TODAY’S BIBLE READING CHALLENGE:
Deuteronomy 7:1-8:20
Luke 7:36-8:3
Psalm 69:1-18
Proverbs 12:1
Deuteronomy 7:4 — God cares about who you marry. 2 Corinthians 6:14 warns about being unequally yoked. 1 Kings 11:2-4 reiterates this warning to Solomon and says that the women he married led him astray.
Deuteronomy 7:5 — The LORD does not believe all roads lead to Heaven. He commanded destruction of pagan altars. In Judges 6:25 God commanded Gideon to destroy the altar to the false gods, as He did Josiah in 2 Kings 23:8.
Deuteronomy 7:18 — We are commanded to remember the works of God.
Deuteronomy 7:25 — Sometimes we want to repurpose things used in the service of Satan. Yet, God says we must utterly separate from the worship of other gods.
Deuteronomy 8:10-11 — On March 30, 1863, Abraham Lincoln echoed these words:
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Luke 8:3 — We are introduced to Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who financially supported Jesus. Throughout history God has used people of means to support His work – Frederick the Wise supported Luther, John Thornton partly supported John Newton, Cyrus McCormick supported Moody, Lyman Stewart funded the Fundamentals and started the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (B.I.O.L.A.). There are many others. Interestingly, the financial support recorded by Luke may have been from gratitude – Joanna may have been the mother of the child healed by Jesus in John 4. Today many Christian ministries are supported by faithful older women who are grateful for what the LORD has done in their life.
Psalm 69:5 — Don’t be afraid to admit your faults to the LORD. He knows them already!
Proverbs 12:1 — What do you love?
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