Devotional Rewind 1/9/16

I’m going to use this time to kind of do a rehash of my devotions throughout the week. This serves quite a few purposes. I’ll be able to give you guys some of the things that have been shown to me, I’ll be able to go over the things I thought were key takeaways and maybe help them sink in more, AND if I have this blog to post then maybe I’ll do a better job of sticking with my devotions.

This week I’m doing a devotion plan on the Bible app called The Forty Day Word Fast (but it’s only 7 days and I’m a little confused). I’ve also done that thing that I do every year… I started a 1 Year Bible Plan. Maybe this will be the year that I make it more than 1/10 of the way through…

I’ll be writing down the thoughts that come to me as I’m going through my devotions. This may be a bit jerky, and it may make no sense at first, but you may get something from it. Here’s how that went this week…

Monday

WordFast

We have all spoken words of judgement, criticism, sarcasm, negativity, complaining, and gossip

Psalm 39:1, Proverbs 13:3, James 1:26, Psalm 141:3

What words would You have me speak?

1 Year Bible Plan

Walking:

-          Gen 5:24, Gen 6:9 – Enoch and Noah both walked with God. This week I have quite a few fitbit step challenges going and this has me thinking that maybe I should put my walking to better use…

-          Gen 3:8 – God was walking in the Garden in the cool of the day. God walks a lot…

Matt 3:15 – “to fulfill all righteousness” What did this mean if John didn’t think it was proper? Was this part of the High Priest passing authority over to a priest in the order of Melchizedek?

In Gen 5:3 Adam had a son “in his own image”. How does this relate to being in God’s image? And does this make Seth an imager of Adam?

Gen 6:4 – You guys may get sick of me talking about this one… Understanding this passage really helps you understand the entire Bible better. The Bible is all about Yahweh’s Plan for salvation for us. Included in that is the fight that battles fought in order to win that salvation. Yahweh promised redemption (Gen 3:15) and that the nachash would be defeated, so the enemy attempted to destroy the human bloodline by intermingling its DNA with that of the Fallen Angels. I’m sure I’ll go more into this soon…

Tuesday

WordFast

                The same way a person’s language reveals what part of the country he’s from or his national origins, as followers of Christ our words quickly reveal what kingdom we’re living in.

                Have the words I’ve spoken recently reflected the kingdom of this world, or God’s kingdom?

These are two quotes from today’s wordfast devotional. The truth is, I can be a sarcastic jerkhead. In today’s society, sarcasm has kind of been lifted up as the smart person’s humor, but I find myself convicted every time I catch myself being sarcastic anymore. Is my use of sarcasm really the best use of the words coming out of my mouth? Hardly.

Matt 12:34, Matt 15:18-20, Prov 4:23
Matt 12:34 – If I’m really as “Godly” as I’m trying to be, why am I not acting and speaking that way?
Matt 15:18 – out of the heart we get all kind of evil thing. This reminds me of the times that we do something contrary to the laws of God and we say,” well He knows my heart.” Do we really want Him to judge us by our hearts?
Prov 4:23 – “with all vigilance, keep your heart, for from it comes the source of life.” Compare to Leviticus 17:11 (“For the life of the flesh is in the blood”) and we see that there was an understanding that blood is life and in the heart is blood. The heart is a blood pumping organ. Not sure why but this connection between these two verses is really cool to me.

1 Year Bible Plan

Matt 4 – Even Jesus, who is the Word of God, didn’t just say whatever he wanted to when confronted by the accuser (though He could’ve because anything He would’ve said would’ve been the Word of God), He quoted from the Torah of God. The Torah of God is important, yesterday, today, and forever. 

One of the cool things I learned over the past year was that a Rabbi usually began collecting disciples at around the age of 30 (like Jesus), and that these disciples were usually around 17 years old. So a lot of the disciples may have been a lot younger than we tend to think about them. 

Gen 7 – “Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters came upon the earth.” One of the theories is that the flood started on Noah’s birthday.
Gen 8 – “And God caused a wind to blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.” Here the Hebrew word used for “wind” is the word “Ruach” which is also the word for Spirit. So it is possible that this verse may be saying that the Holy Spirit went over the earth and caused things to be dried.
Gen 9 – it isn’t until Gen 9:3 that man is given the permission to eat meat. Before this, we were supposed to be vegetarians. But now, it’s almost as if we’re commanded to eat meat.

Wednesday

WordFast

When I speak, am I paying attention to how people are perceiving me? And am I a good example (torch bearer) for Yeshua?

Col 4:6 – We have been shown grace so, if we are to follow Yeshua, we should show the same grace to others.
Eph 4:29 – Everything we say should be in an attempt to build up others.
1 Pet 3:15 – If we are constantly giving grace to others, and building them up, we should be ready to tell people why we’re acting how we’re acting. Because we were shown grace by God when Yeshua died on the cross for us.

1 Year Bible Plan

Ps 4 – Verse 5 says “Offer correct sacrifices and trust in YHWH”. While we’re no longer sacrificing animals to God, are we still mindful of the sacrifices we’re bringing before the Father? Will they be pleasing to Him? Or, are our sacrifices, like Cain’s, not what the Father is looking for?

Matt 4-5 – Beattitudes: try to approach life in a way that I can be one of those who Yeshua blesses.
(5:17)“Do not think I come to destroy the law and the prophets.” We keep saying that Yeshua’s sacrifice did away with the law, but what if He meant what He said here? What if fulfill doesn’t mean abolish, but simply what it means: that He walked in the law and showed us the way to follow after Him?

Gen 9-11 – We get into the lineages here. This used to be really boring, but looking at it and thinking of this as the table of nations, and with a Deutoronomy 32 worldview, makes this a lot easier to get through. And, lest we forget, Nimrod shows up in chapter 10. I think we’ll go a lot deeper into Nimrod in the very near future.

Thursday

WordFast

How many people have I hurt with my words? How many have I hurt this week?

Prov 12:18, Ps 17:3, Ps 139: 23-24

1 Year Bible Plan

Ps 5 – vv 5-6 – Does God really love the sinner and hate the sin?

Mat 5 – Actions are not the key, it’s the intent in the heart that is more severe

Gen 11-13 – And all families of the earth will be blessed in you. Because of Abram’s faith, the whole world has the ability to be grafted into his lineage.
                                - I don’t think I’ll ever understand this thing that Abram does where he gives his wife away (and again later). Everytime I’ve read these passages I have not been able to understand it.

Friday
Today I didn’t do the 1 Year Bible plan so I’m going to try to catch up tomorrow

(Psalm 34:1, Psalm 145: 1-7, Ephesians 5:20)

WordFast

What words should be coming out of my mouth? I’ve spent all this week focusing on the words which don’t need to be coming from me, but what should be replacing those words?


Saturday

Mission accomplished on the catching up thing. The WordFast plan was over so I did double-duty on the One Year Plan.

1 Year Bible Plan

(Psalm 6, Proverbs 1:8-19, Matthew 5-7, Genesis 14-18)

The main thought for today is Mercy. If God is willing to have mercy on us after all the wrong that we do, how can we not have mercy on others?