The Focus

Clearly, God is the center of the Exodus account and not the Israelites. This holds true also in our own experience. Make God the center and the promised Land is ours, simply for the claiming. :)

Abraham

So this morning I had just finished the second class of the day. I sat down and opened the Bible to where I had left of the day before.
In Genesis 12, Abraham receives the call to head to Canaan. In the same chapter, (v8) tell us that at a particular location, with "Bethel on the west, and Haion on the East" he builds and "alter unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord". With this in mind, I continued my reading.
Further along, we encounter Abraham, the "father of the faithful", making his first major mistake. He lies to Pharaoh about his wife. He is humiliated. Yet, instead of being disheartened, the patriarch shows us a beautiful example.
In the following chapter, (v4) Abraham goes back to the familiar location, "the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Hai" and there Abraham "called upon the Lord"(vs 5)
Instead of getting discouraged and giving up, He simply went back to where he last "called on the name of the Lord". What an encouragement!
No matter the mistake, no matter the failure, like Abraham, we must go back where we last saw the light. As long as we believe that we are accepted in the person of Jesus Christ, It will be counted to us for righteousness.

Matthew Chapters 1-2:

So I decided to start reading the NT first and then the OT after so that when we share on this blog site, there can be more variety of thoughts and in sense our thoughts can be complementary to each other, one being form the OT and the other from the NT.

Though the first two chapters of Matthew are comprised of mostly a lengthy genealogy and the renowned, sometimes overly told story of Jesus' birth, there are still some profound insights that can be drawn from this passage.
     It is a common tendency for many to merely skim over the tedious genealogies, thinking there is no spiritual and moral significance contained in a verbose record of parents and children. But if you examine carefully the posterity of Jesus Christ and see how the pivotal guiding hand of God worked in both good and bad decisions, it illuminates a clearer perspective on God's control and guidance on our lives. In verse 6, it talks about David's relationship with Bathsheba, an obviously immoral union that should never have taken place. It was completely out of the ideal plan of God to have David adulterously snatch Bathsheba from the unassuming Uriah. Yet, despite this disastrous failure by David, God gave him a second chance of repentance and turned a dismal and despairing outcome into a bright and glorious future that would eventually lead to the Messiah. In verses 19, 20, it talks about Joseph's astonishment to realize that his fiance' was pregnant but not with his biological child. Thoughts must have bombarded his distraught mind, yet still He trusted that God's Will was being carried out beyond his carnal awareness, and sure enough he was rewarded for his faith when the angel of the Lord made it clear to him that it was a divine child developing in the womb of Mary. So what can we really learn from this? I believe that it is a comforting and reassuring fact to know that God possesses a illimitable control over the direction of our earthly lives, and when we are wrapped up in the affairs and trials of our personal lives that plant seed of doubt regarding where we are headed, God promises that if we stay faithful to His gentle prodding then we will undoubtedly arrive at a destination of true and inestimable reward. Yet, even more so, it is encouraging to know that if we do fall as David did, God still preserves the plan He intends for our lives and will lead us right back onto the narrow road if we allow him to heal the wounds and extricate us from our dire situations. In short, it is through simply submitting to God's Will, irrespective if it agrees with out personal preference, that will guide us through the twists and turns of our lives here on earth that will ultimately lead us to the Kingdom. Just like the famed allegory Pilgrim's Progress, we are to be like Christian who learned that it is those small and seemingly trifling assent to one influence along the path that can either lead you to your doom or even closer to the celestial city.

Welcome to the Blog site! Lets make it a goal to share every time we read.

Insert a heading before each entry giving the passage reference and the title of our post.

Each time we read lets try to extract and glean one to three, significant lessons/insights, instead of getting carried away and just summarizing the text...

Looking forward to this journey, its going to be powerful..