2012 Day 15 – John 3

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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A couple of passages stood out to me today. The first is verses 14-15, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” When the Israelites were suffering through their plague of deadly snakes, they needed to turn their eyes to the bronze snake that Moses had made in order to be healed. With Jesus, we must do the same thing. We must turn away from ourselves and turn to the one who has given us eternal life. I think I do that sometimes, but I need to do that on a consistent basis. It is easy to forget how much more He must become in my life. Which brings me to the second verse I loved in today’s reading, verse 30, “He must become greater; I must become less.” I love how humble John the Baptist was to recognize the greatness of Jesus. It really does come down this; I must humble myself to allow His light to shine through. Others should see less of me and know it is because of Jesus in my life.

2012 Day 14 – John 2

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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The story of Jesus turning water into wine is always a favorite of mine. However, this time, I noticed something different as I read it. When Mary asked Him to do something about the wine shortage, she was not necessarily asking Jesus to perform a miracle. When you read verse 5 it says, “His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”” which very well may have been Mary asking Jesus to help solve the problem. In either case, I think we are like that with God sometimes. We want God to solve our problems like its some sort of puzzle we got stuck on. The reality is that God is capable of performing a miracle that may or may not be within our comprehension and He is capable of making it better than we could have ever imagined.

The other section of our reading today was when Jesus took a whip to the money changers in the temple. I think there are a lot of areas in our churches today that Jesus would lose it over. While I love the comfort of knowing I have a place to go each Sunday, I’m not really sure some of the things we spend money on is really what God intended when He talked about the “Church”, do you?

2012 Day 13 – John 1

13 Friday Jan 2012

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There are some great passages in the very beginning of this first chapter of John. When I read John 1:12-13 which says, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” In reading this passage I realize how much God loves me. By accepting Jesus as my savior, God gave me the right to be called His child.

The second part of this first chapter is actually entertaining to me. These first few interactions with each of the disciples begins to show some of their personalities. When Jesus sees Nathaniel, He already knows who Nathaniel is and what he said in verse 46 about Jesus, ““Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked….” The same is true for me. Jesus already knew me before I ever accepted Him. More importantly He knows me today as well; He knows my struggles, my victories, and sadly my sin. But He is always with me through it all. There is no hiding, there is simply accepting the fact that He has accepted me.

2012 Day 12 – Luke 5

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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There is a lot of information to sift through in Luke 4 and if I commented on all of it I would be here all morning. The one thing I will focus on is Luke 5:37-38 where it says, “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” I’ve read this passage a hundred times, but I didn’t fully understand it until recently when a pastor named Stan Mitchell explained it in one of our Devos at work. Jesus was simply saying that the traditions and rituals that were in place up until that time were to rigid to hold the new message He was bringing. Very much in the same way, we need to be very careful that we as a “modern” day church don’t become so rigid that we can’t adjust to the needs of this ever changing world.

2012 Day 11 – Luke 4

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

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While today’s reading is the same story from yesterday in Matthew, there were a couple of observations I made in the first part of this chapter. The first is at the end of verse 2 where it says “He was hungry”. This struck me today because this clearly shows the humanity of Jesus. It is why He was able to be tempted in the first place. The second observation is in verse 6, “And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.” Make no mistake when you read the phase “all authority and splendor… has been given to me”, the devil is 100% correct in saying this world belongs to him. We can not take for granted that, while God has full control, this world is the devil’s playground. To further my thought, the second part of verse 34 it says, “…I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” The evil spirit who has possessed the man in this passage knows exactly who Jesus is. In the end, I have to be honest and say that Satan having so much authority over this world makes me a bit uneasy. However, there is a lot of comfort in knowing that God has the ultimate power over any evil I may ever face.

2012 Day 10 – Matthew 4

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

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In reading the first part of Matthew 4, we see that Jesus truly is a man because He is able to be tempted. He is also clearly the Son of God and is able to overcome the temptation of Satan. This is a good reminder that, while I am human and do not have the same abilities as Jesus, I do have the same strength through Him if I just trust in Him and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading.

In the second half of Matthew 4, it shows Jesus’ beginning to His ministry. I love the way the disciples follow Jesus. It is almost humorous to see them drop everything and follow Him. At the same time, it is a great example to us to know How we should follow Jesus. We aren’t supposed to put our affairs in order or wait to fix our lives, we are simply supposed to trust and follow Him. Everything else is fixable through His power, mercy, and grace.

A quick note here… We will be jumping around quite a bit as we read the book of Matthew. Parts of Matthew are written based on topic rather than chronological order, so it will seem like we are all over the place. Also, if you are following the reading plan I posted, I need to make some adjustments because I have a couple chapters listed twice. This is because some chapters are supposed to be broken in half since the events of the chapter are not chronological. I should have these adjustments done in the next day or so. Sorry for any confusion this may cause.

2012 Day 9 – Luke 3

09 Monday Jan 2012

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I had a couple of observations in today’s reading. First, in the last part of verse 22 where it quotes God’s voice saying , “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” It never gets old reading those words. I think of my dad, especially in the last few months I got to spend with him and I constantly wondered whether he looked at me and was “pleased” with the man I’d become. For Jesus, as a man, it must have been an incredible feeling to hear those words directly from His Father’s mouth. All I know, is it was always amazing when I heard it from my dad.

The second observation is the last part of the chapter where it goes over Jesus’ genealogy. This one is different from the one at the beginning of Matthew because it goes all the way back to Adam. There are no mistakes or coincidences in God’s word which establishes that Jesus is tied to all of us by being directly related to the created father of all mankind. I love knowing that!

2012 Day 8 – Mark 1

08 Sunday Jan 2012

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I’ve always found the book of Mark very interesting to read. It’s like speed reading the story of Jesus. Mark goes through each part of the story very quickly, but does an amazing job of catching all the important parts of the story. I also think it’s interesting that the book skips the first 30 years of Jesus’ life and goes straight to John the Baptist and Jesus’ ministry. The first chapter alone is packed with information.

What caught my attention right away was how quick we go to where Jesus is baptized. We then slow down long enough to see the Spirit descending on Jesus. However, this brings up a question in my mind… In the notes of my Bible it only says that the Spirit descending on Jesus proves His divinity and that He is part of the Trinity. I’m having a hard time understanding how He can be part of the Trinity and accept the Spirit at the same time. Wouldn’t He already have the Spirit in Him since He is God through the Trinity? I’m a bit confused… can anyone shed some light here?

Another thing that is fascinating is in verses 23-25 where an evil spirit recognizes Jesus as the “Holy One of God”. It is amazing to think that evil spirits know Him just as well as the heavenly ones. What becomes clear is that evil exists in this world and will continue to live here. We should never be surprised when bad things happen.

Finally, the passage I really love in this chapter is Mark 3:40-42, “40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” 41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.” We should never underestimate the amount of compassion God has for each of us. When we are hurting, He has compassion for us and He never leaves us to deal with it on our own.

2012 Day 7 – Matthew 3

07 Saturday Jan 2012

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There are a few interesting things to me in this chapter. First in verse 11 where John the Baptist talks about Jesus baptizing with fire, ““I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” In my notes it makes mention that he is prophesying about the Holy Spirit’s baptism at Pentecost which we will see in Acts 2.

The second interesting thing is in verse 12 where he talks about the winnowing fork, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” A winnowing fork is used to separate wheat from the chaff (I had to read this in the notes… a farm boy I am not). Chaff is the outer part of the plant that is useless and is usually burned. The chaff is a picture of our sin. When we repent, the chaff is removed (like from a winnowing fork) and burned away. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has heard this explanation before, but I do find it interesting.

Finally, verse 17 where it says, “And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”” made me think about how much I hope God will say the same thing about me when I get to heaven. All it requires of me is obedience because He has already done the rest.

2012 Day 6 – Psalm 107 & 137

06 Friday Jan 2012

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Psalm 107:1-2a,  “1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. 2a Let the redeemed of the LORD say this—” This is a proclamation that we should be making to God daily. The beginning of verse 2 is saying, if we are redeemed, we must give praise and thanksgiving to Him who has blessed us so richly. Let those who are redeemed remember the redeemer and all He has done for us.

Psalm 137 is a tough one to read. The author is basically asking God to pronounce judgment on their oppressor. As believers we think of ourselves as people who should be meek and simply turn the other cheek when something hurts us, and we should. However, I think it is ok to ask God to pronounce His judgment. It is God’s call and His method if He choses to take action. It is when we take action and pronounce judgment in “Jesus name” that we step outside God’s plan and purpose. I constantly need to remind myself that the creator of the universe is more than capable of turning bad situations in my life into some of the greatest blessings!