Bible Verse of the Day
October 3rd Through October 8th
Monday October 3, 2016
1
Peter 1:3
3-Praise be to
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us
new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.
There have been many writers and commentators that have
referred to Paul as the faith Apostle, to John as the love Apostle and to Peter
as the Apostle of Hope. This is because of the central themes of each of these great writers of the New
Testament. In this letter from Peter there is some specific emphasis on Hope.
He starts off
with praise to God, which is where we all should have our starting point for
each and every heartbeat of our lives. Peter begins his thesis of this verse
with, “In His great mercy,”
everything we have of God is because of His mercy on us. Peter specifically
talks about our new birth into the royal family of God and the hope that we
have because of this. This is not a questionable hope as the world knows hope,
but a living hope that we can know
that we are born again as children of God.
All this is
because of the great Love of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us (John
1:14), to live a life of true righteousness, that He knew we could never do.
Then, in the greatest demonstration of love that has ever been revealed
and displayed, He took the flogging, that we should have taken, and allowed
them to nail him to the cross. He did not deserve that punishment, that should
have been ours, but in His great love he did this for us, in His great mercy.
Then when all living, at that time, that were following
Jesus, had lost all hope of any of the great truths that He talked to them
about during His earthly ministry, God performed what is unquestionably the
greatest miracle of all time. The tomb could not hold our Lord and Savior and
He rose from the dead, giving us the living
hope by which we can know we have eternal life.
Because of the Great miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, there
is a great miracle that is being performed everyday by God right now. That is
the miracle of salvation, that leads to our new birth into a living hope of eternal life.
Tuesday October 4 2016
Proverbs
27:1
Do not boast
about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
There are many
places in the bible that talks about taking advantage of today while we have a
today, this verse is one of the many. There is one that always stands out,
recorded in 1 Kings 20. King Ahab of Israel was preparing to go to war against
King Ben-Haden of Aram, Ben-Haden sent King Ahab a message, "May the gods deal with me, be it
ever so severely, if enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a
handful " (1 Kings 20:10). King Ahab of Israel sent
Ben-Haden a message back, "Tell him:
’One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off’ "
(1 Kings 20:11).
The fools of the
world unwisely
believe that they can affect the future and control the outcome of tomorrow,
however, tomorrow and the entirety of the future is resting in the hands of
almighty God.
Another great scripture that speaks of the dangers of
putting things off until tomorrow is found in James 4:13-15:
13-Now listen, you who say, "Today or
tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business
and make money." 14-Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then
vanishes. 15-Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will
live and do this or that."
Our lives do not belong to us, we were purchased by our
Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. He paid the ultimate price for us on the Cross
of Calvary, He shed His perfect, sinless blood to justify us before God. What
the foolish of this world fail to understand or comprehend, is that we live or
die, as God wills.
Isaiah 55:6
Seek
the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
This
theme of reaching out to God right now, and not putting it off until tomorrow
or a later date that would be more convenient for you, is found throughout the
bible. Our bible verse for yesterday was on this very subject (Proverbs 27:1).
We find this also from our James study, (James 4:13-16).
There
are many other places in the bible that talk about this same theme, here is a
list of just a few, perhaps you can find more. Psalm 103:13-17; 1 Timothy 6:16;
Psalm 90:4-6; 1 Peter 1:24-25.
The
Prophet Isaiah is trying to electrify upon God’s people an awareness and
appreciation of, this is the time that God can be found, so seek after God
today, do not put it off until tomorrow. The Prophet is not saying that God is
hiding Himself and today is the only day he can be found. God can only be found
when the hearts of people are persuaded to look for Him, this desire in our
hearts to seek after God, is a gift from God. The idea here is not that God
will not be here tomorrow, He is eternal, it is that we may not be here
tomorrow.
There
is another thesis that can be found in this warning to the Children of Israel
from Isaiah (55:6). There was coming a time, not too many years from the time
that Isaiah wrote this, that the Promised Messiah would show Himself on the earth.
There would be many that would deny Christ Jesus as the Son of God, and miss
out on the greatest blessing of all, eternal life.
If
we fail to seek after God, when this gift of desire is placed in our hearts, we
may very well lose some great blessing that God has in store for us. There are
also many today, that lose that greatest blessing of eternal life, by putting
off accepting Christ as their Savior until a later time in their life.
Thursday October 6 2016
Isaiah
26:4
Trust in the LORD
forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.
Saturday August 27th our verse of the day was
from this chapter (Isaiah 26:3) 3-You
will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust
in you.
In trusting the Lord forever, we will find the peace that
is found in the previous verse. Trusting in God must be a lifestyle, not just
something we talk about when the subject comes up among other brothers and
sisters in Christ. We Trust in the LORD forever because He is the Rock eternal. He is the foundation of all that exist,
the giver of life and the sustainer of life, without Him any foundation we
might have will be unstable at best.
There are times
that we might experience, tragedy, persecution or poverty, but in all we must
maintain our faith that God will use everything in our lives for good, for His
good and our good as well (Romans 8:28). We sometimes become impatient and want
the solution to our problem right now, because we do not see that whatever
tribulation we are going through is going to mature us, in our role as soldiers
in God’s army. Satan will tempt us to try to pull ourselves out of the trial
God is putting us through, when in fact we should let the trial run the course
God has mapped out for us (James 1:2-4)
The Rock eternal: This is not saying that our Lord and
Savior, Christ Jesus is a solid rock that we can stand on, but The Rock Eternal. This concept brings
to mind a rock cliff, that the ones that are trusting in the Lord and Him only,
can find shelter from all of life’s storms and enemies. The inspiration for the
old hymn written by Augusts Toplady, Rock of Ages, was taken from this verse.
Psalm
62:1
1-Truly my soul
finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.
There is no
definitive evidence from the Bible that the setting of this Psalm was during
the rebellion of Absalom, (2 Samuel 15-18) however, David wrote this Psalm while
he was in the desert of Judah, facing treason from someone. He courageously
faces his enemies as we see in verse 3-4, but his main and major focus
throughout this Psalm is on God.
Truly my soul finds rest in God: It is a natural thing for humans to
consider reason in a situation, when we ought to believe and trust in God. We
instinctively want to work out our problems, on our own, when we should be
still and let God work. Time stands still for no one and the trials and
hardships that we will face will continue on twenty-four hours a day seven days
a week. The only rest we can ever know is if we give our problems to God and
then get out of His way. Then and only then will we find rest for our souls.
My salvation comes from him: Jesus has made it crystal clear that
the only way to salvation is through Him (John 14:6). The Gospel of Christ
Jesus is unambiguously clear about salvation by grace through faith, and not by
any works we might do (Ephesians 2:8-9). Still people want to think that there
is something they must do in order to be saved. These acts of self-work include
baptism, following a certain set of rules, belonging to a certain denomination,
speaking in a language unknown to man, and the list goes on and on.
David knew that
his salvation came from God, and that there was nothing he could do himself to
assure an eternal life in God’s kingdom. There has always only been one way to
be saved, from the beginning of sin in the world till now, that is faith and
trust in the promised Messiah. Before the Cross it was belief in the promise of
the coming Savior and since the Cross it is belief in Christ Jesus as the true
Messiah, the true Savior of the World.
Isaiah
43:11-12
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11-
I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior.
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12-
have revealed and saved and proclaimed — I, and not some foreign god among
you. You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "that I am God.
In
as crystal clear terms as can humanly be made, God is saying He is the only
God, and apart from Him there is no way to salvation. In the second verse
Isaiah talks about foreign gods, however,
these are created by man and in no way can they lead to salvation and eternal
life. Paul refers to Satan as “the
god of this age” in 2 Corinthians 4:4, this was a pattern of Paul’s writing,
he did not mean that Satan was the true God, but so many see him as a god and
follow his evil ways.
Salvation has from the
beginning of time been accomplished by the same method, trust in the true
Messiah, the only savior of the world. As has been mentioned many times in
this daily handout, in Sunday school class, bible study class, the worship
service and in individual discussions, before the Cross salvation was
attained through trust in the promise of the coming Messiah and since the
Cross it is through trust in Christ Jesus as the true Messiah of the world.
This theme is repeated
throughout the Old Testament, still millions of people did not accept Christ
as the Messiah when He stepped onto this world as the God Man. Even though it
is again repeated in the New Testament, there are untold millions that do not
accept Christ Jesus as the Savior of the world, the only way to heaven.
Those before Christ
mistakenly believed that the Law was given for them to follow, even though
none could follow it. So in their foolish pride they reverted to
self-righteousness, which is no righteousness at all. God’s Law has always
been, and still is today, a gauge in which we measure our sin. Even today,
when the gospel is so readily available, because of pride, so many want to
think they can do it their own way, and do not need Christ in their
life.
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