. I don't think God gets into sin counting though. It's the complete condition that He came to fix, not the individual acts.

Now, the only thing I or anyone else has to do, is to believe that. Difficult to comprehend as it may be that someone could do that.... I believe it. I have to believe it because its the only hope I see for a world that suffers from a debilitating condition of brokenness.

The Bent Of Regeneration

Galations 1:15-16
“When it pleased God... to reveal His Son in me.”

Key Passages

• If Jesus is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against?

• I have a heredity I had no say in; I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must be holy, His teaching plants despair.

• But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator, One Who can put into me His own heredity of holiness, then I begin to see what He is driving at when He says that I have to be holy.

• The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a man is struck by a sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God, “until Christ be formed in you.”

• When I reach the frontier of need and know my limitations, Jesus says - “Blessed are you.”

My Own Thoughts

That first question is the key for me right now. I am trying to figure out what it is in me that is holding Jesus back from being able to completely regenerate me. More and more I find it to be a sense of selfishness that has sprung up in me. I have grown accustomed to getting things my way when I want them, and if I don't get what I want I complain about it until I do. I am good at that. I have a sense of entitlement that I am having trouble shaking. A sense of entitlement to myself, my time, my own desires. I want to do what I want to do. What I am being shown increasingly by the Holy Spirit is that I am not my own, but I belong to Him for His purposes. I need to get out of the way and let go of all I am holding onto. Much easier said than done.

Dear Heavenly Father, I praise you for your gentle Spirit pointing out where you need to me to let go. I praise you for the fact that you created me and know me better than I can even know myself. I pray that your will would be done in my life Lord, as you want it done. Help me to let go of myself and to let go of this sense of entitlement. Forgive me for my selfishness Lord. I confess it to you now.

Romans 5:12
“Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

Key Passages

• The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization – I am my own god.

• When our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and upright, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.

• The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation.

My Own Thoughts

When I read this passage I think of the woman at the well and the pharisees. The woman when confronted with all she had done wrong was open to being confronted with her wrong and she loved Jesus for showing it to her. She accepted his light being shined into her darkness. The pharisees however, when confronted with their brokenness and darkness did not accept Jesus' light being shined into it. They refused it because they didn't think they needed that. They were their own light. They were their own gods. They needed no God, even one they claimed to follow.

So the next question is which group do I belong to. Am I of the family of the woman at the well, or do I belong with the pharisees?

God I pray you'd give me the heart of the woman at the well, who ached for you to come and shine your light into her darkness. She longed for the revelation of your light in her life. She needed it and clung to it when it came. I want her heart Lord. I want to be broken so that I can be used by you Lord.

The Sphere Of Humiliation

Mark 9:22
“If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.”

Key Passages

• After every time of exultation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling.

• The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God.

• We see His glory on the mount, but we live for His glory there.

• When you were on the mount you could believe anything, but what about that time when you were up against facts in the valley?

My Own Thoughts

I love these readings because they seem to catch me right where I am at. No phrase could sum up my life and this reading better than that third key passage. “We see His glory on the mount, but we live His glory there (in the valley).” Those mountain top moments are great because they captivate us to who God really is and to His amazing power. If all we ever received were the mountain top moments how could we ever be brought to a choice about trusting God or not. He wants us to trust Him and be drawn to Him at all times, not just when its made easy for us. I am right in that valley right now. It seems I am shown more and more each day just how selfishness and self-seeking I am lately. I am really struggling with this sin. It is the one sin that permeates my entire being and leads to all other sins.

Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, you are amazing and I thank you for giving me mountain top moments where I am quite nearly forced to believe in you. I thank you also for the dark moments in the drab valley where I must believe you to survive. I thank for those moments because they make you more real than even the mountain top moments. Forgive me for my selfishness Lord. I have sought only myself and my own comfort. Open my eyes to the needs of those around me. Help me to live in your Kingdom God.