Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 12:18-13:25 (day three)
“If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?” Sooner or later, everyone fears God. Those who fear him sooner discover his shocking mercy. Those who fear him later, when he brings this age to a close, discover their shocking inability to talk him into mercy.
Author: Bryan Richardson
Bryan Richardson is the Associate Pastor for Counseling and Pastoral Ministries at FBCSA.
Know
Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 11:1-12:17 (Day Three)
“Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead.” When Abraham heard God tell him to sacrifice Isaac, he knew who was directing him to do such a thing. Abraham already had a long history with God. Each ability of God’s that Abraham saw over time brought him a clearer understanding of God’s power: He knew God could lead him across hundreds of miles of trackless territory to a new home; he knew God could help him lead an army to victory; he knew God could give an old man and old woman a son in their old age. By the time of this demand, Abraham knew God’s character and power—even though he did not know how it would all end. He went up Moriah to where he did not know, based on what he did know of God. That’s faith.
Today
Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 10:19-39 (day four)
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” While you have today, you can begin to count on Jesus Christ–the only one who can teach you to live an eternal kind of life. While you are alive in this life, you can decide to hear him, to get to know him. You might not have much, but you have today.
Seriously
Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 4:14-5:10 (Day Three)
“He was heard because of his reverent submission.” Until one fears God, prayer is a placebo. It might be eloquent. It might be solemn. One might even really mean it. But until one approaches God with the understanding that though he is love, he is also dangerous, prayer will accomplish nothing except to bring a little comfort to the mind—and that only temporarily. Our Lord took God seriously. And God heard him.
Today
Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 3:1-4:13 (day four)
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” While you have today, you can begin to count on Jesus Christ–the only one who can teach you to live an eternal kind of life. While you are alive in this life, you can decide to hear him, to get to know him. You might not have much, but you have today.
Word
Re: Verse reading–Hebrews 1 and 2 (day three)
“But in these days he has spoken to us by his Son.” A friend of mine puts it this way: Jesus Christ is the last word of God. That is not to say, of course, that God communicates nothing more. It is to say that there is no fuller expression of God than Jesus. We pay close attention to last words that people utter. We figure that if people have only a short time left to say anything, they won’t waste words, but say what really matters to them. God is certainly not on his deathbed–though many have attempted to write his obituary–but his final word on his identity is his Son. Do you want to know God? Get to know Christ. Go to the Bible. Find Jesus. You will see God
Cause
Re Verse reading–1 Corinthians 15 (Day Three)
“Then he appeared to James…” The Lord’s brother James mocked Jesus with skepticism-fueled condescension. James and others in the family thought Jesus mentally unstable. Disbelief and disdain marked James’s perception of Jesus. But then James changed. One could say that James suffered from such deep guilt or grief over the death of Jesus that he bought into the myth of resurrection. Certainly some do say this. But to encounter the writing of James in the New Testament, and to read in Acts of his leadership of the church at Jerusalem is to observe a man living from a position of strength, not a position of sorrow. As was the case with the whole church, resurrection provides the best explanation of James’s robustness. The question really isn’t what caused the change; the question is instead: Do you believe the answer?
Lord
Re: Verse reading–Deuteronomy 34 (day three) “He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.” God buried Moses. Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus. What was not well-understood by the Hebrews and what was only dimly understood by Jesus’s contemporaries is what we now know full well from the resurrection of our Lord: Those whom death seems to have claimed will live again. God placed the body he had made into earth that he had formed. The source of life will not be thwarted by death. Jesus’s grieved not because death had bested his ability (indeed, he raised Lazarus), but because death had become a way of life for the human race. The Lord is Lord of all. From Moses to Lazarus, and before and beyond, death will give way to him.
Will
Re: Verse reading–1 Samuel chapters 8 and 12 (day three)
“And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.” God gave the people what they wanted. Isn’t that how we often define the success of prayer? Consider the words of C.S. Lewis: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened. ”
Language
Re: Verse reading–2 Samuel 13-18 (day three)
“O Absalom, my son, my son!” The last thing on one’s agenda is often the command to affirm the sacred duty of living in the presence of others. That command is sometimes explicit: “Love your neighbor as yourself”; “Love the foreigner as yourself”. It is sometimes implicit: “Confess your sins to one another.” Behind every sorrow, every anguished cry, every story of isolation, every act of hiding, lying, envy, and murder–behind it all–lies the failure to affirm the sacred duty of living in the presence of another person. Only God can teach us that. Until we learn, anguish will be the language most fluently spoken in this world.