Today’s Children’s service was about the Israelites crossing the Jordan River. I was just thinking about how the OT is symbolic to our own path.
So they brought for the Ark and the waters were stopped. They crossed over. What does this mean to us in our walk of obedience.
Consider the contents of the Ark. with the law, the staff, and manna.
All we need is the guidance, the support, and the nourishment of God!
Much more on this later in another post.
Mark K.
I’m reading this in my Bible app. Consider this:
Depression is how your soul processes regret.
Anxiety is how your soul processes fear.
This reading is all about how to find peace. How to move from being paralyzed by depression and anxiety. Much about understanding the factors you are in control of, and even more importantly, the factors you are not.
So, what do I fear? Death? In a way. Irrelevance? Yes. I want to have made the world a better place for having been here. To fulfill the plan that God has for me.
I’ve been feeling anxiety when I wake up in the morning. It seems to go away pretty quickly as I start the day but it can be pretty intense. I have also backed out of some commitments when I feel the depression as well. Some of this is needing to focus on some important things when I’m busy. Some of this is good old depression. Some of this is being in the position I am at work and life. I can choose to do things or not.
This is cool but it is also dangerous as I can become lazy and complacent in the absence of accountability.
Out of this same reading plan came the discussion of perceptions of God as a God of War. The OT certainly seems to support this.
Yet, He is not. He is the God of Peace. I have felt that presence and feel it nearly every day. For me it needs to extend into more areas.
But about the reputation of God as a God of War. The war thatIS going on is a war for our souls. Perhaps in all the wars and battles and details in the OT we are confronted with symbols of our own inner battle since creation: to bridge the gap between us and God.
Jesus does this for us. Prior to Jesus we had little hope for making that connection. Jesus’ death to bear our sins released us from that chasm and we connect directly with God again. So what is the use of the OT now? Berg ape it is allegorical to our struggle not to connect but to live in obedience. The wars inside of us are wars of obedience.
Mark K.
God’s ways are mysterious. Of course they are! We are but nothing in comparison to His awesome power and wisdom. Yet, He is close and bids us to have a life together f obedience.
How simple this is, in principle. We have the wisdom of God to draw upon and we can trust that he will lead us down the right path. All things will happen for his plan and our good. Yet we resist. We like to drive our own car.
Is this really the greatest game f sins, to assume we know better than God but n how to lead our lives? It seems so silly to think this way but we do it all the time.
Jest let Him lead!
Mark K.
We hear the story of Jesus presented to the people and the people choose to set Barrabas free. This is akin to the two goats presented. The Jewish Day if Atonement where one is killed and the other is set free.
When there is to be an atoning sacrifice, it needs to be between equal choices. According to the book, Barrabas actually meant “Son of the Father”. When Jesus does to atone for us, he became like us in every way. He became flesh and blood.
It is a real mystery that the notion is f sacrifice and atonement are built into the fabric of the universe, but it seems to apply to our creation and nature.
Given the choice to walk with God, mankind chose to build a gulf between himself and God. Out of free will we rejected God. It is hard to understand the absolutes if a parent who sets the ultimatum of the “rules of the house” and lives by them.
His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Mark K.
The Mission – Live today as one sentenced to judgement, but who has instead been set free and given a second chance at life, because of the live and sacrifice of Him
