Day 44: Original 50 Days of Pray Revisited

Thoughts of Day 44: The laws of the Old Testament were created to show the people the need for them to rely on God. Our Governments make laws to help us be better people and create a civil society. Sports give us rules so the game will run smooth and all is fair. Jesus narrowed all the laws down into two simple statements; 1) Love God, 2) Love your neighbor. Everything else can be seen in these, if you loved your neighbor would you lie, steal, hurt him?

Day 44

Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. (Psalm 119:18 NIV)

Wait a minute, laws are rules, rules are restrictive, how can I see wonderful things in your law, it makes no sense.

You probably hear lots if reasons people won’t go to church but one I hear a lot is the fact that there are so many rules to follow. They focus on the rule it self but don’t really look at the consequences in their lives if they don’t follow it. Now I am not promoting legalism but just follow me for a minute.

The church says you shouldn’t have sex before marriage. Keep the marriage bed pure. The non-believer will say “your trying to take my fun away” but the don’t see the negative side of sex before marriage, such as unplanned pregnancy, STDSs, higher rate of divorce once you do get married. To see the wonderful side if that “law” is that God will bless you for being faithful. Your connection with your spouse will be stronger. And outside desires for others will be weaker as you don’t know what you are missing out on.

This is only one example but I just want to say that we serve a loving God, who like our earthly father outs rules in place for our benefit. He wants us to be safe, and when we decide that His rules are not worth following and we want to go out on our own that even then His rules will follow us. I was reading today about the prodigal son and when he was in the pig pen, feeding them corn it read he wanted to eat the corn cobs but no one gave him any. Why didn’t he just take them? It read like he was left alone to do this job, but I believe his father taught him not to steal and his teachings as a child kicked in and he wouldn’t steal even from the pigs.

So in saying all this, Remember that God isn’t here to make your life miserable with rules. He knows what’s best for you and has given us guidelines to live by, and if followed will provide us with wonderful things if we only open our eyes.

Dear Jesus, open my eyes to the wonders of your law. I trust you have my best interests at heart and are protecting me from evil. Thank you for everything you do for me. Amen

 

Day 29: Original 50 Days of Pray Revisited

Thoughts on Day 29: We sometimes wonder how on earth the Jews were supposed to follow all the decrees and laws that were put in place. To make matters worse they kept adding to them and making them even more unattainable. The purpose of all those laws wasn’t meant to have them fulfil them all but to put their trust in a God who would love them. Jesus turned that all in and said love God, love your neighbour, accept my sacrifice and work at telling others about me. Are you focused on rules or are you working on your relationship with God and reaching others?

 

DAY TWENTY-NINE

If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” (John 5:46-47 NIV)

There are some who believe that the Old Testament is irrelevant and not required for Christian living. I make the case that even Jesus knew the Old Testament scriptures were a valued part of His ministry.

In the above verse, for example, Jesus was explaining to the people that if they couldn’t believe the teachings of Moses how were they going to grasp His.

The OT is filled with lots of life lessons, and we do see all the laws that seem overwhelming that were given to the Jews. God gave those to His chosen people to help them to be set apart from the normal. If they lived a lifestyle that God had shown them they would have never been defeated so many times. Their health would have been amazing, their love life with their wives would have been the envy of every outside man. They (and I can only assume this) would have become the greatest nation on earth and would still be around today.

But they didn’t, so Jesus said if You can’t even follow the teachings of Moses, how are you going to follow mine?

Pick up the bible, study a book of the OT, dig deep and see what truths you can find that lead you to Jesus. Apply them to your life and grow.

Dear Jesus, your whole word is important to us. Help me to take time daily reading your scriptures, I ask You to reveal Yourself to me in everything I read.
Amen

Day 43: 50 Days of Change

“We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments.”‭‭1 John‬ ‭5:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Many people like to use the excuse that they won’t be a part of any church because there are to many rules. What they fail to remember is that we are a rule based society. We have grown up following rules, rules of government which we call laws, rules we followed that our parents placed before us, rules when we go to school and rules at work. There are even unspoken rules of the playground. 

Many of the rules that individual churches and organizations have put in place over the years were made to help separate us from sin. The bible in the Old Testament is full of laws that we can read and wonder how we could ever follow each and every one. I don’t believe it is possible, I think God gave us such a list to show us that we can’t do it alone. That it was a way for us to see that in ourselves we can’t do anything to be redeemed. We require some help from something or someone. Jesus is that help.

When Jesus was asked about the laws or rules and which one was the greatest he gave us two to follow which in essence summed up all the rules. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor and you love God, you won’t murder anyone, you won’t lie to them, you won’t steal from them, you won’t sleep with their wives and daughters. If we can work on these two commands then the rest will follow as you won’t want to do them. 

If you are overwhelmed by rules in your faith, either because you are imposing them on yourself or your church has you under their thumb, I pray that you ask God to guide you in his commands. Ask him to guide you in loving your neighbor, ask him to show you how you can be an example of his love to them. Continually love God, don’t give up on him in the good or bad, he hasn’t given up on you. 

Father, I love you so much, thank you for send your son Jesus to die on the cross and redeeming me of my sins. I ask that I can love my neighbor more, give me opertunities to show your love to them. I ask that anyone who may be feeling oppressed by rules that aren’t from you God, that they are shown a way out, a way to freedom in you.  Holy Spirit guide us in our mission of reaching the lost, let our lives be an example of Christ love for us and them. We pray that you will give us a hunger to share you salvation message with them, because they matter to you so they matter to us. Amen