I feel as though this whole "waking up before the kids" idea has gone the way of the dinosaurs. I'm never going to get a good grasp on it. Not until they're teenagers anyway. Then I'll want to sleep in with them! Nope, I'm just not a morning person. I will endeavour to get back to waking up before the kids again during the week. The important part of this challenge is the one that I am meeting on a daily basis - reading the chapters of John. A quick recap for you - I found the challenge on Back to Bible. Studies show that it takes 21 days to make something a habit. How convenient that the book of John has 21 chapters. In the beginning I was reading along with what Back to the Bible's commentary but going through this I've modified that a bit. Instead I read the chapter and pick out things that really struck me. Check out my last 6 posts to see what I mean. Are you ready? Let's get into Chapter 7!
We start with Jesus being in Galilee and a big festival going on in Judah. His disciples are trying to get him to go to the festival because no one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret (v. 4). Man, these guys. Sometimes they just. don't. get it. Jesus doesn't want the glory for himself. A good lesson to a lot of "Christians". Doing something to make yourself look good in the name of Jesus, that's not what it's about. You should want to do good things because you love Him, not because you want the spotlight. This is the biggest thing that struck me today. So many times we just want to look good. "Oh! I'll write that cheque for the charity to feel good about myself." "I'm going to help out that person so that they're in debt to me." These thoughts are so... abhorrent! Jesus never wanted that! He never once said I'm healing people to make myself look good. He pointed all the glory to his Father. He created an amazing example for us to follow. So why don't we? Hmm, I'm going to leave that one hanging right there, but if you have a response/rebuttal, the comment section is on down at the bottom of the page. After the disciples left Jesus also goes... in secret. The Jewish leaders were on the look out for him. They wanted to arrest and kill him. Jesus had performed so many miracles and spoken and taught so much that he had taken over the festival. People everywhere were talking about him. Oh, not out loud of course. They feared the leaders. But there were lots of whispers. It even records that some people thought he was the Messiah while others believed he was deceiving people. They were split. Some believed, some didn't. The point I'm trying to make is... Jesus was at the forefront of most conversations. You know the saying "no publicity is bad". Think along those lines. He may have gotten a bad rep from some people, but they were still talking about him. Simple as that. You may hate tabloids, but you still read the headlines in the grocery store. You still know that Angelina filed for a divorce. Finally, half way through the festival Jesus teaches in the temple and it amazed a lot of people. They couldn't figure out how he could know so much without proper teaching. My favourite line is when, after saying people are trying to kill him because he healed a man's whole body on the Sabbath. He tells them to stop judging by appearances and judge correctly. This is when things really start to get interesting. The crowd really starts to talk about Jesus and being the Messiah and this angers the leaders so much they send out the temple guards to arrest Jesus but no one laid a hand on him. This wasn't the time that Jesus was supposed to be caught. We hear his words to the people about how they will look for him but not find him and where he is, we cannot go. I love Jesus' riddles. I doubt the people of the time liked them very much. They could be hard to understand. Like the whole judgement thing. It's so easy to say that someone is holy because of how they look. I mean, honestly, appearance make it easy to be set apart. You can notice specific things about people. Some tribes in Africa wear certain jewelry, they are easy to distinguish. Some Christians wear a cross, you can see it. Wiccans will sometimes have a pentacle with them (I know, I was one). These are all things that you can wear to stand apart. What about how you act though? Do you go to church on Sunday, but maintain your affair on Monday? Do you wear a cross, yet call someone to tell them all the latest things you found out at the bingo hall? I'm just postulating. I really have no idea. How about prayer? Do you pray from your heart, or do you just make it sound something you heard someone else say? Do you rejoice in the things that God has given you, or do you strive by your own means for more? These are hard questions and I believe when Jesus said you judge by appearance he meant that we make snap decisions on what we think is right i.e. the law. Not what God's Word says is right. Finally, at the end of the passage we reconnect with Nicodemus, a person we met earlier in chapter 3. You know, the one that was having the conversation at night because he was afraid what other's may think. I'm so happy at the end of this passage though because it appears that what Jesus said to him had some effect. When the other leaders are angry and want to kill Jesus he asks them Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing? (v. 51) It's too late though, they are set in their ways. They basically tell him to get lost. You're wrong Nicodemus, check your references. Nothing good comes out of Galilee. Definitely not a Messiah, not even a prophet. Boy, how wrong were they? I love that this circles back to a person we had already met. I love that he stands up for Jesus against the other leaders. I think it's cool that even though everyone is all riled up and want to seize him no one lays a hand on him. It's just a cool chapter. I really enjoyed reading it. I didn't get to read this chapter in a quiet place like I've been meaning to do. I can't complain though. I read it at church in the library while the congregation was worshipping. Don't worry, it was the second service, I didn't skip out on my time in church. Thanks for reading along with me. Tell me how your challenge is going in the comments section.
0 Comments
Cue the chorus of angels - Ahhhhhh Hallelujah! It's Saturday!!! My favourite morning of the week. This is the morning where we don't have to rush around trying to get 2 small beings ready for all their "stuff". Did you remember ______? - Why don't you want grapes in your lunch? - Stop hitting your brother/sister and get changed for school! - Go get some clothes on! You can't go to school naked! - You know, the "stuff". None of that this morning! I didn't even bother to set an alarm because I went to bed late AND I didn't have to get up for anything this morning. As a result, I crawled out of bed around 10 am.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, awesome. Once again, I read off my phone, but I felt fresh as a daisy and let me tell you, I was excited for this reading. Chapter 6 starts off with Jesus feeding the five thousand... men. That doesn't include women and children in the count. I think it's safe to assume that you could say there was maybe even 8,000-9,000 people in general. He did this with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish... and there were leftovers! Can you imagine? I'm going to sit down with Jesus and engorge myself with him and roughly 7,500 other people on only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Then, when he realizes these people now want to forcefully make him a king, he leaves. He doesn't want that. He has come to show how to serve and to love. He has come as an example of what humble submission should look like. After feeding the people and leaving the disciples get into a boat and as a result they witness Jesus walking on water over to them, calming the storm as he goes. Have you ever had that in your life? There is a storm raging around you and then if you open yourself to Jesus and pray over it, it just gets so much more manageable. He has a tendency to calm the storm of life. When this crowd wakes up they go searching for Jesus and find him on the other side of the lake. There is a very interesting conversation about manna and the bread of life. God provided manna that kept His people alive for the day, but now He has provided his Son to offer eternal life. Sadly people can't understand the direct correlation between these things and a lot of disciples leave Jesus. If you think back and put yourself in the shoes of these people, how do you think you would have responded? The Sunday school answer is that you would have stayed, and I hope that I would have stayed. But we have the bible to provide the answers to our questions. The most these people had was the Old Testament. We have hindsight. They were living in the moment. Let's face it, sometimes I even get confused by what Jesus is teaching. If it wasn't for commentaries and church and discussion, I'd likely have a hard time too. One of the very last things in this chapter is the proclamation from Jesus that one of his 12 closest followers is a devil. That person also doesn't believe and will betray him to his ultimate sacrifice. W-h-o-a. That. Is. Deep. Imagine if you were there when he said this. You'd be like, well it isn't me, is it you? There could even be a sense of paranoia. Who is going to betray Jesus? Perhaps even a sense of judgement. I'm going to find out who it is and kill them before they can betray Jesus. Maybe it'd be like an episode of Survivor. Making alliances and trying to figure out who the ultimate betrayer is. I don't know what I'd do. It would certainly be hard to trust anyone but Jesus at that point. What if my best friend was the betrayer? What do you think the atmosphere would have been like at the end of Chapter 6? Above all, this passage to me reflected communion. We partake of the bread and the wine or juice because it represents the body and blood of Jesus. We do this in remembrance of who Jesus was and what he did for us by dying on the cross so that we could have eternal life. Jesus said that God's people were given manna each day but by taking the bread and drinking the wine/juice God has provided us with life, even after our existence on this earth is over. It's such a passage of hope and promise.
How are you doing on the challenge? Let me know in the comments. I'm posting yesterdays reading a day late. It was my 10th anniversary so I didn't have time once I got home after the movies to sit down and write a post. It was midnight when we finally got home. I'm sure you can forgive me. As an aside - Happy Anniversary to me!!! Yesterday in general I had this exhausted feeling like I didn't want to do anything. My phone was dead so my alarm didn't go off. I thought hubby had put it on the charger overnight, but apparently not. At least I didn't break any traditions with this challenge- my kids were still up before me. Tell me again why I'm getting up earlier than my kids to get into God's word? Not only that, tell me how much earlier I have to get up because honestly, I thought 6:30 would do it and I was wrong. I don't think I can do much earlier that than. Think back to my first post when I mentioned that anything before 10 am was too early for me. As it was I could barely lift my head off my pillow to realize that I had forgotten my bible in the car because I was at youth the night before. I ended up reading John 5 on my phone - a bad idea. I don't think I got much from it. John 5 starts with the pool a Bethesda. We meet an invalid man who wants to be healed and apparently the first person into the pool on day the water is stirred gets just that. Jesus looks at the man and tells him to pick up his mat and walk. Now keep in mind that this man had been in his invalid state for 38 (thirty-eight!) years and just by believing what Jesus says and being obedient he's healed. Boom! Mic-drop! Just like that. Oh yeah! I'll admit the believing is the easy part once you see what Jesus can do in someone's life... it's the obedience I have a problem with. Not because it's Jesus, but because Jesus wants us to change and to change we need to struggle and who wants that? But I try my best to stay close to Him and listen for his gentle nudging. I should mention that Jesus healing took place on the Sabbath. The only reason that the Pharisees noticed was because the man was walking and carrying his mat. I'm sure they had seen him around. Maybe they snubbed him, maybe they took pity on him. Perhaps it was both. They are a large group after all. It was more that he was carrying his mat. A big no, no on the Sabbath. You weren't supposed to do anything, even make a coffee. It was a day of complete and total rest. So, if they have a problem with this man carrying his mat you can just imagine how upset they're going to be when they realize that Jesus performed a miracle enabling the man to walk- on the Sabbath. This is the first real encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees in the book of John. The one where Jesus points out that he the Son of God, sent by the Father. Well, we all know how this ends. I didn't really take a whole lot away from this reading. Like I said before, Friday wasn't a great day for me in terms of alertness. It took about 2.5 hours at work for me to even get going. I'm talking, really dragging my arse. But for not taking much away during the day, it was worth it to take a second look while writing up this post. Ack!! I thought I set my alarm for this morning and I totally didn't!! No wonder I heard my kids talking. I thought it was just another day of them being weird, but no, it was my mistake. Although, truth be told, 7:00 am is still too early for Honey. My loving husband rolled over, put his arm around me and said "if you're going to do your bible reading you'd better wake up". Then he crawled out of bed to take care of the kids. How awesome is that!?
John 4 starts off with Jesus leaving Judah and returning to Galilee after the arrest of John the Baptist. I know this because it says so in my study bible. He deliberately avoids confrontation with Pharisees. I wouldn't say he ran away, but knew that greater things needed to happen and it wasn't his time to entwine himself with them just yet. Today's reading is one of my favourite stories of the bible, the Samaritan woman at the well. I mean, any time Jesus interacts with women I automatically pay a bit more attention because it's just something that was unheard of. Something else to be noted that is that because she was Samaritan alone was a reason for a Jewish person not to speak to her. Right off the bat, from a cultural stand point of the time she had two strikes against her. Now, take a look at when she was at the well - noon. Most women of the time would go to the well in the morning for a couple reasons - it wasn't so hot and to socialize with each other. She avoided going to well when others were there at the cost of her personal comfort. She hadn't lived a great life and was now living with a man who wasn't even her husband. You can bet tongues were wagging about her, poor thing. Then she meets Jesus and he tells her about her life. Not only that, he tells her about the living water that she could have. I mean, can you imagine- you're trying to avoid people, and when you come to the well there's Jesus just lounging there looking for a drink, then he tells you about spiritual life and how to be saved. Man, what an experience. When the disciples come back they see Jesus talking to this woman and are all shocked and stuff. Like, come on guys, this is Jesus we're talking about. He doesn't need earthly food to satisfy him. He is fed by the spirit. He is the wellspring of life. Stop worrying about the harvest and start reaping. Isn't that what we, as follower of Christ, should be doing? Sow the good news and bring people to Jesus to gain eternal life. As a result of this encounter with the woman at the well many Samaritans believed. She shed her shame and ran and told people about her encounter. I wish I could do that. Reach out to people that had mocked me and said terrible things about me and share so openly and excitedly about the wonderful new of Jesus. The reading finishes with Jesus healing the Centurion's son. This is an underrated story, I think. I always just gloss over it and I pretty much did today. One thing caught my attention though. Jesus didn't go to the son, and the son was healed. All the centurion did was say he believed and his son was healed. How cool is that! It's kind of like you and me. If we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths, we will be given eternal life. I'm going to be honest. I didn't think a whole lot about today's reading and no passages really jumped out at me like yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I saw that it was the story of the Samaritan woman at the well and I was pretty excited about that. Overall though, I didn't really underline anything, just made some notes along the side as pertained to the cultural history. I didn't find myself rethinking about it during the day, or recalling it to ponder it more. I did however, still bring up John 3:30 and at youth group this evening I could attach the message to that verse so easily. I look forward to Thursday evenings because of our youth group- high school students. I'm one of the leaders. I can be exhausted from work, but when I get there it's like getting a second wind. I genuinely love getting to know the kids and I'm very open about my past with them. Sort of like a - here's how NOT to act testimony. It's an amazing 2 hours of my week and sometimes it can carry me through the week. I love it. One last note about this morning. As I rushed around trying to get ready and realizing that I wouldn't have enough time eat breakfast another coincidence entered the picture. I didn't have to leave my house for an additional half an hour. I was able to have breakfast and head out the door in loads of time. Sorry no pictures this evening. I wrote this post almost past my bed time, or so my iPhone tells me. Join me on this challenge and share your experience. Take some time to go over my previous posts about it and let me know how your days went. I'd love to hear from you. I'm going to be all serious here for a minute... I think my kids are against me. I'm serious! When I started this challenge I thought I'd have no problem. Especially with my daughter, my son I could deal with, but I figured she'd just sleep in because that's what she always does. Never in all my imaginings did I think she'd wake up before me at 6:30 in the morning!!! I think there are other things working against me here, maybe of the spiritual nature. I will continue on though! This morning I used "How Can it Be" by Lauren Daigle as my ringtone and I have to say that it worked a lot better. I had to take a second look when I saw Honey on the computer though. B-Man was still sawing logs and she was up. It was hardly fathomable. Not only that, she was ready for school. Great wonders never cease. Be that as it may, I had to read John 3 on my bed. Which is extremely hard for me because at 6:43 in the morning (yeah that's right I got out of bed faster when I woke up earlier) all I want to do is crawl back under the covers. I found out that this morning's reading was the most influential for me yet. It starts with Nicodemus, a Pharisee, going to see Jesus at night. Why? Maybe he was afraid? Maybe he didn't want to be seen "switching sides". That's what I think anyway, perhaps I'm wrong, but why else do people do things at night unless they have something to hide? Yet, even as a Pharisee, Nicodemus didn't get it. "How do I become born again?" (paraphrase) he asked Jesus. In his talk with Nicodemus Jesus makes the statement that most Christians, and even some people who aren't know - John 3:16 For God so loved the world he gave his one and only son, for whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. But what really struck me in my reading today wasn't verse 16 or even 17 it was verse 30. He must become greater; I must become less. Wow, that is some really amazing stuff. I thought about that one all day. How can I do things so that Jesus becomes greater than what I want? How would you do things so that Jesus is greater than your desires? Follow along with me in this challenge and share how it impacts your day. |
AndreaYou know the saying, the grass is always greener on the other side? This is my attempt to find greener grass right where I am in my life.
BTW - I'm the one on the right, just in case you didn't already know that. Categories
All
Archives
November 2016
|