February 1

Today's Reading

Welcome to our second month! We're off to a great start. If you got behind, just rejoin the group. I have been doing something similar to this for over 20 years and still find passages that leave me scratching my head. Every year I'm more in awe of God who gives us life.

Exodus. The portrayal of the Red Sea crossing is breathtaking. I want to interject this one truth: the deliverance from Egypt (which, in Scripture, symbolizes the power of the world) was all the people needed. God had set them free! However, God provided a second event to make them completely aware of their freedom. That second event, crossing the Sea, was used to make them fully aware of what God had done in the first event.

Both events are pictures of something that becomes clear again in the New Testament. Deliverance from Egypt is like what happens to us when we give our hearts to Christ -- we are set free from our slavery to the world and its sin. Jesus was clear in His commands, though, that we participate in a second event -- passing through the waters of baptism -- in order to seal the power of the first event in our hearts and minds. That is why we (at SRC) stand firm on the fact that New Testament baptism always occurred after someone chose to receive Christ and was always by immersion in water.

Notice the celebration of the Hebrews. What does it bring to mind?

Matthew. The position of the religious leaders in Jesus' day was all about authority passed down certain respected lines. Jesus didn't have their endorsement so He wasn't approved by them. His point was that their line of authority was no longer from God because of how corrupt it was. This is an important lesson to me: we must always go back to Christ as our life and the Bible as our textbook. When in doubt, choose God!

Psalm 26 is about the joy of walking in integrity. What do you think?

Proverbs is worth a few moments of meditation today.

Comments? Questions?