2012 Day 5 – Psalm 85 & 106

05 Thursday Jan 2012

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Today we get to do the first of our Psalms. Psalm 85:4 says, “Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.” Even in the Old Testament it shows that only God can lead us into salvation. Only He can restore to relationship and fellowship with Him.

Psalm 106 covers God’s judgment and salvation of His people from the time they left Egyptian captivity to the time they became captives of the Babylonian empire. The verse that stood out to me the most was “So he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one,  stood in the breach before him  to keep his wrath from destroying them.” (Psalm 106:23 NIV84) This is a great picture of what Jesus has done for all of us. He stood in the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection. Praise be to Him for saving us from ourselves.

2012 Day 4 – Luke 2

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

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As I read about the birth announcement, I had an interesting thought that it must have had symbolic meaning of who Jesus came to the earth to save. By announcing to common shepherds it showed that Jesus was coming for everyone. The other interesting thing is the way the announcement took place with a heavenly host, which gave very little doubt as to the importance of the birth. While it must have been terrifying in many ways to experience something so powerful, I can just imagine the shepherds looking at each other in utter astonishment after it was all over.

Jesus’ early life must have been interesting to everyone around Him. On the one hand He is a child and on the other He is God’s son. As for His human parents, how difficult would it be to know how to raise someone you knew was special, even if you did not fully grasp that this was actually God’s son. Yet, they were obedient in everything they did as His parents. One of the notes in my Bible explained that everything Mary and Joseph did in verse 21-24 was according to the law. This was meant to show that Jesus was not above the law, but was here to fulfill the law perfectly. I also love the contrast of Jesus in verse 49 with 51. In verse 49 He is in the Temple where he says to His parents that He is in His Father’s house. In verse 51 it says that He went back to Nazareth and was obedient to His parents. We have to assume that Jesus already knew who He was and what He was here to do, yet He is still an example of a perfect human being and knew that as a child He needed to be obedient to His parents.

2012 Day 3 – Matthew 2

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

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The first interesting thing in today’s reading is in Matthew 2:5-6 where the Magi quote a Jewish prophesy from Micah 5:2 which was written 7 centuries before the time of Jesus birth. How could the Magi from the “East” know about Jewish prophesy? One of the notes in my Bible suggests the Magi could have been Jews who remained in the region of Parthia which was in the vicinity of ancient Babylon. There are other explanations, but this one fascinated me.

The second interesting thing to me is the care Joseph showed for Jesus. While Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, the notes in my Bible say he was responsible for Jesus’ legally. In any case, Joseph showed obedience and care for Jesus as His earthly father.

2012 Day 2 – Matthew 1

02 Monday Jan 2012

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A couple of things fascinate me about the genealogy listed here in the first 17 verses. First, numbers fascinate me and I love that there are 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David to the exile in Babylon, and 14 generations from the exile to Christ. Second, I love that the genealogy includes a variety of people from heroes like Abraham, Isaac, Ruth, and David; to those with shady reputations like Rahab; to  the ordinary like Hezron and Ram; to the down right evil like Manasseh and Abijah. God’s plan is always perfect and can be fulfilled no matter who he choses to use.

I love Matthew 1:21 where it says, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”” I love it because it gives significance to the name Jesus. One of the notes in my Bible say that Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua which means “The Lord Saves”. I learn something new everyday… I always thought Jesus was a Hebrew name.

2012 Day 1 – Luke 1

01 Sunday Jan 2012

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There is a lot in this very first chapter of Luke to consider and absorb. Starting off with the fact that Luke was a gentile believer who did not actually have a first hand account of Jesus. According to tradition, Luke spent a lot of time gathering information from others who had first hand accounts. He apparently spent time with Mary to capture her story from her first hand account. From a historical sense, Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which can be read with the book of Luke straight through as a historical account of Jesus and the early church.

I love that Zechariah was chosen by “lot” to serve in the temple that day. What was seemingly a random occurrence, lead to the angel Gabriel announcing John the Baptist’s coming into the world and the important role he would play. By the way, this past year when we studied the book of Daniel we learned that there are only two angels that are named, Michael and Gabriel. Michael leads in conquest and Gabriel always bring important messages from God.

Finally, there is so much about the coming of Jesus as the messiah that can not be denied it came from God. First, both John and Jesus were names give directly by God. Neither man was named by family tradition or human distinction. Both came from specific meaning given by God Himself. Second, Mary who was a young, poor, female (all strikes against her in that society) was chosen directly by God to take on the greatest task in human history; bringing the Messiah into the world. And finally, when Elizabeth greeted Mary, she chose to great her as “The mother of my Lord”. I don’t think we can deny the Holy Spirit’s hand in revealing that to her.

A New Year in the New Testament

31 Saturday Dec 2011

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Thanks for joining us!  We’ll be reading through the New Testament one chapter each day in 2012.  We’ll also sprinkle in chapters from Psalm and Proverbs to round out the year.  We hope you find this site helpful for getting in and staying in the Word.  We want this to be a community for everyone interested in discussing how God is speaking to them through the Bible.  Please share the site and encourage friends to join us, the more the merrier!  Thanks again for joining us and we look forward to studying God’s Word with you.

If you would like to receive a copy of our reading plan in PDF format, please email me at dino.evangelista@gmail.com. Or you can download it at 2012 Bible Reading List.