February 7th 2012

The other day we looked at Joshua 1:6-9, and we talked about being “strong and courageous”. We looked at how “strong” means to tie yourself or anchor yourself to something solid so that when rough times come you won’t be blown away. Today we are going to look a little deeper try to grasp how exactly we do that “strong” part.

Read Joshua 1:8 and in light of the other day journal what this means to you

Here we see the word “meditate”; now this word has different meanings for different cultures. In the Far Eastern cultures when one mediates they enter into the process of emptying themselves. But when you look at what God is telling Joshua to do, this sort of meditation is much different from the Far East. Notice how God tells Joshua to not let the Law depart from our mouths and meditate on it day and night. This means it’s something that we are supposed to repeat constantly, all the time. This doesn’t sound like emptying, and more like filling.

Repeating God’s word over and over sounds simple. In fact it doesn’t sound like much at all, but as we begin to repeat God’s word it’s almost like it becomes a part of us. There is something in just repeating and focusing on a few words at a time that takes something very complicated and simplifies it and brings it to home in our own lives. This is meditation. Those moments where we take a smaller part of God’s word and really question it. We have to ask ourselves; what is this really saying? What was this saying to the original listeners? What does this mean to me and my life? What changes do I need to make because of this?

Today pray that God would help you to focus on little parts of Scripture at a time, and through those little parts begin to reveal big things in your own life.

February 6th 2012

We’ve been looking at God’s law and how it’s not about restrictions and regulations, but about freedom and love. How we can know exactly where we stand with this God. Today we are going to ask the question, what does it look like to live out the Law?

Read Matthew 5:17-18 and write down what this means to you

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to do something and you had no idea what you were doing? In that moment how badly did you want someone to just show you how to do it? Essentially this is what Jesus is doing with his life, showing us what it looks like to live in a perfect relationship with the Father. He is our example when it comes to living our lives today.

What’s interesting is that so many people, whether they admit it or not, believe that Jesus came to do away with the Law. But that’s not what Jesus is doing here; in fact he’s amplifying it. In this verse Jesus is beginning the Sermon on the Mount, which was a sermon that Jesus gave many times throughout his life. In it, Jesus hits many parts of the Law, but shows us how his followers are called to go above the Law. For example in Matthew 5:21-26 Jesus tells us that the Law says not to murder, but Jesus says that we shouldn’t even be angry at another.

Today pray that God would help you to recognize the areas of your life where you could go beyond the Law and show you the areas of your life where you need to life up to Jesus’ example

February 5th 2012

Yesterday we looked at the life of Jesus and how he is giving us an example of how to live in this life. But how do I do that in my own life?

Read Joshua 1:6-9 and journal your thoughts

As you read this there should be one phrase that jumps out at you over and over again. As He is about to send them into the Promise Land, God keeps reminds Joshua over and over to be “Strong and Courageous”. Obviously God is trying to get Joshua’s attention, to the ancient Hebrew this would be the equivalent to flashing neon lights. To really get what God is trying to tell Joshua we’ve got to look at these two words.

First God tells Joshua to be “strong”, now when you think of “strong” what do you think of? More than likely we think of someone being tough, something that they do themselves, right? But when you look at the Hebrew the word “strong” means something else. Think about it in nautical terms, if there was a massive storm coming someone may tie themselves to something “strong” on the boat so they wouldn’t get swept off. Essentially what God is saying here is that we need to be rooted in the Laws of God in everything we do.

Secondly, God tells Joshua to be “courageous” which strangely enough means to be courageous. In order to step into his destiny Joshua is going to have to step into some uncertain and downright scary moments. He’s going to have to be courageous. In our lives we are going to go through times when things are going to seem uncertain and we are going to have to be courageous.

Today pray that God would help you to see the importance of being “strong” in God’s Word and that God would help you to be “courageous” in your actions

February 4th 2012

Yesterday we looked at God’s promise for a new covenant with His people, today we are going to look a bit at the fulfillment of that promise.

Read Acts 2:17-18 (Joel 2:28) and write down your initial thoughts

In this scene Peter and other believers are in the midst of Pentecost where God put His Holy Spirit in them. How do you even begin to explain that? Peter does it the only way he knows how, by referring back to Joel 2:28. Journal how you would explain Pentecost in your own words.

What we need to understand about this verse is that it applies to us. God promises whether we are young or old, male or female, slave or free, indebt or debt free, that He will give us vision and dreams of what He’s going to do. The question we have to ask ourselves is do you really believe that God does that? Why or why not?

For so many of us, the idea of God giving us visions and working in dreams is a bit of a hard sell. Dreams are nothing but a part of our subconscious coming out, right? And visions, our imagination, we should have out grown that years ago. Welcome to the real world, right? What if we don’t know it all? What if there is something else going on? What if God is using our imagination to show us what could be? Take a moment and journal some of your dreams, some of your visions, some way you imagined the world to be.

What if this is just the tip of the iceberg of living a life in the Spirit? What other ways could God be speaking to you in your life? How else could God’s Law written on our hearts be trying to burst into our lives?

Today pray that God would give us visions, dreams, and inspire our imagination and help us to be aware of the other ways His Law is trying to speak to us in the midst of our busy lives.

February 3rd 2012

Yesterday we began to understand the good news of the Law. While the Law from our point of view looks restrictive and barbaric, from their point of view was actually liberating. Today we’re going to see that the good news does not end there.

Read Jeremiah 31:31-34 and journal what this means to you

You see Israel has a problem, no matter how hard they try they cannot keep the standard of God’s Law. They just keep falling into sin; they keep getting lead away by the temptations of their day. But God does not give up on them. Instead He makes a promise with his people that He is going to do something new, in fact it won’t be like anything they’ve ever seen.

How many times have you read the Old Testament and say to yourself why can’t I experience God like they did? Why can’t God just take me by the hand and show me what He wants me to do? But God has given us something better, because we will know Him. God says He will put His law on our minds, and His Spirit inside us. We don’t have to wait for the Heavens to part and an angelic messenger to come down and speak with us.

Today pray that you would recognize the direction of God in your life

February 2nd 2012

This week we are going to look at the commands of God through the lens of God showing us how much He loves us. Sometimes we think of the Law simply as a set of restrictions, but how these things actually make us free.

Read Psalm 119:44-45 and journal your thoughts

Have you ever heard of an un-written rule? It’s one of those things that you’re not supposed to do but no one ever really says you’re not supposed to do it. For example, in baseball you’re not supposed to bunt to try to break up a no-hitter. But how many people actually know that? Every now and then you’ll find a random article on the internet about how some rookie broke that rule and had no idea.

Whenever I come across a verse that talks about how we have freedom in the commands of God, I think about un-written rules. We know exactly what is expected of us and exactly where we stand with God. In that knowing we have freedom.

Sometimes it’s hard to look at something like God’s law in the book of Leviticus and think of freedom. But in ancient times and cultures people believed in many gods, and that these gods were responsible for the things that happened in the world around them. From the produce in the fields to the welfare of their family and everything in between, these people believed they were dependent on these gods and so had to stay in good favor with these gods. Here was the problem, how do you know if you are not in good favor with the gods? Bad things happen in your village, what if it’s your fault because maybe you did something to your neighbor? In order to fix this you make an offering to the gods, but how do you know whether it was enough? How do you know if your offering was accepted? Could you imagine the guilt? This is not freedom. This is why the Law was so radical (for its time), because you could know exactly where you stand with God.

Today pray that God would help you see and understand the freedom we have because of His Law

February 1st 2012

‎"The decisions we make in this moment will determine our freedom in the next" -Erwin McManus

This week we’ve been looking at how God loves us enough to give us a choice, He gives us free will. What we do with that choice is entirely up to us.

Read Genesis 2:15-17 and journal your thoughts

God places Adam and Eve in this garden and gives them full reign over it; the only thing is they can’t eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Every day Adam and Eve faced a choice, was today the day they were going to actually eat of that fruit? Every day when they made the choice not to eat of the fruit, they were close to God. They had this beautiful relationship with Him where they were able to talk with Him just like we talk with each other. But the moment they choose to eat the fruit, they grew distant from Him (Genesis 3:23-24).

This is the same choice we make every day. It’s so easy for us to say “if only I was in the garden, I wouldn’t have eaten the fruit and none of this would have happened”. But we have this same choice every day. We choose to eat the fruit when we sin against God. But we also have the choice to draw closer to God when we choose to follow Him, when we choose not to eat the fruit in our own lives. Just like Jesus lived in this perfect relationship with God, we have the same opportunity when we follow Jesus’ example.

Today pray that God would give you the strength to put the fruit down.