Listening to the Word

1 Kings 2; 1 Chronicles 29; Psalms 95; 2 Thessalonians 1   “For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods…the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it… Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah…” Psalm 95:3-8 The wonders of creation point us to the Creator. More than that, we are invited to worship and willingly bow before our Maker. Recognizing the provision of God in creation reminds us that we, too, are under his care. Like a good shepherd, God invites us to know and follow him. Our Maker makes us to lie down in green pastures and speaks to us. We can ignore or resist his voice, quarreling with God and others. Or we can enter his rest, surrender our will, and learn to quietly listen and obey. To learn God’s ways, we must listen to his Word and obey. What ...

  1 Kings 1; 1 Chronicles 28; Psalms 91; 1 Thessalonians 5   “…respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other…May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…” 1 Thessalonians 5:12, 13, 23 How we respond to those who carry spiritual authority influences our experience of peace and the depth to which the God of peace sanctifies our lives. When we are admonished by leaders, our heart- attitudes are tested. Responding in humility strengthens the peace, responding with anger erodes peace. Even when we disagree with counsel or admonishment, how we respond is a maturity-test. The God of peace is continually sanctifying us “through and through”. He uses tests, opposition, admonishment, and conflict to sanctify us through and through. How we respond to those tests reveals our level of humility, love, brokenness, and peace.   W...

1 Chronicles 25-27; 1 Thessalonians 4   “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 4:7, 8 With our bodies now the temple of the Holy Spirit, we have been set apart for holiness and the worship of God. The blood of Christ, our sin sacrifice, cleanses us from sin as we repent and receive God’s gift of forgiveness and grace. However, to continue living with sinful habits grieves the Holy Spirit who indwells us. It’s not just that our sinful habits are wrong before a holy God; they defile our body and personally grieve the Holy Spirit. Repenting for the ways we grieve the Holy Spirit sensitizes us to the presence of the Spirit in our lives. The Roman cities in Paul’s day were full of temples to pagan deities, some of whom were worshiped through sexual acts with temple prostitutes. Paul was reminding a first-generation Church that God’s temple is h...

1 Chronicles 22-24; 1 Thessalonians 3   “The duty of the Levites was to help Aaron’s descendants in the service of the temple of the Lord: They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord. They were to do the same in the evening and whenever burnt offerings were presented to the Lord...” 1 Chronicles 23:28, 30, 31 David’s extensive preparations for the building of the temple were matched by his preparations of the people for service within the temple. The Levites and descendants of Aaron were a constant worshiping, sacrificing, prophesying presence in the temple. Through the once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sin, we have become the temple of the living God, also offering continual sacrifice, worship, and witness through the Holy Spirit. The glory of God indwells us through his presence and our lives are focused on living for the Lord. Do we view our lives as the temple of the Lord? Are we aware of the purpose of the temple and do those purposes ...

  2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles 21; Psalms. 30; 1 Thessalonians 2   “Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’…But Joab replied to the king, ‘May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my Lord the king see it. But why does my Lord the king want to do such a thing?’” 2 Samuel 24:1, 8 Joab’s question to David penetrated to the heart of the census request. Why? There are many examples of numbering and counting in the Bible, after the fact. However, when the numbers become the focus, we grieve God and lose our dependency on him as our source. Our strategies become reductionist attempts to reach our numbers. God can and does multiply ministry results one hundred times over; but our worship must be of the Lord, not the results. Why did David count? Pride! God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Sometimes we count out of fear. We, too, fea...

  2 Samuel 21-23; 1 Thessalonians 1   “During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so, David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said, ‘It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house, it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.’” 2 Samuel 21:1 God used famine to get the attention of Israel’s leadership so he could communicate to them the bloodguilt they had inherited from Saul’s treatment of the Gibeonites. David then engaged the Gibeonites with the offer of reparations so they in turn would bless Israel. This astounding story reminds us that God is just. He hears the cry of the afflicted. God uses our resources, the weather, and other means to get our attention. As we humble ourselves and seek Gods’ face, he will give us a way forward. God held David’s and Israel’s leadership accountable for a prior king’s behavior toward a defenseless minority. How we treat the foreigner, the alien, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow is notice...