Week 2: Esther, Ezra, Isaiah

I think bible reading is one of those things that seems much harder than it is. Correction. I think I make it harder than it is...

I've read the bible every day but Saturday (those weekends, man...) But when I think back on it, part of me feels disappointed. Like I didn't meet my goal or something. I think some part of my brain tells me I have to come away from reading the bible with a kind of small scale epiphany every time.

But looking back at this week honestly, I know I did what I set out to do. Maybe I didn't get a life changing revelation each day. But I learned that the book of Esther never mentions God. I learned that Cyrus, the king of Persia, released the remnant of Israel to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple of God. And that Isaiah tells of God's hand in using a Gentile king to accomplish his plans. I figured that if God could use someone who didn't even believe in him, then he surely can use me.

I learned that bible study is really good. Like really good. There's something about reading the same stuff with a group of people that helps you get the words in ways you never would have on your own. It also helps you get out of your own head a little bit. And we all need to get out of our own heads every once in a while.

Day 5: Hebrews again!

I read the first part of Hebrews in the Message version today. I really like reading the message. Especially after reading the book in the NIV. I realized that the reason whoever wrote this letter wrote it was because the Jewish Christians were still trying to add things to faith. They were making following Christ a religious thing with rules and labels and punishments for failing. But that's not what it's about. It's about believing.

"Watch your step, my friends. Make sure there's no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God."

If we can believe than we'll be just fine. If I can believe....

That's way more deep then it sounds. I think when he says believe, God means he wants me to believe in him and in the saving work of Jesus. But I think he also means he wants me to believe in him like I believe in my husband. I believe my husband can do anything. He's strong and courageous and if he wants to do something, he can do it. It's almost a kind of pride. I believe in God like that. He can do anything and I am proud to say that I follow him.

I think he also means I need to believe what he says about me. He says I am made perfect, I am a treasure, I have everything I need to win this fight. He says so many things about me that I usually believe are too great to be true of me. But he says believe it. These things are true.

When I believe in God, for God, about God, then my whole world view is different. Literally anything is possible and he can accomplish it. It's a deceptively difficult thing to do.

Catching up; Day 3 & 4

The weekend kinda derailed me... At 11:58 on Saturday night, I realized I hadn't read my bible that day. My husband, being the supportive man that he is, told me I had two minutes to 'get on it!' He opened John 8 on his iPhone and I read the chapter where Jesus rescues a woman caught in adultery. Shawn says that since I finished reading at 12:04, I can count both days. I'll take it.

John 8 is amazing. If we're ever wondering how we should treat 'sinners' then look no further. We recognize the sin in their life. See them as a human. Recognize the sin in our own lives. And offer them mercy, love, and acceptance. Only then do the words we say, in this case "Go and sin no more," hold any power at all!

So when I meet a gay man, do I protest in his face and tell him he's going to Hell unless he repents? Absolutely not. I think on my own life, see that I lied by exaggerating a story this weekend, recognize he's a sinner just like me, and be friendly toward him.

Ah, but you might be saying, "Lying isn't even comparable to sexual immorality!" Maybe you should join me in this 30 day challenge... The bible says that in God's eyes, sin is sin. No sin is greater than any other. That means that my lie of exaggeration is just as sinful as this mans sex acts. It's all unholy. So who am I to judge him? I've sinned, therefore I deserve eternal separation from God. But fortunately, as the book of Hebrews has taught me, Christ died once for all and lives again so that we can all, and I mean ALL, have life and freedom through him.

They will know us by our love.

If we don't have love, we're just a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. We make a lot of noise with no melody, no meaning.

Christ died to give us life... life abundantly.

Day 2: Death who?

God left nothing that is not subject to Jesus. 

Yet at the present time we do not see everything subject to him. 

Since we have flesh and blood, he shared in our humanity 

so that by his death he might destroy the devil, who holds the power of death. 

He freed us who all our lives have been held in slavery by the fear of death. 

Pastor Mitch talked about David. David killed the giant Goliath. He killed him when no one else even had the courage to face him. David was only a teenager. Pastor Mitch says that we all have our own Goliaths that we can defeat when everyone else is still afraid of them. 

My Goliath is death. And the fear of death.

I was 'held in slavery by the fear of death.' When I was 17, a girl I went to school with asked me if she could practice her palmistry stuff on me. She took my hand and told me that my life line was the shortest she had ever seen. She told me I shouldn't be alive. I told her I didn't believe in any of that stuff.

I think our words have power beyond what we usually think they do. Even though I told her I didn't believe it, and I honestly didn't believe it, three years later, I realized I had been living my life assuming I would die young.

I didn't go to college after high school because I believed I was needed in the mission field. I believed that I had a big part to play in bringing people into God's kingdom and that he was asking me to sacrifice what I wanted to go and help him out. I went to England with a one way ticket and a plan to go on to Slovakia after I was done with missionary school. I can't imagine what my mom went through.  I believed that I wouldn't live past 25. Now where could I have gotten an idea like that...?

I told her I didn't believe it, but some part of me bought in. A radical missionary teaching at my school in England asked me questions that led me to realize the lie. She prayed for me and then God gave me a dream for the future. I started imagining being married some day and having kids and running my farm and making goals and plans for a future I had never believed in before. 

Sometimes I still fight the fear. Sometimes I'll find myself in panic over whether my baby is breathing at night or work up a whole scenario in my head about what I would have to do if my husband didn't make it home from work. But death is my Goliath. So when I start to fear, I repeat a form of John 10:10, "I came to bring life and life abundantly."

Death has been defeated. Jesus took back control. He decides who lives and dies and I know I can trust him. He gives life and he wants us to live it to the fullest.

Day 1: Hebrews

I read the book of Hebrews this morning. I started reading it like I used to always read the bible. I prayed that God would show me some new truth or encouragement in what I read and then started reading, looking for that one little gem that would be the word to think on for the day.

I got to chapter 4 and realized I wanted to know more, like what this guy was talking about and what he was getting at. So I read the whole thing.

Hebrews reads a little like a sermon. Almost like it was written down after someone preached. Paul maybe? It doesn't say. He's talking to the Hebrews, the people who grew up memorizing the first 5 books of our bible and living by regular sacrifice at the temple. These people understood the meaning of the law. And I can only imagine what a change in worldview it would have been to hear some of these things. Like the priesthood having been fulfilled and sacrifice being no longer necessary.

It starts out by establishing the nature of Jesus, that he is higher than the angels who were created to serve God, but that by becoming a man, he took on our nature, lower than the angels. Being both high and low, he is the perfect leader because he is righteous and yet also knows what it's like to be tempted. Um, wow...

You know how you know things. You hear them every Sunday for years, so of course you know it. I watched this video yesterday about an online math course I'm going to use with my tutoring students. There was a ninth grade math teacher sharing her experiences using this program. She said that the hardest thing about teaching math is getting the kids to understand that they really don't know it. That even though the lectures sound familiar, they never really understood the concept. They only thought they understood. I think my understanding of God is like that a lot of the time. I've spent so much time in church hearing the same message that I think I understand it. But I don't really. I just think I do.

I'm going to read Hebrews again. This time, I'm going to read it knowing nothing. All the things I think I know are going into storage in my brain and I'm going to read it like I've never heard it before.