Today's Reading
Genesis. This is a vivid picture of the type of tribal conflicts in the Middle East that still make the headlines today. Notice that Abram goes after a coalition of kings using trained men from his own household. It says much about the level of their training and trust for each other.
When he returns, Abram meets a mysterious person named Melchizedek. This meeting has great significance and we will see it referred to much later this year when we read the New Testament book of Hebrews. Some scholars think that this may have been the first time in his life that Abram met another person who believed in only one true God. Everyone around him worshiped many different gods, but not Abram. He is so moved that he presents a tenth of his battle spoils to this "Prince of Salem." Salem means peace and was also the name for ancient Jerusalem. What do you think about that?
At the close of the Genesis passage, Abram enters a blood covenant with God. Remember, forgiveness of sins requires blood to be shed.
Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount shows a deeper view of God's true standard. It's not enough that we outwardly try to obey. Our hearts must be changed. Today's passage also provides great instructions for dealing with many of the issues we face in our lives.
If Psalms doesn't express your heart experience today, I'm sure you can remember a time when you were broken because of your sins and failures.
Proverbs. Wisdom is crying out for attention.
What comments or questions do you have? Dive in!
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Genesis today gives a good example of remaining submissive to God, not becoming selfish, and using wisdom with major decision in life. We see this with Abram. He realizes with Lot that they must separate the land and move to another area; he approaches it with humbleness and affords Lot the opportunity to choose first. God then blesses Abram afterward. Then, later, after the Kings attack Lot and take his people, things, and land, Abram fights back and retakes all. In doing so, Abram does not try to keep everything for himself, he realizes the value of being fare with distribution. Decisions like this create allies over time, respect from others, and most importantly they glorify God as a servant of Him. Some good examples of how to carry ourselves in day-to-day living.
ReplyDeleteI really struggle with finding meaning in much of the old testament. So much of it is complicated to me and I can't quite figure out what God is trying to say. The reading today was hard for me to understand until the part where God counted Abram as righteous because of his faith. The new testament is just a lot more cut and dry it seems.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being real, Lara. I have told people (truthfully) that I wasn't very interested in history until I started living through a bunch of it. That said, I am able to understand much more of the Old Testament because it GRADUALLY started making historical, chronological sense to me. One thing that helped was reading a chronological Bible one year instead of a regular plan like the one we use here. Obviously, we aren't there right (might consider it in another year or two) now, but you can find a link to the One Year Chronological Bible at oneyearbibleonline.com.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, please toss your questions in here. At times, we are able to have some pretty fascinating discussions.