It is Sunday! We are to praise the Lord for the resurrection of His Son. Today, we celebrate Easter anew. Christ is risen! He has risen indeed!
The Psalm even mentions praising God in the congregation. Oh yes, our Lord does want us to be in church and worship Him with the congregation. While we can worship on our own, and maintain our relationship with God, we do need to worship with others to be lifted up and supported.
I like verse ten, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and then we have in our Old Testament lesson, Solomon asking God for wisdom. What a smart guy he was!
Can you imagine, God asking you to wish for whatever you want? I’d have no idea what to ask for. Last Wednesday, the Powerball was up to 250 million. I rarely purchase lottery tickets, but I bought a few then. I mean, why not? If I won, we could have done the whole church remodel thing. Everyone at church could have gotten raises. My wife could have retired and stopped working. We could have taken a vacation. But, no. I only got one number right.
Solomon asks for wisdom. What a smart guy he is. He put his nation first and wants to serve them well, so he asks for wisdom and that pleases the Lord and the Lord makes him the smartest guy who ever lived. Amazing.
We skip chapters 14, 15 and 16 of 1 Corinthians and jump right to 2 Corinthians. Paul is with Timothy and he sends his greeting to the church in Corinth. We ended in 1 Corinthians 13 with a passage we use often at weddings. We begin 2 Corinthians with a passage we use often at funerals, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Yeah, St. Paul likes long sentences.
It seems that Paul wanted to visit Corinth, but the Lord wouldn’t let him. Paul wants the church to know that he isn’t changing his mind, time and time again. But situations change and he still wants to visit, but that just isn’t possible right now. Often, we don’t have a choice in what we do during the day. Often, the Lord makes our plans for us.
If you turn to page 998 of your hymnal (LSB) you will notice that Bernard of Clairvaux wrote three hymns in our hymnal, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which appears with two tunes, and “O Jesus, King Most Wonderful.” Bernard lived from 1091 – 1153. He came up in the class that I had at the Seminary on hymnody. Very interesting stuff.
Ever notice that when you are mad at someone you can’t look them in the face? Or if you are hiding something from someone, you can’t look them in the face. When a husband and wife aren’t getting along, they won’t even look at each other. That’s kind of what the whole face thing in the Psalm is about too. God won’t look at us when He is upset with us. If we aren’t on good terms with God, we can’t see His face. That’s why the benediction is such a meaningful blessing, “The Lord make His face shine upon you and give you peace,” that could not happen if we were not on good ground with God. “For my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.” This is a Psalm of David. I can’t imagine his parents forsaking him, maybe it was during that period when Saul and David weren’t getting along and his parents knew Saul was watching their house for signs of David and were worried Saul would take his anger for David out on them. The lesson remains the same: the Lord is willing to take us back.
Who would have thought that reading about the building of the temple would be interesting? Can you imagine? There were more than 180,000 people involved in building Solomon’s temple. One could not just to be Menard’s and pick up 2 x 4’s and ceiling tile. They had to cut their own stone and lumber. Obviously, if they were at war, these people would have to be defending the nation. If they were at war, they would need an army protecting them in the forest and in the mountain. This was a huge undertaking for the Lord. Nothing but the best for the Lord. After having the Ark of the Covenant in a tent since Mount Sinai and leaving Egypt, God was finally getting a home.
I have no idea what to write about the reading from Corinthians. It’s obvious that Paul is still trying to explain to them why he didn’t come visit them again, but instead, wrote the difficult letter on 1 Corinthians. Yes, he yells at them a lot in that letter. But they needed it. The Law is never easy to hear or preach. But the reason he came down so hard on them was to get them to repent so that they could be forgiven and that’s his message in the second part, forgive the sinner. Since we are all sinners, we all need forgiveness.
We thank Jesus every day for dying on the cross so that we can be forgiven.
“For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” That’s how we feel when we try to cover up sin. It takes much more energy to ignore our sin than it does to acknowledge it and receive forgiveness. Forgiveness is so much better than not being caught. It breaks down barriers and builds our relationship with God. I mean, look at verse seven, “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with should of deliverance.” So, imagine yourself going out into the nasty world with our Lord and His angels surrounding you and protecting you even hiding you from Satan and his minions.
Can you imagine the joy that the people of Israel had the day the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the temple? That must have been an awesome day! It must have been bigger than Christmas, bigger than Easter. Christmas and Easter are marvelous holidays, but they happen every year. That day was one, single day. It must have been totally awesome. From that day on, it was only at the temple where sacrifices could be offered to the Lord. From that day on, people would travel to Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement to seek at – one – ment with God. Passover and the Day of Atonement were days to be in Jerusalem. What a wonderful time this was for the people of Israel. It was the high point on their history and was doomed to go down from there.
I had to read through 2 Corinthians twice to get an idea of what St. Paul was trying to say. He can get technical and confusing at times. His sentence structure and get very long and complicated. That’s just the kind of person he was. Basically he is talking about Law and Gospel. There is a veil that gets placed over the Law when we don’t understand the purpose of the Law to lead us to the Gospel and repentance. The Law is part of the old covenant. But it is not without purpose. We need the Law to show us our sin and to lead us to the Gospel. But the Law does not save us. We are saved by faith that Jesus died for our sins and has forgiven us, by grace.
Don’t get discouraged reading Paul. While some stuff is hard to understand, a lot is so meaningful and uplifting. Just wait until we get to chapters four and five.
Oh, this is an exciting day around Trinity! School starts up again today. We so look forward to the end of the school year and the quiet hallways, but after three months of that, we are looking forward to getting back to work and sharing the Gospel with these young minds and children of God.
In case you forgot, you are precious to God. We are His children and He protects us in the shadow of His wings. He gives us abundantly more than we give Him credit for giving us. He is the fountain and source of our lives. I love the word pictures here, “the foot of arrogance,” “the hand of the wicked,” we think, “how is a foot arrogant?” “How do the wicked use their hands?” Think about that for a while. In any case, the Lord is our God and protector and provider and we are precious to Him.
Okay, I’m back … had to go to Opening Chapel.
Solomon’s prayer is quite long and drawn out. But it is a special day and a wonderful occasion. It took around 43 years to completely build the temple. It was no small feat and this was no small event. Solomon offered offerings of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. That’s amazing. What gets me is that it almost seems like a priest should have been offering that prayer. Solomon seems in charge of the event when I would think it would be more in line with a priest in charge, but that’s just my opinion.
I think we can relate with Paul’s words, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” To be sure we are afflicted, crushed, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. The world is against us. Life isn’t easy. But it wasn’t easy for Jesus to die on the cross either. He died and has risen from the dead and He is alive to this day. His life is our life. And we glorify Him.
School is off to a nice start. Let’s pray it continues nice and smooth.
PJ,
I liked your comments this week. It was good to read, a little hard to understand but I will keep reading every day.
My grandma & I meet at her house every Weds. night and go over the week and read all your comments.
See you next week,
Alex
Alex,
It’s great that you are reading this with your Grandma! That is a great thing to share with her. I’m sorry you don’t understand it all. We will work on that. Keep up the good work.
PJ
I went through my Bible a few weeks ago paging through the Psalms and made a list of the Psalms written by David, just because we were reading about David and it would be nice to know if the Psalm we were reading that day was one of his. I taped that list of Psalms by David to the front of my Treasury just so I could reference it quickly. Reading through the Psalm for today, I wondered if it was one of David’s being that it talks of the king and his responsibilities. Surprise, surprise, it was a Psalm written by Solomon. Solomon not only wrote much of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, but he wrote a Psalm or two as well. The Psalm is a prayer of sorts for the King. It reminds us that we need to pray for our leaders. Even if you didn’t vote for him/her, especially if you didn’t vote for him/her, especially if you don’t agree with their politics, we should pray for all our leaders, local, and federal, and those around the world.
God again appears to Solomon to impress up him the promise He made. Follow me and life will be fine, start worshipping false gods and life will be nasty. It’s that simple. We may wonder how Solomon could leave God after all that God had done for him, but it’s just human nature, when life is good, we kind of leave God alone. And life was good for Solomon and for Israel. So good that the Queen of Sheba comes and visits and sees all that the Lord has provided for Solomon. She’s impressed. Very impressed.
It is a difficult struggle that us Christians deal with every day: wanting to continue our lives here and see our children and grandchildren grow up or going to heaven and being with the Lord. We may not be too thrilled about what we have to go through to get to heaven (death), but the getting there part is something we look forward to.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” With our baptism, we become new. The old has gone, the new has come. We are a new creation: a new person. We act different. We think different. We have a new perspective and outlook. We even look at others differently. We see them not “according to the flesh,” but we see them as people loved by God.
We even have a new job. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” “We are ambassadors for Christ.” We see the people around us as mission prospects. We see them as pre-Christians, people who need to see and hear the love of God and know that Christ died for them so they could be with us in heaven. It is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 day a year job for the Lord.
This text from Paul today is a great text. It is filled with meat for us to chew and digest. Take a few moments and read it over and over again.
I wish I were in my office and had my Bible. I’m at home on my day off and just finished my walk and now I’m reading the lessons. Ahh, I may not have my Bible, but I have the internet. It tells me that this is a “Psalm of the sons of Korah,” they were singers in the temple. It says, “The kings in verse 4 were the leaders of the Assyrian army. They attacked Jerusalem, but God kept his city safe, and the people that were in it. The kings saw something that frightened them away. We do not know what it was. Perhaps it was the 185 000 dead bodies!“ I thought this might have been another Psalm of Solomon. I guess I was wrong.
God warned Solomon twice. God came to Solomon twice and told him to follow Him only and to have the heart of David and worship only God and life will be fine. But when you have 700 wives and 300 concubines, many of whom are foreigners and worship false gods, you can be lead astray like Solomon was. Never have 1000 wives and concubines! So God raises up enemies who are going to cause trouble once Solomon dies. We aren’t really sure if Solomon is in heaven. We don’t know if he came back to the One True God before his death. We hope he did.
And so, it is very good that they arranged to have this text from Paul connected with this section of the story of Solomon. “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” If you are a Christian, seek a Christian spouse. It doesn’t mean you should get a divorce if your spouse isn’t Christian, hopefully, as they see your faith and trust in God and perhaps visit on Christmas and Easter, they will come to faith and trust too. The danger is that the opposite would happen, that they would lead you to skip church now and then and then it becomes more skipping then attending until you don’t attend at all.
In it all, however, the Holy Spirit is working and showing us the way. Stay in the Word and the Lord will stay in you.
Have a blessed day. We are heading to Kenosha for breakfast and Chicago suburbs for dinner (Jan’s folks). Should be a great day.
Do you have any enemies? Who are they? Someone at work? A neighbor next door? A classmate? One of your relatives? I can say, I really don’t think I have any enemies. There are a few people who don’t like me. And, there are a few people that I’m not fans of. But as the Bible says, love your enemies. Actually, our biggest enemies are sin, death and the devil. They cause us the most problems, but Jesus dealt with those problems on the cross.
But our Psalmist writes, “I call upon you for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words.” We have heard the phrase “apple of your eye” forever. Bet you didn’t know that it came from the Bible. One second, the water for my tea is ready ….
In any case, this is such an uplifting Psalm. It shows how our Lord will watch over us and take care of us and protect us. He protects us from the wicked and blesses us with good things.
So, there is more trouble in Israel. Solomon has died and as God had promised, the kingdom becomes divided. Rehoboam doesn’t listen to the old men who used to advise his father. He listens to young men. Notice here, his biggest mistake, he doesn’t ask God. He asks the people around him but he doesn’t ask God and he doesn’t ask the priest to ask God either. And so, the people aren’t happy and the division in the nation begins.
Ever send one of those emails that you regretted as soon as you hit send? But you can’t take it back. Well, St. Paul seems to regret sending 1 Corinthians, after all, he did get down on them pretty good. But, as he says, the grief caused by the letter lead to repentance and that was the intent. He wanted them to repent from their sins and they did. So it was a good thing he sent the letter.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2009
PSALM 111:1-3, 9-10
1 KINGS 3:1-15
2 CORINTHIANS 1:1-22
It is Sunday! We are to praise the Lord for the resurrection of His Son. Today, we celebrate Easter anew. Christ is risen! He has risen indeed!
The Psalm even mentions praising God in the congregation. Oh yes, our Lord does want us to be in church and worship Him with the congregation. While we can worship on our own, and maintain our relationship with God, we do need to worship with others to be lifted up and supported.
I like verse ten, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and then we have in our Old Testament lesson, Solomon asking God for wisdom. What a smart guy he was!
Can you imagine, God asking you to wish for whatever you want? I’d have no idea what to ask for. Last Wednesday, the Powerball was up to 250 million. I rarely purchase lottery tickets, but I bought a few then. I mean, why not? If I won, we could have done the whole church remodel thing. Everyone at church could have gotten raises. My wife could have retired and stopped working. We could have taken a vacation. But, no. I only got one number right.
Solomon asks for wisdom. What a smart guy he is. He put his nation first and wants to serve them well, so he asks for wisdom and that pleases the Lord and the Lord makes him the smartest guy who ever lived. Amazing.
We skip chapters 14, 15 and 16 of 1 Corinthians and jump right to 2 Corinthians. Paul is with Timothy and he sends his greeting to the church in Corinth. We ended in 1 Corinthians 13 with a passage we use often at weddings. We begin 2 Corinthians with a passage we use often at funerals, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Yeah, St. Paul likes long sentences.
It seems that Paul wanted to visit Corinth, but the Lord wouldn’t let him. Paul wants the church to know that he isn’t changing his mind, time and time again. But situations change and he still wants to visit, but that just isn’t possible right now. Often, we don’t have a choice in what we do during the day. Often, the Lord makes our plans for us.
If you turn to page 998 of your hymnal (LSB) you will notice that Bernard of Clairvaux wrote three hymns in our hymnal, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which appears with two tunes, and “O Jesus, King Most Wonderful.” Bernard lived from 1091 – 1153. He came up in the class that I had at the Seminary on hymnody. Very interesting stuff.
MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2009
PSALM 27:1, 7-11
1 KINGS 5:1-18
2 CORINTHIANS 1:23-2:17
Ever notice that when you are mad at someone you can’t look them in the face? Or if you are hiding something from someone, you can’t look them in the face. When a husband and wife aren’t getting along, they won’t even look at each other. That’s kind of what the whole face thing in the Psalm is about too. God won’t look at us when He is upset with us. If we aren’t on good terms with God, we can’t see His face. That’s why the benediction is such a meaningful blessing, “The Lord make His face shine upon you and give you peace,” that could not happen if we were not on good ground with God. “For my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.” This is a Psalm of David. I can’t imagine his parents forsaking him, maybe it was during that period when Saul and David weren’t getting along and his parents knew Saul was watching their house for signs of David and were worried Saul would take his anger for David out on them. The lesson remains the same: the Lord is willing to take us back.
Who would have thought that reading about the building of the temple would be interesting? Can you imagine? There were more than 180,000 people involved in building Solomon’s temple. One could not just to be Menard’s and pick up 2 x 4’s and ceiling tile. They had to cut their own stone and lumber. Obviously, if they were at war, these people would have to be defending the nation. If they were at war, they would need an army protecting them in the forest and in the mountain. This was a huge undertaking for the Lord. Nothing but the best for the Lord. After having the Ark of the Covenant in a tent since Mount Sinai and leaving Egypt, God was finally getting a home.
I have no idea what to write about the reading from Corinthians. It’s obvious that Paul is still trying to explain to them why he didn’t come visit them again, but instead, wrote the difficult letter on 1 Corinthians. Yes, he yells at them a lot in that letter. But they needed it. The Law is never easy to hear or preach. But the reason he came down so hard on them was to get them to repent so that they could be forgiven and that’s his message in the second part, forgive the sinner. Since we are all sinners, we all need forgiveness.
We thank Jesus every day for dying on the cross so that we can be forgiven.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2009
PSALM 32:1-7
1 KINGS 7:51-8:21
2 CORINTHIANS 3:1-18
“For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” That’s how we feel when we try to cover up sin. It takes much more energy to ignore our sin than it does to acknowledge it and receive forgiveness. Forgiveness is so much better than not being caught. It breaks down barriers and builds our relationship with God. I mean, look at verse seven, “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with should of deliverance.” So, imagine yourself going out into the nasty world with our Lord and His angels surrounding you and protecting you even hiding you from Satan and his minions.
Can you imagine the joy that the people of Israel had the day the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the temple? That must have been an awesome day! It must have been bigger than Christmas, bigger than Easter. Christmas and Easter are marvelous holidays, but they happen every year. That day was one, single day. It must have been totally awesome. From that day on, it was only at the temple where sacrifices could be offered to the Lord. From that day on, people would travel to Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement to seek at – one – ment with God. Passover and the Day of Atonement were days to be in Jerusalem. What a wonderful time this was for the people of Israel. It was the high point on their history and was doomed to go down from there.
I had to read through 2 Corinthians twice to get an idea of what St. Paul was trying to say. He can get technical and confusing at times. His sentence structure and get very long and complicated. That’s just the kind of person he was. Basically he is talking about Law and Gospel. There is a veil that gets placed over the Law when we don’t understand the purpose of the Law to lead us to the Gospel and repentance. The Law is part of the old covenant. But it is not without purpose. We need the Law to show us our sin and to lead us to the Gospel. But the Law does not save us. We are saved by faith that Jesus died for our sins and has forgiven us, by grace.
Don’t get discouraged reading Paul. While some stuff is hard to understand, a lot is so meaningful and uplifting. Just wait until we get to chapters four and five.
Have a blessed day.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2009
PSALM 36:7-12
1 KINGS 8:22-30, 46-63
2 CORINTHIANS 4:1-18
Oh, this is an exciting day around Trinity! School starts up again today. We so look forward to the end of the school year and the quiet hallways, but after three months of that, we are looking forward to getting back to work and sharing the Gospel with these young minds and children of God.
In case you forgot, you are precious to God. We are His children and He protects us in the shadow of His wings. He gives us abundantly more than we give Him credit for giving us. He is the fountain and source of our lives. I love the word pictures here, “the foot of arrogance,” “the hand of the wicked,” we think, “how is a foot arrogant?” “How do the wicked use their hands?” Think about that for a while. In any case, the Lord is our God and protector and provider and we are precious to Him.
Okay, I’m back … had to go to Opening Chapel.
Solomon’s prayer is quite long and drawn out. But it is a special day and a wonderful occasion. It took around 43 years to completely build the temple. It was no small feat and this was no small event. Solomon offered offerings of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. That’s amazing. What gets me is that it almost seems like a priest should have been offering that prayer. Solomon seems in charge of the event when I would think it would be more in line with a priest in charge, but that’s just my opinion.
I think we can relate with Paul’s words, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” To be sure we are afflicted, crushed, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. The world is against us. Life isn’t easy. But it wasn’t easy for Jesus to die on the cross either. He died and has risen from the dead and He is alive to this day. His life is our life. And we glorify Him.
School is off to a nice start. Let’s pray it continues nice and smooth.
PJ,
I liked your comments this week. It was good to read, a little hard to understand but I will keep reading every day.
My grandma & I meet at her house every Weds. night and go over the week and read all your comments.
See you next week,
Alex
Alex,
It’s great that you are reading this with your Grandma! That is a great thing to share with her. I’m sorry you don’t understand it all. We will work on that. Keep up the good work.
PJ
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2009
PSALM 72:1-7
1 KINGS 9:1-9; 10:1-13
2 CORINTHIANS 5:1-21
I went through my Bible a few weeks ago paging through the Psalms and made a list of the Psalms written by David, just because we were reading about David and it would be nice to know if the Psalm we were reading that day was one of his. I taped that list of Psalms by David to the front of my Treasury just so I could reference it quickly. Reading through the Psalm for today, I wondered if it was one of David’s being that it talks of the king and his responsibilities. Surprise, surprise, it was a Psalm written by Solomon. Solomon not only wrote much of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, but he wrote a Psalm or two as well. The Psalm is a prayer of sorts for the King. It reminds us that we need to pray for our leaders. Even if you didn’t vote for him/her, especially if you didn’t vote for him/her, especially if you don’t agree with their politics, we should pray for all our leaders, local, and federal, and those around the world.
God again appears to Solomon to impress up him the promise He made. Follow me and life will be fine, start worshipping false gods and life will be nasty. It’s that simple. We may wonder how Solomon could leave God after all that God had done for him, but it’s just human nature, when life is good, we kind of leave God alone. And life was good for Solomon and for Israel. So good that the Queen of Sheba comes and visits and sees all that the Lord has provided for Solomon. She’s impressed. Very impressed.
It is a difficult struggle that us Christians deal with every day: wanting to continue our lives here and see our children and grandchildren grow up or going to heaven and being with the Lord. We may not be too thrilled about what we have to go through to get to heaven (death), but the getting there part is something we look forward to.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” With our baptism, we become new. The old has gone, the new has come. We are a new creation: a new person. We act different. We think different. We have a new perspective and outlook. We even look at others differently. We see them not “according to the flesh,” but we see them as people loved by God.
We even have a new job. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” “We are ambassadors for Christ.” We see the people around us as mission prospects. We see them as pre-Christians, people who need to see and hear the love of God and know that Christ died for them so they could be with us in heaven. It is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 day a year job for the Lord.
This text from Paul today is a great text. It is filled with meat for us to chew and digest. Take a few moments and read it over and over again.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2009
PSALM 48:1-8
1 KINGS 11:1-26
2 CORINTHIANS 6:1-18
I wish I were in my office and had my Bible. I’m at home on my day off and just finished my walk and now I’m reading the lessons. Ahh, I may not have my Bible, but I have the internet. It tells me that this is a “Psalm of the sons of Korah,” they were singers in the temple. It says, “The kings in verse 4 were the leaders of the Assyrian army. They attacked Jerusalem, but God kept his city safe, and the people that were in it. The kings saw something that frightened them away. We do not know what it was. Perhaps it was the 185 000 dead bodies!“ I thought this might have been another Psalm of Solomon. I guess I was wrong.
God warned Solomon twice. God came to Solomon twice and told him to follow Him only and to have the heart of David and worship only God and life will be fine. But when you have 700 wives and 300 concubines, many of whom are foreigners and worship false gods, you can be lead astray like Solomon was. Never have 1000 wives and concubines! So God raises up enemies who are going to cause trouble once Solomon dies. We aren’t really sure if Solomon is in heaven. We don’t know if he came back to the One True God before his death. We hope he did.
And so, it is very good that they arranged to have this text from Paul connected with this section of the story of Solomon. “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” If you are a Christian, seek a Christian spouse. It doesn’t mean you should get a divorce if your spouse isn’t Christian, hopefully, as they see your faith and trust in God and perhaps visit on Christmas and Easter, they will come to faith and trust too. The danger is that the opposite would happen, that they would lead you to skip church now and then and then it becomes more skipping then attending until you don’t attend at all.
In it all, however, the Holy Spirit is working and showing us the way. Stay in the Word and the Lord will stay in you.
Have a blessed day. We are heading to Kenosha for breakfast and Chicago suburbs for dinner (Jan’s folks). Should be a great day.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009
PSALM 17:6-14
1 KINGS 11:42-12:19
2 CORINTHIANS 7:1-16
Do you have any enemies? Who are they? Someone at work? A neighbor next door? A classmate? One of your relatives? I can say, I really don’t think I have any enemies. There are a few people who don’t like me. And, there are a few people that I’m not fans of. But as the Bible says, love your enemies. Actually, our biggest enemies are sin, death and the devil. They cause us the most problems, but Jesus dealt with those problems on the cross.
But our Psalmist writes, “I call upon you for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words.” We have heard the phrase “apple of your eye” forever. Bet you didn’t know that it came from the Bible. One second, the water for my tea is ready ….
In any case, this is such an uplifting Psalm. It shows how our Lord will watch over us and take care of us and protect us. He protects us from the wicked and blesses us with good things.
So, there is more trouble in Israel. Solomon has died and as God had promised, the kingdom becomes divided. Rehoboam doesn’t listen to the old men who used to advise his father. He listens to young men. Notice here, his biggest mistake, he doesn’t ask God. He asks the people around him but he doesn’t ask God and he doesn’t ask the priest to ask God either. And so, the people aren’t happy and the division in the nation begins.
Ever send one of those emails that you regretted as soon as you hit send? But you can’t take it back. Well, St. Paul seems to regret sending 1 Corinthians, after all, he did get down on them pretty good. But, as he says, the grief caused by the letter lead to repentance and that was the intent. He wanted them to repent from their sins and they did. So it was a good thing he sent the letter.