have an online Bible study group.

I’ve been pretty busy lately, so there’s been another gap in the devotionals, but here is one that I thought would be good this holiday season, with Thanksgiving about a month ago for those of us in the US, and Christmas coming up fast.

It comes out of Luke 10:38-42 – Merry Christmas

Alright, I’m back with another video devotional. It still feels really weird talking to a camera, and I had a bit of a struggle in the editing process… but I guess those are both things that will get better with practice.

Here’s a link to the study, coming out of 2 Samuel 6 – Undignified

I find myself apologizing once again for the gap between these studies. I can’t even begin to explain everything that’s been going on in my life lately… I don’t even understand half of it yet myself, and things aren’t finished yet. Though they do seem to be getting better. It’s been extremely hard for me to focus enough to write anything lately, and even though that is starting to get easier, I got the idea of doing a video devotional. So that’s what I did… and today I uploaded my first one. For some reason once I uploaded it the sound is off a little bit from the video(it’s fine on the copy I have here).

So anyway, here it is: Bear the Marks

Hey everyone. I’m very sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated this… it’s been an incredibly rough month or so. I could really use continued prayers. I appreciate John Lee posting a couple of times in my absence. I intended to have my next entry be about good choices, but I’m having a really hard time focusing because of all that’s going on in my life right now, so I’m just going to do something from my personal studies.

Tonight, I was reading Jeremiah chapter 2. In my Bible, this chapter is titled God’s Case Against Israel. To start with, here are a couple passages from this chapter:

“Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; Be very desolate,” says the LORD.“For My people have committed two evils:They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,And hewn themselves cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water.
2:12-13

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you.Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and the fear of Me is not in you,” says the LORD God of hosts.
2:19

“For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face.But in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise and save us.’ But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, If they can save you in the time of your trouble.”
2:27b-28a

“Yet you say, ‘Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me.’Behold, I will plead My case against you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’”
2:35

This is a chapter full of God rebuking Israel, His chosen nation, because they have turned from Him, and began worshiping other gods. In verses 12-13, He says they have committed two evils. First, they turned from Him, the fountain on living water. Second, they tried making their own gods. He calls those gods broken cisterns that can hold no water. A cistern is used to catch rain water. So the first thing that comes to mind from that comparison is that I’d rather have water out of a fountain, than rain water that’s been sitting there a while anyway, but He says they are cisterns that can’t even hold water. Useless for anything, but still Israel has turned to them when they already had the fountain.

In verse 19, He says that there is going to be a time when it gets so bad that their own wickedness is going to be enough to show them how wrong they are.

In verses 27-28, He says that when times get bad, they’re going to finally turn back toward Him and cry out for help, which shows that they know their gods are useless for help, and He is the one they need. Yet they have still turned away.

Verse 35 is a simple yet powerful statement. I’ve heard countless people say that in this day, “Oh, I’m a good guy, I’m sure God will see that.” Apparently there were people in Israel at this time saying the same thing, and God says, not only that they’re wrong, but that He is going to plead a case against them.



So how do these 2500+ year old verses apply to us today?


Two things come to mind almost immediately. First, the nation of America. I realize not everyone reading this may be from the US, but hopefully you can apply this part to whatever nation you live in. The second things that comes to mind is just Christianity in general, and those professing it.

America, used to be known as a Godly nation. Some say it still is, but I have trouble seeing it many times. A great nation sure, but if we’re not careful, we’re headed in a bad direction. I can see a lot of parallels between our country, and the nation of Israel that God is rebuking in this chapter. We’re turning from Him, taking Him out of schools, government buildings, and it seems, even some churches. A couple weeks ago, someone asked me my thoughts on the coming election, and when I told them, I gave them a scriptural reference reference for why I felt that way… and they told me about the separation of church and state. That blew my mind… I wanted to ask them if they were going to separate whether they agree or disagree with each candidate from their decision to vote as well. Anyway, I just want to use these passages as a word of caution that we need to be sure that, as a nation, we are not making broken cisterns for ourselves.

The second thing is that it seems like even some of the people that profess Christ are turning and going their own ways. With acceptance and tolerance being hot topics today, I’ve seen many churches using questionable doctrine. Some churches are saying that certain sins are okay, God will accept you anyway. God will accept you, if you accept His salvation and repent, but the word repent itself means to turn away, and without at least a desire to repent, I doubt if you’ve actually given your life to Him. Some I know have completely omitted the word “sin” because it could be offensive to some people. Well, I suppose I’m here to be offensive tonight and tell you all that you’re sinners. I am too. My Savior died for sin, He didn’t just think it would be cool to hang on a cross. If you negate sin as a factor in all of this, that would make his death kind of pointless… and I’d like you to read verse 35 again.

Anyway, both as a county, and as the people of God, we need to be careful that we’re not putting other gods before God. That we’re not turning our backs on Him and His Word.

Anyway, guess I was in the mood to complain a bit. Hope that all made sense, and hopefully I’ll be able to update again next week.

Until then, any questions/comments/whatever are welcome.

God bless,
Oogy

I apologize for not making an entry last week and then missing last night too(if you hadn’t noticed the pattern, I’ve been trying to do updates on Tuesdays). I’ve been having a pretty rough time… physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally – you name it.

Anyway, that’s more of a prayer request than an excuse. Rough time or not, I had the choice to make the updates or not.

And that’s what I’d like to talk about. Choices. Life is full of choices. What will I eat? What will I watch on TV? What kind of people will I surround myself with? Will I go to Sunday School or sleep in? Will I call in sick to work today? Will I spend time today reading my Bible and praying? Will I spend all day playing games online? I think you get the point, so I’ll stop there.

The Bible also is full of choices. They say hindsight is 20/20, and since we can see some of the side-effects of the choices we read about, it seems obvious to us what the correct choice should be. In life, sometimes it’s not so obvious – then sometimes it is that obvious, but the right choice is still the harder one to make.

A few examples of Biblical bad choices jump to mind. Probably the most obvious is found in Genesis 3:6

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”

The next that jumps to mind is also in Genesis, this time in chapter 19 verse 26

“But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Jumping to the New Testament, in Luke 22:57 we find another:

“But he denied Him, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know Him.’”

Each of these people had been warned against these mistakes.

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

“So it came to pass, when they had brought them ouside, that he said, ‘Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.’”

“Then He said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.’”

It’s easy sometimes to look at these decisions and think “Duh!” that’s a stupid mistake, why would anyone do that? But when you think about it, we each face those same decisions everyday. Sure, maybe God didn’t specify one tree that we can’t eat from, or tell us to flee our home lest we be destroyed, but on a deeper level these choices are extremely similar to the ones we face in our daily lives. For example:

Adam and Eve’s choice
We see that sin seems pleasant to the eyes… it’s desirable… it tastesfeels good. We know we’ve been warned against it, but like Adam we see others doing it, they’re telling us how good it feels. Before you know it we’re taking a bite. And maybe we’re not being thrown out of a garden of perfection, but each time we take that bite, we’re breaking fellowship with our creator.

Lot’s wife’s choice
We’ve been told to turn from our sins, to flee from temptation, and to live lives separate from the world. When we head out from the city walls, we’re determined, this new life away from that corruption seems like it might be pretty good, but after we’ve run a few hundred yards(or sometimes just taken a few steps), we start thinking about all things we put behind us. Remembering how good they felt… and how much effort this running is taking. We look back… and no, we’re not turned into a pillar of salt, but we’re driving the nail that much farther into our Savior’s hands.

Peter’s choice
Just what were the effects of Peter’s bad choice? There certainly were effects, but they were less tangible. Probably the most noticeable effect is going to be the immediate guilt. When the rooster crowed after his third denial, I can imagine the wave of guilt he felt. I think we’ve all probably felt it. We’ve just done something we know we shouldn’t and then something snaps us back to reality, hand not caught in the cookie jar but rather covered in chocolate from the cookies we’ve already eaten. Suddenly, we realize how obvious the correct choice was and how wrong the choice we made is. That’s when we look up and see Christ looking back at us, sorrow in His eyes, but waiting for us to repent.

I don’t want it to sound like all choices lead to bad decisions, so I was going to talk about some good decisions too, but this is getting a bit long, so I may save that for another time.

As always, I look forward to any input.

I had something in mind to do for the Bible study this week… but when the time came to do it, I felt like I needed to change it. I just wasn’t sure what to do… and then I came across something pretty amazing. I was going to try to explain this in my own words, but I think I’ll just let you listen to Louie Giglio

Lamanin

Theorem -An idea that has been demonstrated as true or is assumed to be so demonstrable.

I’ve come up with my own mathematical theorem. Well… actually, someone else probably already beat me to this one, because it’s pretty simple, but I don’t recall ever hearing it(probably because it is so simple?). So without further adieu, here is my theorem:

The distance between two points on a two dimensional plane cannot be changed without changing the location of one or both of the two points.

What’s that mean? Basically the distance between point A and point B is always going to be the same unless you make a change to either point A or point B.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

On Saturday, one of my friends had a birthday, so we went to the movies together and watched The Dark Knight. That’s about a 30 minute drive to the movie theater we were going to, and somewhere along the way, he made the silly comment, “They should really move Sherman closer to Durant.” (Sherman is the town we were going to, and we were coming from Durant) To which I replied, “Nah, I think they just need to make the road between them shorter.” And we both laughed, because we realized how impossible that statement is.

Now hopefully you understand what I’m talking about, but you’re most likely wondering why on earth I’m telling you about this random conversation I had with my friend. Here’s why:

Sometimes we think like that in less obvious, but still just as preposterous ways. In our spiritual lives, we see what we want to become, and we see where we’re at… and obviously we want to make those two points closer, but many times we try to do it without making any changes to ourselves. We don’t realize that if we just keep doing what we’re doing, we won’t ever get any closer to what we want to become, and the distance between those two points will never change. To truly become closer to point B, we’ve got to make some serious changes in our lives(i.e. point A).

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

James 4:7-10

I figure since the 4th of July, a day that represents freedom and patriotism for those of us in America, was last week, it would be fitting for this week’s Bible study to be about a greater freedom.

That’s the freedom from sin(note I didn’t say freedom to sin).

Galatians 5:1 says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

When we accept the gift of salvation, we receive a freedom from the bondage of sin. The temptations will still be there, because we are human, but He has given us the power to resist any temptations we will face.

So my challenge to you this week is to exercise those freedoms given to you through Christ and stand free of the bondage of sin.

One of my friends leads the youth group at her church. I was chatting with her on Monday and found out that one of the youth was in a car wreck and died that afternoon. Since then, I’ve been thinking about how short life can be. Even when lived to the full length that we seem to expect, it is short in the grand scheme of things. But we aren’t even promised those 80 or so years that many times people take for granted. Sometimes, that life can be cut short, we’re not even promised that we’ll make it through the night.

James 4:14 says:

“whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

I’m sure we’ve all seen what happens when it gets cold outside and you exhale warm moist air. A little cloud of fog comes out as the moisture in your breath begins to condense… but then almost as quickly as it formed, it begins to fade away and is soon forgotten… replaced with the next breath. As short as that time seems to us, that’s how short our life is in comparison to the bigger picture.

Sometimes when you think about that, it can be easy to feel that your life is trivial, pointless, insignificant or whatever adjective you wanna use. However, when you feel that way, you have to remember that no matter how insignificant you feel, God is there wanting to have an intimate relationship with you. Life doesn’t seem so pointless with that perspective, and I’d like to challenge you to use your short vaporous time here on earth to glorify the Lord.

_{And by the way, just wanted to apologize for being a day late this week and mention that I’ll be on the way home from Tennessee next week so I’m not sure that one will be on time either.}

The scripture I’m looking at this week is Psalm 71:14-16

“But I will hope continually,
And will praise You yet more and more.
My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness
And Your salvation all the day,
For I do not know their limits.
I will go in the strength of the Lord God;
I will make mention of Your righteousness, and Yours only.”

I really like these verses, each line has enough content to stop and talk about. I’m not going to go into to much detail on them, but I would like to touch on each line, and then main thoughts each one brings up in me when I read it.

“But I will hope continually,”

Even when things are looking down or everything seems to be going wrong, it is always comforting to know the one who gives hope to the hopeless. There is always hope.

“And will praise You yet more and more.”

In Luke, it says that if we don’t sing out His praises the rocks will cry out. I don’t know about you, but as long as I’m alive, I don’t want rocks taking that honor from me. He is worthy of ALL praise.

“My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness”

Just one of the many many things to praise Him for. None are more righteous than the Lord.

“And Your salvation all the day,”

He has saved us from so much, and at such a great cost, that we should both sing praises to Him thanking Him for that salvation, and be seeking to tell others of that salvation.

“For I do not know their limits.”

It’s hard impossible to comprehend the reaches of our Lord’s virtues.

“I will go in the strength of the Lord God;”

Sometimes things get hard, but it makes it a lot easier when we remember to use His strength rather than our own.

“I will make mention of Your righteousness, and Yours only.”

We have to be careful not to take any of the credit for what God does/has done, and not to take any of the glory away from Him.