Today's Reading
In Genesis today, we begin with a chapter about sibling rivalry between Joseph and his brothers. This, by the way, is the opening of my favorite story in all the Bible. We will be reading it for the next several days. Where do you think Jacob learned how to play favorites with his children?
Before we complete Joseph's story, we take a side journey. It's an important detour. Why? Jacob/Israel had 12 sons and only one of them would be the direct ancestor of Jesus Christ. That son was Judah. Jesus lineage came through Judah and Tamar, and you read about it in this mysterious story today.
You will notice in Matthew that the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders is heating up. Why do you think they despised him so much?
We have a choice to either worship God or the gods of this world, as our Psalm makes clear today. Let's ask God to show us the ways our hearts turn away from Him.
Our entire lives are built on the foundation of how we love God and how we treat others. Proverbs gives some great instructions.
I hopefully await your input today!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow, Matthew's passage today had a lot of thought-provoking things. I have two questions:
ReplyDelete-In 12:32 Jesus says, "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." Why the distinction?
-In verse 36 Jesus says that we will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word we have spoken. Does Jesus mean believers and unbelievers??
Ranelle, I will try to keep my response brief. The best interpretation I have heard of Matt. 12:32 is that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Christ. It would be possible to reject some of the things Jesus said or did and still ultimately turn to Him for forgiveness. However, a rejection of the work of the Holy Spirit is, ultimately, complete rejection of Jesus. That's unforgivable since Jesus is the only way to God.
ReplyDelete1 John says that we have an advocate with the Father, who is Jesus Christ the Righteous One. In other words, Jesus is (in that word picture) our defense attorney. He is also the One who paid for our sins -- all of them. Including every careless word we have spoken. If we have received Jesus and His forgiveness, we are already forgiven.
Hope that helps. Thanks for great questions.
My thought on the hatred of Jesus was that they saw the power of his faithful followers in their steadfast beliefs...and it scared or worried them.
ReplyDelete