This does not mean:

• that I am ceasing my Bible reading.
• that you need to cease your Bible reading.

This does mean:

• that I will cease with my daily writings on this website.

The reason for this is not out of frustration.  This idea was designed as an easy avenue for our church family to read the Bible together.  The goal was to provide a place for questions about the day’s reading to be asked and for thoughts about the day’s reading to be shared.  It has not taken off as such a venue.

I want to thank those who have shared appreciation for my daily posts.  I feel confident that I will take up the task of writing daily devotions at some point in time in the near future.  That was not the goal of this project and I do not feel like I can continue with the daily posts at this point in time.  If there is something else meaningful about the website and this 20 day experiment, feel free to let me know.  The website will still be up for you to share your thoughts if you desire.  I will, of course, be unable to participate for much of the coming days due to my upcoming missions trip.

Keep up with your daily pursuit of God, specifically through His Word, and let us keep encouraging one another in that pursuit.

The miracle child is born.  You would think that this miracle would cause you to have great confidence in God and not be too concerned about people.  Unfortunately, Sarah still is bothered by her servant and Abraham’s other child and sends them away.

A similar theme appears in Matthew.  Jealousy on the part of the Pharisees results in Jesus telling a parable about workers and pay.  The bottom line is that we should want everyone to experience heaven and not just keep it to ourselves.  John and James have the same issue.  They want elite status, but God determines all.

Nehemiah flips the pattern.  Instead of selfishness, the Israelites are seeking to work together.  They covenant together to live separate from other religions.  They also commit to make sure the temple and priests are taken care of.  This will be a tough commitment because it is easy to just make sure our needs are met.

Finally, we get a travel itinerary in Acts.  It lands with a famous farewell.  Paul loved the Ephesians and had spent a long amount of time there.  He makes a brief stop to say goodbye.  He says want we want to be able to say at the end.  He has been faithful towards them.  He also warns them of what will happen so that they will be vigilant.  It is a good lesson on how to leave a legacy.

I see an incredible change in Abraham’s life following his encounter with God Almighty in chapter.  Unfortunately we all see to have some old habit that dies hard and lying about his wife to protect himself is his.  God intervenes in His grace to save the day.

Matthew 19 should cause us to drink in deeply as to who God is.  When we see men questions Jesus it should cause us to recognize His wisdom and knowledge when we are seeking to question Him.  He leaves them in awe and challenges us to put Him first in our lives.

Revival continues in Nehemiah as noted in their lengthy time of repentance and confession.  The chapter ultimately reviews Biblical history as a way to praise God and confess sin.  We do well to do that with Biblical history and God’s work in our past.

In Acts we are seeing a pattern.  God is at work drawing people for salvation everywhere Paul goes.  Unfortunately, Satan is too.  In the face of God bringing freedom, all some men can think about is the money they will lose when people do not worship idols.  Paul is courageous enough to want to walk into a mob, but he is not allowed to.

Wickedness appears to know no end.  Sodom’s wickedness is seen as the men in the town seek to sleep with the men that came to town, which really were angels.  They are prevented.  The compassion of the Lord is more amazing.  God pulls Lot’s family out of town.  He does that in our lives too.  Wickedness again arises in Lot’s daughters’ actions.  The consequences of these actions will live on through the painful annoyance of these people groups.

Greatness is faith.  Jesus exalts a child to the place of greatness and warns of the consequences of leading such a child astray.  Another key lesson to learn is that of how to handle conflict.  Matthew 18 must always be observed.  Finally, there is the challenge of forgiveness.  Of course when God’s forgiveness is relished in our lives it makes it easier to forgive others.

Revival takes place in Nehemiah 8.  Notice how the people longed to hear the word of the Lord.  They stood spontaneously in response to its reading.  They are grieving over past disobedience only to be told that this day is a day to find strength in the joy of the Lord.  Finally, they recognize something they must do and they immediately obey.

In Acts 18 Paul is used by God in Corinth.  God comforts Paul and we are reminded that God can have tons of followers in a city when we do not even realize it.  Apollos becomes another example of this.  God is using him and Priscilla and Aquila and so we know that Paul is not the only servant God uses.  The Kingdom’s work is always bigger than us.

I say this often these days, but it is critical to think deeply about how God interacts with us in a fallen world.  Amazingly, we see in Genesis that God reveals Himself to us.  When Sarah does not respond appropriately, we see God in His mercy determine to bring no consequence, but He still would bring forth this child.  Is it not amazing to think of Mary’s response of faith when told about her pregnancy.  We also see how God brings Abraham into His plans.  God is all-powerful and in control and yet He invites us to be apart of what He does.

Speaking of God revealing Himself, what a sight it must have been to see Jesus pull back the cloak of humanity for His inner circle to get a glimpse of His glory.  One day we will see Him face to face.  The glory is followed by the real world when they come back down the mountain.  I think Jesus is disappointed in His disciples here and He makes things simple if so…don’t rely on your own strength, depend upon a great God.

Nehemiah is moved by God to review the genealogical records, which gives special historical credence to what was happening here.

Finally, we again see that God called Paul and others to Macedonia by a special revelation and yet trouble abounds.  Paul would say elsewhere of a ministry location that there was an open door for the gospel and many adversaries.  That seems to always be the case.  God draws people to know Him at each stop.  In rebuke we learn that Paul and his crew have the reputation of turning the world upside down.  I hope we all want to do that.

God changes lives.  To illustrate this fact, He occasionally changes names.  For Abraham and Sarah, these new names were indicative of a new beginning.  They were now prepared to experience God in a new way as God Almighty and to have the child of promise in spite of them being 100 and 90 years old respectively.  God Almighty can do more than you ask or imagine.

The change was still coming in the lives of the disciples and would never come in the lives of most of the Pharisees.  The unfortunate highlight of this chapter in Matthew is Peter telling Jesus that His plans were wrong as Jesus told his disciples how He would suffer and die.  In both of these first two chapters today, we have Bible heroes telling God to do things another way.  Fortunately, God does not change His plans.

Nehemiah is such an encouragement.  First, we all want to be involved in a work that is too important to be distracted from.  Nehemiah also had a God-given discernment to tell when he was hearing from God or man in this chapter.  In this chapter, Nehemiah refuses to change his plans because he knows that God is leading him.

On the other hand, Paul and his crew are wise enough to change their plans to follow God’s leading.  The Holy Spirit stops them from sharing Christ on their journey.  This is new.  Primarily Paul’s mission was to share Christ and the next city on the road was the next destination.  He was following God’s Spirit.  This time God redirected Paul and Paul listened.  That is how to follow the Spirit’s leading.  Notice that it is not all peaches and cream in Macedonia despite God leading Paul there.  He is beaten and put in jail.  Yet, God is at work everywhere and when we believe that it changes how we live.

A huge mistake.  That is what Abram makes here.  I am not sure if it is just because he is passive at times and thus he gives in to his wife’s thought OR if he really thought this might be how God would fulfill the promise he had just reiterated to Abram in the previous chapter.  It will be certain in the next chapter that Abram has convinced himself that Ishmael is the child of promise.  It reminds us to be careful about trying to bring about God’s plans in our own strength.

The most challenging part of Matthew 15 is the Canaanite woman.  I preached the story not too long ago and it is on our website so I won’t go in-depth here.  It is just notable how almost everyone in this chapter is missing it.  The Pharisees make up rules to break God’s laws and then think that all the matters is what is on the outside instead of the inside.  Then the disciples quickly forget that Jesus can feed the multitudes with nothing.  The Canaanite woman stands as the example of faith and the reminder of how Jesus takes note of faith.

When you are serving God you will have problems from those who are on the outside and the inside.  In chapter four, Nehemiah dealt with the challenge on the outside and they were able to quickly move on.  Now he has to deal with a challenge on the inside that threatens to destroy the work.  Ultimately, by God’s grace, the leaders who are mistreating their countrymen repent and we learn how a leader has to sacrifice to lead the people.  God does remember that.

Finally, in Acts 15 we get to see the inner working of a godly group of leaders.  It was difficult to determine what parts of Judaism had to be carried over after Christ had come.  Through seeing how God worked and through the Holy Spirit’s leading they recognize that the list is actually pretty small.  This becomes a great encouragement to the non-Jews who were coming to the faith and allowed the word of God to continue spreading.  At the end of the chapter we see a failure among the church leaders.  Barnabas and Paul were different people.  Barnabas was an encourager and took risks on people.  In fact, he was the one who took a risk on Paul with the disciples and gave him a ministry post in Antioch.  Paul is driven.  He is serious about the work and he wants people of the same heart.  He cannot imagine allowing John Mark to join them after abandoning them before.  What do we learn?  It was not handled well.  We need to appreciate each other in our passion and not allow our differences to discredit God even though our differences might cause us to part ways.

In the hard times, we should run to God.  After Abram met God Most High who possesses heaven and earth, he showed his trust in Him by not taking what was his from the battle he had just one.  Yet, it is obvious what Abram wants and does not have.  God speaks to him to affirm him that he will have a child at some point.  In fact, God tells him about what will happen for the next four hundred plus years.  It is good to know that God is there when we run to Him, but also that He is drawing up to Himself in these times.

We know Jesus wept in John 11.  He is also grieving in Matthew 14.  John the Baptist has been killed.  Jesus seeks a place to grieve only to be found by thousands of people.  In His grace He knows He will find time with the Father in His grief, but He is still compassionate towards the crowds.  After feeding the multitudes, Jesus finds His isolation with the Father and walks on water to get back to the disciples.  Our God can do anything and He works in us to do whatever He desires.

Nehemiah is a great example again of praying without ceasing.  He constantly calls out to God.  He trusts God to protect them.  Still, like praying for rain-Nehemiah holds out his umbrella.  He arms his people and tells them to remember God and trust God to fight for them and in this case through them.  God again fights their battle by preventing their enemies from even coming against them as they build.

Finally, we all know how quickly things can change.  Paul and Barnabas are being celebrated as gods one minute and Paul is being stoned and left for dead the next.  We are so fickle at times.  Still, Paul’s work was not done and God caused Paul to regain his strength and walk right back into the city that stoned him.  We are grateful for hearing how the gospel spread in these early days.

God reveals Himself often in the Old Testament by name.  El Elyon is the name God Most High.  Following a battle of five kings against four, Abram pursues the four victorious kings to rescue Lot.  Having brought him back God Most High meets him through the priest Melchizedek (who later becomes an explanation of Jesus’ priesthood in Hebrews).  We learn a lot about God in a few verses and the lesson that we can trust in God to provide for us.

Parables are a common teaching tool of Jesus.  They are ways to explain truth in pictures.  This chapter is discouraging and encouraging at the same time.  It is discouraging to hear of the times when the Word will be shared and yet won’t have the impact it should.  On the other hand, we gain an understanding of the world around us.  We learn how some people will appear to be believers for a season and how the righteous and unrighteous will live together for a time.  We learn to see the treasure that is God and how His Kingdom is having an impact even when it doesn’t appear to be at times.  Finally, we get to see the discouraging side of truth when Jesus is rejected merely because the people were familiar with Him.

In Nehemiah, we learn how you rebuild a wall.  You do it one block at a time.  Families take up the cause and the work begins to proceed.

Look how the Holy Spirit speaks in Acts.  As they seek God through prayer and fasting God speaks and sends missionaries from this church.  I pray He will from ours.  As in Matthew we see the challenges to ministry, but God overwhelms this challenge.  We also see the reality of rejection, but the joy of those who believe.

I love the trust that Abram shows in Genesis 13.  He recognizes that he and Lot need to part ways because of their size.  Instead of making the first choice, he invites Lot to choose where he would like to go.  Lot, we will see soon, makes a bad choice.  Still, despite the choice God makes it clear to Abram that all the land is part of God’s promise to him.  Abram seems to spend a lot of time worshiping in these chapters.  it reminds us that worship is a lifestyle, not an event.

In Matthew we see the people who just do not get it and the ones who are truly Jesus’ family-those who do the will of the Father.  The Pharisees are so caught up on the rules they miss God in flesh.  It frightens me because I know it gets too easy to fall into routine, to follow rules, and to miss God.

Nehemiah lives a life that is anything but missing God.  As the king’s cupbearer he had access to the king, but to be sad in the king’s presence means death.  He just cannot hold his grief for his city in any longer and the king notices.  Nehemiah teaches us to pray without ceasing as he calls out to God silently before he speaks to the king.  He reminds us of God’s favor over him again and again until the point of sharing it with the people and finding that they jump at the chance to be a part of what God is doing.

Finally, in Acts 12 we see who wins when man fights God.  Herod kills a disciple and then intends to kill Peter.  God frees Peter, but the event reminds us that we actually want to believe God will do what we are asking Him to do.  (It is possible they were praying for God to strengthen him in his situation.)  When the answer to prayer comes to the door, no one believes it.  Finally, Herod refuses to give God glory and pays the ultimate consequence for it.

Faith comes by hearing the word of God and these reminders of how God works stir up my faith today.