In Love with the Bible

Learning to love God's Word

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1 Samuel 28

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In a recent reading of this passage, I found myself thinking about how King Saul, who begins so well, finishes in such a sad place. He is filled with fear, doesn’t hear from God, and doesn’t know where to turn. So, he goes to the occult—which he had banished from his kingdom, presumably because he knew God does not approve of such things. In his desperation for a word from the Lord he asks a medium to bring up Samuel. Samuel is not pleased and the word he speaks to Saul is that he and his sons will die as Israel’s armies lose to the Philistines. I cannot help but feel sorry for him at this point, but I wonder if this is the result of his failure to whole-heartedly follow God.

At some point, Saul seems to have become more concerned with his reputation than obedience to God. When Samuel spoke to Saul before he was anointed king, Saul responded to Samuel’s honoring by asking “Why have you spoken to me in this way?” He saw himself as being part of the smallest tribe, and of the humblest clan in that tribe. Yet after he has been king and experienced success in battle, there seems to be a different attitude. When Samuel told him that the kingdom would be taken from him because of his disobedience (when he had only partially done what God asked him to do) his response to Samuel was “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel…” (1 Samuel 15:30) He begins trying to kill David after the women sing songs about Israel’s victories and they ascribe more slain enemies to David than to Saul. He tells Jonathan that it is wrong to protect David because David would take the kingdom from him—as if he had not already been told that his kingdom was being taken from him.

In thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that there is a price for whole-heartedly following God, but there is also a price for following God half-heartedly. Obedience may be costly at times, but so is disobedience. When life is hard, I do not want to be in the place of fear and desperation Saul found himself because he lacked connection to God.

2 Peter 1:5b-8

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2 Peter 1:5b-8

I posted about these verses before, but this time I want to focus on the first verse that tells us “Make every effort (or as another translation says, apply all diligence) to increase in the qualities of virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.” I realize how easy it is for me to think of applying effort and diligence as drudgery; a plodding on when one really wants to be done. It sounds completely joyless. But I’ve come to realize there is another way to look at it. An athlete who wants to be at the top of his game spends a lot of time in conditioning and practice drills that will increase his skill. Knowing the value of the drills enables the athlete to be diligent in doing them without thinking of them as drudgery. His focus is on the skill building; he is looking for the benefits and growth that come from them. Peter says the benefit we get from being diligent in pursuing these attributes is a knowledge of Jesus that is both useful and fruitful. That is a worthy goal—one to keep in mind when I am making the effort to grow in them.

2 Chronicles 29:3 &17

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Hezekiah’s father was a pagan. He closed up the Temple, followed the gods of other nations, and made altars to them on the corners of Jerusalem and in every city in Judah. When Hezekiah came to the throne, reestablishing worship of God appears to have been his first order of business. On the first day of his reign, he had the Levites begin cleansing and repairing the Temple. On the eighth day, the cleansing was complete and sacrifices to the Lord resumed. I found myself wondering what was the source of his zeal for God. Did he see the fruit of his father’s way, which included defeat at the hands of many neighbors and the resulting loss of territory and captivity of his people? Did he have a mother who was a believer and taught him the ways of God? Maybe he had godly counselors who were influential before he came to the throne? We don’t know. But we do know that on the first day of his reign his goal was restoring the worship of the true God. His own reign was not trouble free, but his faithfulness made a difference when Assyria attacked Jerusalem. I am reminded that God also deserves to be my number one priority. When he is preeminent in my life, the other claims on my life are in proper balance; it helps me live life in the best possible way.

Gratitude

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2 Chronicles 17:6 and Acts 16:25: I am currently reading in a devotional Bible that has daily readings from both the Old and New Testaments. These two passages appeared in one day’s reading. In the 2nd Chronicles passage we read that Jehoshaphat’s heart delighted in the ways of the Lord. As a result, he tore down the idols found in the land and sent teachers throughout the nation to teach people God’s ways. God rewared him by establishing his kingdom and keeping other nations from making war with Judah. In the Acts passage, Paul and Silas, imprisoned for proclaiming the word of God, were singing God’s praises. It reminds me that delighting in God is not tied to circumstances. When God gives great blessing, I want to respond with great gratitude and when God allows/brings trials, I want to respond with great gratitude. I think this is only possible if my focus is on him and not my circumstances. It is too easy to be complacent when life is good and too easy to grumble when life is hard, but if I maintain my focus on God, he will show me the right response to all of life.

God’s Odd Ways

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God’s Odd Ways: In a recent reading of Genesis, it struck me that God made a plan to have a people for himself—and he began with a man whose wife was infertile. When God performed a miracle and a son was born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, their son also had a marriage marked by infertility—20 years of it. God is clearly not in a hurry. It is one of the things that can be so frustrating to me as a believer. How many times in Scripture do we see people in circumstances that easily lead to the question, “Where are you, God?” Yet the Bible references God acting “in the fullness of time.” I find I need to just trust his timing, to believe he is working even if I don’t see it, and to remember that God knows the end from the beginning. He has a plan.

Hope

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I was recently reading in Romans and encountered three passages about hope that spoke to me. Romans 5:3-5 says sufferings produce endurance, which produces character, which produces a hope that does not put us to shame (because God’s love has been poured into our hearts). Romans 15:4 says the instruction of scripture is so we might have hope through endurance and through the encouragement that comes from scripture. Romans 15:13 is a prayer for the Romans that the God of hope would fill them with joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit they might abound in hope.

Here is how they fit together in my mind: In my experience, the way God fills me with joy and peace in believing is through his word (the encouragement of scripture) where he reveals that he is sovereign, holy, loving, and faithful. Believing this helps me to respond to life’s pressures rightly and to trust him when I am faced with stresses and pressures requiring me to endure. I am never shamed that he is my hope because I am confident of his love (poured into my heart). I do not have a minimal hope, but I abound in hope because I am not creating the hope. Instead, I am receiving hope from the Holy Spirit who gives it without bounds.

I experienced total peace while waiting for the results of a biopsy a few years ago, and I feel at peace now when so many voices are saying that stress and anxiety are normal in this time of the coronavirus pandemic. God’s love surrounds me. It is poured into my heart. It is sufficient. More than sufficient.