Contemplative Bible Reading

Psalm 101: 6 (New Living Translation)

I will search for faithful people
    to be my companions.

Companions can define a person. I choose my companions. I choose my life.

The writer of this 3,000-year-old verse searched for people who were faithful to God the creator to be his companions, to define his life. This is certainly virtuous.

Notice that this person is not hiding behind a wall. This person is not gathering the faithful to hide with him. He is gathering the faithful to strengthen himself.

He then goes out into the world where there are plenty of persons who are unfaithful to God. Perhaps some of these will come into the circle of faithful companions. Perhaps some of these will move into someone else’s circle of faithful companions.

This is part of the tension of the life of a person who is faithful to God. We need faithful companions. We need time with the unfaithful. We need guidance and wisdom.

Please God, grant me guidance and wisdom to live in this tension.

2 Peter 2:19 (New Living Translation)

They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you.

This is but one verse and one description in a chapter full of them. The persons described herein “know better.” They are surrounded by those who live for Christ, but they are going the other way.

This verse summarizes the tragedy: they are prisoners of a life that ends in destruction. This is a horrible life. Today is as good as it will ever be. Everything is going down and will continue.

“But they are having fun.”

Really? Every night is a nightmare. Every morning is a hangover. Everyone they know suspects them. They hate everyone in return.

Fun?

Tragedy.

God thank you for your grace.

John 6:59-61 (New Living Translation)

59 He (Jesus) said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

60 Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?”

61 Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, “Does this offend you?

Jesus taught people daily. Sometimes, it just didn’t make sense to those who heard what Jesus said.

Well, no duh. Jesus was the Son of God sent from God to teach mankind the matchless wisdom of God. No wonder it gave some of us a headache, and 2,000 years later it still hurts the head and heart.

I don’t understand everything about God.

Of course I don’t. If I understood, I would be greater than God. Perhaps that is the problem many of us have with all this. On some days we want to be God. We just can’t give up that job to God. Ego I guess.

Deuteronomy 24:19 (New Living Translation)

When you are harvesting your crops and forget to bring in a bundle of grain from your field, don’t go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigners, orphans, and widows. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all you do.

These sentences are the start of a section that discussed several types of crops. The message is clear to the land owner, the farmer, the person who owns.

Leave something for those who are passing through. Leave something for those who have no means of sustenance. You will have plenty. Trust that God will give you plenty.

I’m not a farmer. I don’t forget part of my paycheck on the sidewalk somewhere to go back and retrieve it or let someone else have it. I have to do something to allow someone else to have part of what God has given to me.

Did I forget to do that this week? Oh, must have slipped my mind. I need to remember better, huh? Please God, help me in my unbelief.

Matthew 5:21-22 (New Living Translation)

21 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ 22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.

Once again, America is on fire. Marches and rioting and fires. This is about racism in our lives. Well, no it isn’t. Race discussions draw attention away from the root of the matter.

This is about police brutality. Agents of the state are out of control. We should reconsider the role of Christians in the kingdom of God and how we relate to local kingdoms. No, it isn’t about police brutality, that only draws attention away from the root of the matter.

Jesus spoke of the root of the matter. Murder brought judgement—death by stoning. Jesus updates the teaching: anger at another person created in the image of God brings judgement. Hmmm, we have to … well, maybe there is a problem in translation here, because it is okay to be angry at the cop who killed that man or that woman who called the police or that person who…

No, its not okay. And we know its not okay. No one discovered these verses this week. The verses have been right in front of us all our lives, and we know what they mean.

It is not okay to scowl at the person who is or is not wearing a mask at the grocery store. It is not okay to scowl at the person who sped through a yellow light at the corner. It is not okay to scowl at the person who killed another person. It is not okay to scowl at the guy who just parked his car next to me blocking the street while he picks up a carry out order at Chick-Fil-A—and that is happening to me as I type these words.

This is a difficult teaching. (Hmmm, that phrase is somewhere in the Bible.)

This shows how far we are from God. This shows how much help I need from God in my unbelief.

Let’s focus on the root of the problem. Let us all examine the one person who we can affect.

Leviticus 26:13 (English Standard Version)

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

God is talking to His people. God reminds them of their recent past as slaves in Egypt. Their yoke is gone.

A yoke sits literally on the neck of an animal. The people had a figurative yoke weighing on their neck. God removed that.

God’s work made the people walk erect. Other translations use the phrase “walk with their heads held high.” Just as animals with a yoke cannot walk with their heads held high, slaves cannot walk with their heads high—erect.

At this point in this little post, we jump to today. Maybe I can walk physically erect with my head held high. Maybe not. That isn’t important.

What is important is that spiritually, I walk erect. I am not ducking the swings of someone who wants to swat me every time I make a mistake, every time I sin. All my mistakes (sins) are washed away. (Of course I can abuse this cleansing, but that is another post for another day.)

Whew. What a relief. All that ducking all those attempted swats is exhausting. I would eventually stay in the ducked position like an ox with a yoke on his … Oh wait, this is where God stepped in and took all that away.

Thank you God for taking away the yoke that kept me bent in a perpetual ducking position. Help me in my unbelief.

1 Samuel 7:10 (New Living Translation)

Just as Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines arrived to attack Israel. But the Lord spoke with a mighty voice of thunder from heaven that day, and the Philistines were thrown into such confusion that the Israelites defeated them.

This verse was written during the time of the prophet Samuel. The Philistines were about to attack God’s people. They were in a good position when viewed from military science.

The Israelites defeated the Philistines. Thunder confused the Philistines. The thunder came from the mighty voice of God.

Well, that doesn’t make any sense. Well, that makes perfectly good sense. Loud noise is disorienting. That is why fans scream loudest when the other team is trying to do something in a sport. There is a physical pressure put on the brain by loud noise. God thundered in the ears of the Philistines; they stumbled in confusion.

Simple. Effective. And something that makes me wonder. If it rains today, is that just another rainy day or is God using rain to tell me something? Am I listening for God?

Exodus 9:16 (New Living Translation)

But I have spared you for a purpose—to show you my power and to spread my fame throughout the earth.

God is talking to Moses. God is talking about Pharoah.

God was going to bring His people out of Egypt. There were many ways to do this. One simple way was to snap a finger and boom, it was done. That wasn’t God’s choice.

Instead, God was going to use Pharoah—a person famous throughout the world—to declare the glory of God to the world. Pharoah was to be a preacher. History shows that Pharoah was a great preacher of God’s glory. Thousands of years later, a few billion people know of Pharoah, Egypt, the plagues, the Exodus, the Red Sea, and Pharoah’s glorious death.

All praise to Pharoah for his sacrificial service to God. Huh?

Yes, Pharoah gave his life to the glory of God. Huh?

Yes, through Pharoah’s death and the death of his army, people then and 30 centuries later know about the power of God.

Strange that God would use Pharoah to declare His glory. Is it any stranger that God would use me? Not really. No stranger than God using anyone else rich or poor, famous or unknown, and any other extremes we could consider.

God uses each of us in different ways on different days in different situations. Sometimes it makes sense to us, usually it doesn’t. Still, God help me in my unbelief as You use me in unbelievable ways.

John 1:31-34 (New Living Translation)

31 I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.”

32 Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. 33 I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.”

John the Baptist is talking. John met many people. Large crowds came out to see him. John was from a big family, lots of distant relatives.

Jesus of Nazareth was one of John’s cousins. John saw cousin Jesus in the crowd one day. Note verse 31, John saw his cousin and didn’t recognize cousin Jesus as the Messiah. Just good old cousin Jesus.

Then John saw the Holy Spirit descend on cousin Jesus and rest on him. Hmmm. Odd. Then John remembered something God had told him. John would see the Holy Spirit rest on the Messiah.

Let’s pause a moment and try to be John. Cousin Jesus; nice fellow. Son of Uncle Joseph who had a little carpentry shop up in that poor village of Nazareth. Uncle Joseph made basic stuff from wood. Nothing fancy because no one in Nazareth could afford anything fancy. Poor country cousins, not like John who was from the big, rich city of Jerusalem.

But here was the Holy Spirit descending on poor country cousin Jesus. Hmmm. Perhaps I misheard what God told me. Perhaps my eyes played tricks on me. This cousin Jesus, why he couldn’t be…could he?

Despite all that made sense, John the Baptist proceeded with what he heard from God and what he saw with his own eyes. From that point on, he proclaimed that his cousin Jesus was the Chosen One of God.

God speaks to us with Spiritual means. Sometimes God speaks to us through our ears and eyes. God, help me to be aware of both the spiritual and physical.

John 20:13 (New Living Translation)

“Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.

“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

This is on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection. Mary Magdalene finds an empty tomb. Jesus is gone. She doesn’t assume that Jesus has risen from the dead. She doesn’t assume anything.

Mary knows what she knows: she doesn’t know where Jesus is.

She weeps. What else could she do? This is a person who doesn’t know where to seek her Savior.

This is the state of many persons throughout history up to today. They know they need a Savior; they don’t know where to seek their Savior.

Through the grace of God and my family, I know where to seek the Savior. So, what am I doing with and for those who weep inside because they are like Mary, they don’t know where to seek their Savior.