Proverbs 1

What is the purpose of gaining wisdom and knowledge? There are lots of answers to this question and many of them are here in Proverbs 1, but the one that hit me today was found in the first part of verse 4, "for giving prudence to those who are simple." Wisdom and knowledge aren't things just to be gained and hoarded away they are for sharing. It reminds me of the illustration of the two seas in Israel. The Sea of Galilee lets water in but then also releases it into the Jordan River. There is life and prosperity around the Sea of Galilee. The Dead Sea is another story. It takes in and never releases. There is death there. The water contains no life and drinking it doesn't bring life. The difference is one shares the other hoards. It's the difference between life and death. A wise person in God's economy shares. 

Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash

Genesis 13

 Now this chapter starts out right. After the debacle in Egypt, Abram goes back to the place where he first built an altar to God. This is a lesson we should all learn from, after your bad plans have gone bad, go back to where you know God was and seek him there.  

If we know God was blessing us when we were doing some things (prayer time, devotionals, church, etc), maybe we should go back to doing them after a mistake/sin in our life. See what happens. I have to believe it would be a wise choice.   

Genesis 12

Let's prepare for the worst and lie. WHAT?!

Everything about the story of Abram lying and letting Pharoah take his wife is insane in my mind. However, I don't live in a world where being killed so someone can take your wife is a real danger, so maybe I shouldn't judge. However, I have to wonder what Sarai thought and why she agreed. There is a lot here to criticize but at the end of the day, God made it right. I'm thankful he does because I haven't done anything like this, but I have done some really dumb things that God has rescued me from.  

Isaiah 5

 

‭Isaiah‬ ‭5:24‬ ‭NLT‬ Therefore, just as fire licks up stubble and dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will rot and their flowers wither. For they have rejected the law of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies; they have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

God blessed Israel and taught them but disobeyed, that is why God sent judgment. Yes, but that's not all. We'll see as we study scriptures that God's reason God does something is often many faceted. When we read one place, it's his anger, in another it's justice for the poor, another it's to purify, and another it's because of His love for bringing disaster. Which is it? It might be hard to understand but it's all of them. 

Here in this chapter, it is because they have been given so much and have chosen to reject it. It goes with the idea, to who much is given much is required.

Genesis 11

 

Unity is a great thing. Or is it a great thing? If people are united for a good cause then yes unity is good in fact without unity great good cannot be accomplished. However, consider the Nazis reunified and they did a lot, I don't want to say great things because some of the things they accomplished were horrible but they accomplished a lot. 

This is where God is concerned in Genesis chapter 11 at the Tower of Babel. The people are coming together to build a great City so they can't be dispersed as God commanded and many believe so they could stand against any future flood and thus stand against God. God wasn't afraid of them building a tower or of them trying to build it to heaven to challenge him. He is greater than anyone. God's concern was that they could do anything but the things they were going to do were going to be bad. How do we know this because whenever your motives are wrong they affect the outcome?

Luke 4

 In 1 John 2:16 John says "For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world." The reason I mention this in light of Luke 4 is because Jesus was tempted in all three of these in this chapter by Satan. Scripture says that Jesus was tempted like us. Maybe not in every specific thing but in every area and yet was able to resist and with his help we can do the same. 

Note: Jesus was able to resist the Devil and used scripture to do it. You can't use what you don't know. Yes, God can and does give grace to new believers but if we are going to resist sin and the Devil we need to know scripture. So let's continue to study.

Psalm 4

 Is there any good in the world?

I find that there are two major schools of thought. The first is that everyone and everything is basically good. The second is that everything basically is bad. David sees this second group and addresses the problem in verse six. David's answer is to ask God to let His light shine on us. I agree. It is when God shines his light on us and we walk in that light is when the world can see that there is good in this world and that good is God.  

I can't leave without commenting on verses 4 and 5. Don't sin when you are angry and boy, is it easy to. Reflect on your life in times of rest. Offer the right sacrifices (do good) and trust God. If we did these how much better would we live.