Today's Reading
The first part of our Genesis passage today is -- to me -- very challenging. They got rid of their idols and God's power among them was very evident. What does that say to you?
We learn yet another name for God today. Why do you think we are given so many names? (Hint: I have mentioned this in previous days.)
The last part of the passage today in Genesis is a long list of the descendants of Esau (aka Edom). You should feel free to skim this passage, with its long list of names. For you history buffs who like to know how this people group ended up, I googled "modern day Edomites" and found that the descendants of Esau pretty much intermarried and assimilated in to the Jewish people near the time of Christ.
Matthew today poses an interesting question: how does a person become so legalistic they he/she cares more about endless laws than about helping hurting people?
I love Psalm 15, though it challenges me. It describes what it's like to really prepare for meeting God in worship.
Proverbs contains a powerful double-edged truth. Following God's ways will prepare us for trouble coming down life's road. Following God's ways will prepare our hearts for God to protect us when we can't see trouble coming.
I loved today's passages. How about you? What are your questions and comments?
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What? Skim Esau's descendants and miss learning about "The descendants of Zibeon were Aiah and Anah. (This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the wilderness while he was grazing his father’s donkeys.)"???
ReplyDeleteThere HAS to be a story there!
I thought Hot Springs was a town in Arkansas.
ReplyDeleteSam, you asked how someone can become so legalistic that they care more about laws than people. I hope that wasn’t completely rhetorical!
ReplyDeleteI believe legalism is simply a form of self-glorification: God demands that we be perfect, but we can't be, so we're supposed to submit to God in everything and spend our days glorifying Him. But instead, when faced with the fact that we can't keep God's law, we often try to just keep as many rules as we can and then let God's grace cover the gap. The more rules we can follow, the smaller the gap. We start to feel like we only need a little grace, because we’re following so many rules. We feel pretty impressed with ourselves, following so many rules, so we start creating a few more rules. The next thing you know, we have our own big law that we’ve created and we hardly remember God’s law at all. If we don’t remember God’s law, we don’t remember how much we need God and we spend all our time glorifying ourselves, instead of glorifying God. Then we spend our energy promoting our self-glorifying laws instead of doing God’s will, helping people in need. Sure, we know in the back of our mind that we need grace to cover that tiny gap, but it’s so small, why focus on it? The problem is, of course, that God’s grace doesn’t work like that. It’s not a stop-gap measure. God’s grace is our release from the law, IF we will try to submit to Him completely. God’s law is all-or-nothing and God’s grace is all-or-nothing. In the same line of thinking, I need to do everything to glorify God and nothing to glorify myself.
Honestly, this is so hard for me! So much of our culture is all about self-glorification, self promotion, selling yourself, looking your best, taking care of #1. It seems like there’s such a fine balance and it’s so hard to find. In addition our culture has so many rules about what a woman should do and be: how the house is supposed to look, what we’re supposed to accomplish in a day, what the kids are supposed to be doing, how the meals should be healthy, the laundry done, the body fit and trim, the hair and nails perfect and all while holding down a six-figure job… It becomes religion for so many- even among Christians. I often have to remind myself that all these expectations are the world’s law- just a collection of rules made up by people and promoted by people in order to glorify people. Whether it’s how a worship song is sung or how often the floor gets mopped, they’re all still man-made rules and Christ died to free me from the law. In the end, it’s best if I focus on what glorifies God this moment.