July 30, 2016

Greetings My Friend, My Bible study takes me through four different books as I read through the Bible each year which is helping me to focus better since my mind wanders rather easily. I also journal what I learn, I found a format that is working well for me which has 5 headings. The first heading is "What is on my mind today?", Second is "What can I talk to God about today?", Third is Scripture - What does God say?", fourth "What does the Holy Spirit say?", and fifth is "How can I serve others today?". Sometimes as I read the OT reading and then read the NT reading I see that both testaments are talking about the same things. Today in Jeremiah I read, "They bend their tongues and not truth has grown strong int the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me declares the Lord."Next I read in Matthew "So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Jesus was pointing out how the religious leaders were living one way and acting another and their hearts were not of God at all. It seems that this problem exists still today. We have leaders who want us to think they are wholesome and lead a very different private life in the hopes of not being found out. Even some of our religious leaders are like this as well. We have come to accept this behavior and not demand otherwise. For me I remember thinking that as long as they govern well, the problem with that thinking is people do not live what they speak then they will not govern what they speak. Later in the chapter Jesus teaches us to clean the inside of the cup. We can not begin to live right when we allow ourselves to pretend to be wholesome and pure but allow ourselves to indulge in impure living in secrete. We wind up spending too much time trying to keep our secret sins secret. In Jeremiah God is telling Israel that He is taking them into exile for their blatant disobedience. God had sent prophets to warn them and the prophets were killed and ignored. Today God reminds us to follow Him and we choose to turn to our own ways. One of the first things we as a nation can do is to change our standards by voting in people who are honest and live right. We can choose people who hold the same moral standards we hold dear to us, for many it is the God of the Bible's standards. We can go back to our founding father's faith of Jesus at the center of our nation again. We can still be the melting pot of religions but we need to live the God of the Bible, treat other's as God treats us and maybe we then can bring other non believers to Jesus. When we live in other countries they live their faith whether we believe or not. We can treat those that are different with respect and not abuse them for we all are sinners and fall short. One group of people's sin is no greater than another, in God's eyes the smallest sin in our eyes is still sin. By treating people with respect and dignity we are then able to love as God loves, seeking our highest good. That means we do not justify or enable people to stay in their dysfunction. Today we enable people to stay poor by giving them handout after handout without making them work for their handouts. In Israel God commanded them to harvest once and then leave the left over harvest for the poor to glean and help themselves. It was not harvested and then processed and then given for the poor, the poor had to work for their food. In the desert God provided manna but the people had to go and get it, cook it. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet