http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php Online prayer community, church directory, and bible resource. en Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:56:36 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.prayerposts.com/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=11 Sun, 02 May 2010 16:51:26 GMT *Does it matter what you believe as long as you are sincere?* How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? Hebrews 2:3... Does it matter what you believe as long as you are sincere?

How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? Hebrews 2:3

You can go through much of life deliberately avoiding hard decisions. But sometimes you have no choice; the situation forces you to make a decision. Consider an example from the sport of rock climbing.

Sooner or later, every rock climber faces a dreaded section of slick granite that offers no ledges or cracks to grasp. When you come to such a wall, you can abandon the climb. Or, you can risk a move like "the pendulum."

The Pendulum

The pendulum works the way it sounds: as high above as you can reach, you fasten a loop with a metal nut and slide the rope through the loop. Then you climb down a few feet, dangle on the end of the rope, and try to swing across the sheer section. It takes nerve. You must lean out against the rope into empty space and, with a well-timed push, vault across the face of the cliff. If your lunge toward a safer spot fails, you swing helplessly back and try again.

After your entire party has swung the pendulum, you pull the rope all the way through the loop. From then on, there's no turning back. You have crossed a section of cliff that requires a rope to swing on and a loop to attach it to. The loop is now out of your reach, and the rope coiled at your feet. There is only one way to go: up.

Worth the Risk?

The author of the Book of Hebrews wrote to people who faced just such a climactic, can't-turn-back decision. It involved not a rock climb, but their entire future. Should they stick with the familiar routine of the Jewish religion? After all, it enjoyed Rome's official protection and had traditions going back thousands of years. Or should they take a risk and join the growing body of people who called themselves Christians? Those readers needed some compelling reasons to choose Christianity. At that time new converts were being thrown out of Jewish temples, tossed into jail, and even tortured. Was faith in Christ worth the risk?

The tug of the old and the fear of the new kept many interested people, especially Jews, teetering on the edge of Christianity. And the book of Hebrews seems designed to push such people toward a decisive commitment, in one direction or the other. Point by point, the author shows how Christ improved on the Jewish way. Hebrews is a no-holds-barred argument on why Christianity is better (a key word in Hebrews) than Judaism. The new faith is worth any risk.

Drawing on the Old Testament

For the sake of Jewish readers, the author painstakingly cites Old Testament passages, more than 80 times in all. He develops the case for Christ like a lawyer, but with the charged emotions befitting the life-and-death issues involved.

Although the Book of Hebrews mainly focuses on the Jewish religion, comparing it to Christianity, the book also speaks to our time. Today people ask, "Are religions all that different? Isn't the most important thing to be sincere?" Hebrews insists there are decisive reasons to choose Christ. The author urges his readers to leap forward to a new experience with God through Jesus.

"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" Psalms 118:6,7 ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=11 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=10 Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:55:25 GMT A balky prophet, a talking donkey, and a furious king

Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!" Numbers 23:11

Numbers 22-24 contains one of the most bizarre stories in the entire Bible. It features a donkey speaking fluent Hebrew and showing more insight than a prophet. One man is at the center of the story, the mysterious character named Balaam.

Balaam was evidently a professional magician of a nomadic clan somewhat like the gypsies. He had an impressive reputation: nearby kings alarmed by the Israelites hired him to work magic and get the gods on their side.

Prophet for Hire

Numbers gives enough detail to paint a colorful, dramatic story, but even so, Balaam is cloaked in a fog of mystery. Clearly, God chose to speak through him: he communicated directly to Balaam seven times. Just as clearly, Balaam proved a reluctant prophet, subject to ambition and a handsome bribe. Even his own donkey rebuked him. An angel gave not Balaam, but the donkey, high praise.

Balaam appeared at a solemn occasion designed to curse the Israelites, but instead he pronounced blessings on them and curses on their enemies. He gave four stirring messages, far different in content from what his employer wanted to hear.

"How can I curse those whom God has not cursed?" Balaam asked (Numbers 23:8). His magnificent prophesies shine out from scenes of comic irony. Balaam grew bolder and bolder, changing from a sorcerer into a prophet with a backbone.

Prophet or Traitor?

Numbers 22-24 presents Balaam as an apparent convert. Tragically, the changes in him were only temporary. Balaam next appears in Numbers 31:8, the slain victim of an Israelite raid. Outright condemnations in 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 1:11, and Revelation 2:14 indicate that Balaam quickly returned to his treacherous ways. Having failed to manipulate the Israelites' God for his purposes, he resorted to manipulating the Israelites themselves. His actions led to the deaths of 2,400 people (Numbers 25:9).

Some have called Balaam the Judas of the Old Testament, and certain parallels do emerge. Both men came close enough to truth to appear sincere and faithful. For a time, both seemed to serve the true God. But, motivated by ambition and greed, they renounced God and turned against him, with catastrophic results.

Part of a Bigger Battle

Seven books of the Bible refer to Balaam. The importance given to his story implies that it stood as a key event in the Israelites' relationship to pagan cultures. The Israelites were about to enter a land where magic and sorcery were used as national weapons. In a stroke of irony, God selected a spokesman who was both magician and pagan. Through him God rebuked those nations and their false gods.

Do you believe you have you ever been used by God despite your own reluctance? ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=10 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=9 Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:32:20 GMT A helpless lamb -- the mightiest of all creatures I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside.... A helpless lamb -- the mightiest of all creatures

I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Revelation 5:4

Images of Jesus abound in Revelation, and one way to study the book is to follow a single image through the entire book. After his luminous appearance in the first chapter, Jesus is presented as a king, a child, a warrior on a horse, the Lord of the whole earth, the husband of a bride. Of all the images, however, none is so startling and unlikely as the one in John's second vision. Yet it takes hold and appears repeatedly throughout the book.

To set the stage for this vision, the Book of Revelation uses more visual drama than a science fiction movie. Lightning flashes, the sky growls, and awesome creatures encircle a lofty throne. Four of the creatures seem to symbolize the most impressive examples of all creation, for a common saying in those days went,

The mightiest among the birds is the eagle.
The mightiest among the domestic animals is the bull.
The mightiest among the wild beasts is the lion.
And the mightiest of all is man.

Only One Worthy

A question resounds in the heavens, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" (Revelation 5:2). In other words, who is worthy to unloose the next phase of history? No one can answer, much to John's dismay. Not one of the four impressive creatures qualifies.

But suddenly John sees another creature, a "Lamb, looking as if it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6). The image contains a great paradox. None of the majestic angels or elders or living creatures has the right to break the seals. Only a Lamb does -- a helpless, slaughtered Lamb.

John records a song of celebration ("You are worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God" [Revelation 5:9]), a song later set to earthly music in Handel's Messiah. And elsewhere in Revelation true believers are identified as being recorded in the "Lamb's book of life."

This powerful image resurfaces often in Revelation, a book of warfare between good and evil. Christ the king is also the Lamb, the one who died for us. His death on the cross, seemingly a great defeat, actually ushered in a decisive victory, for him and for us. Good was not destroyed; it triumphed.

What meaning does the image of Jesus as a slain Lamb have for you? What are your favorite "pictures' or images of Jesus? ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=9 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=8 Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:33:02 GMT Christmas from heaven's perspective

The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. Revelation 12:4

Christmas day. We celebrate it with a sudden splurge of money and gifts and an attempt to rediscover the joy of the first Christmas. Manger displays recreate the scene in Bethlehem on that day long ago.

As many interpret it, Revelation Chapter 12 describes Christmas day also, but its point of view differs radically from that of the Gospels. Revelation does not tell of shepherds, a crazed king bent on infanticide, and a stable; rather, it pictures a murderous dragon leading a ferocious struggle in heaven. His attack when Christ was born launches a series of bloody rebellions against the forces of good.

Two Histories At Once

The view of Christ's birth in Revelation 12 gives a glimpse into the pattern of the entire book. John is fusing things seen with things normally not seen. In daily life, two parallel histories occur simultaneously: one on earth and one in heaven. Revelation, however, views them together. It parts the curtain, allowing a quick look behind the scenes at the cosmic impact of what happens on earth.

Every inch of this planet is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. We normally experience only the visible, everyday effects of this struggle. We feel it, for example, when we make a choice between what we know is wrong and what is right. But, as we are living out our lives on earth, the supernatural universe is simultaneously at war. Revelation draws the contrasts sharply: good vs. evil, the Lamb vs. the dragon, Jerusalem vs. Babylon, the bride vs. the prostitute.

Is God in Control of History?

Sometimes the "battle in the heavens" can break out into actual violence on earth, as it did when Jesus came. Revelation was originally written to people who were facing extreme persecution from the Roman Empire. Revelation establishes that a war is being waged on this planet between good and evil, a war that reflects a larger struggle in the whole universe. But, no matter how it looks, God is in firm control of history. To first-century Christians, Rome was the arch-villian, and allusions to that empire crop up in Revelation. John asserts that Jesus Christ, not an emperor, determines the flow of history.

Events are marching onward to a definite climax; history has meaning. Ultimately, even the despots of history will end up fulfilling the plan mapped out for them by God. Pontius Pilate and his Roman soldiers demonstrated that starkly. They thought they were getting rid of Jesus by crucifying him. Instead, they made possible the salvation of the world.

As Revelation tells it, events that appear tragic can work great good. Have you ever experienced that in your life? ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=8 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=7 Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:00:55 GMT *Proverbs: A most down-to earth book* If you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search... Proverbs: A most down-to earth book

If you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Proverbs 2:3-5

"Sesame Street," the educational TV show, changed a lot of people's ideas about education. It offers a kaleidoscopic mix of gentle fun that seems to have nothing to do with education at all. One episode may start with a band of puppet rock stars -- the Beetles -- singing an ode entitled "Letter B" (to a tune that sounds surprisingly like the Beatles' "Let It Be"). Then the picture cuts to Big Bird asking Oscar the Grouch to help him write a letter to his uncle -- Uncle Bird, whose name just happens to start with the letter B. Five minutes later, a cartoon letter B is jumping in front of various letter combinations while a voice intones the words spelled out: "B-b-boy." "B-b-bathtub." "B-b-bicycle."

"Sesame Street" showed that teaching kids doesn't always mean forcing them to sit down and memorize lists. By watching Big Bird, the Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch, children painlessly learn the letter B as well as colors, shapes, and a lot more.

The Book of Proverbs does for wisdom what "Sesame Street" does for the ABC's. Much of Proverbs reads like a collection of one-liners, moving quickly (and apparently illogically) from one subject to another. A proverb pleases the ear much as "Sesame Street" pleases the eye, using "shortness, sense and salt" to compress life into a handful of memorable words. But just as with the TV program, Proverbs has an overall objective behind its disorder. If you spend enough time in Proverbs, you will gain a subtle and practical understanding of life.

A Father's Guidance

Proverbs is probably the most down-to-earth book in the Bible. Its education prepares you for the street and the marketplace, not the schoolroom. (Proverbs 1:20-21 expresses this poetically.) The book offers the warm advice you get by growing up in a good family: practical guidance for successfully making your way in the world. It covers small questions as well as large: talking too much, visiting neighbors too often, being unbearably cheerful too early in the morning.

The first nine chapters, which explain the purpose of the wisdom of Proverbs, are spoken from father to son. Fifteen times the fatherly voice says, "My son." Some of the advice seems particularly well suited to young people: warnings against joining gangs, for instance, or urgent cautions against sex outside marriage. But the central message of Proverbs applies to anyone, old or young: "Get wisdom at all costs." It is a plea to strain your mind and your ears searching for the wise way to live.

Virtue Is Not Its Only Reward

Anybody with a brain can find exceptions to the generalities of Proverbs. For instance, Proverbs 28:19 proclaims that "he who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Yet farmers who work hard go hungry in a drought, and dreamers win $10 million in a lottery.

Proverbs simply tells how life works most of the time. You can worry about the exceptions after you have learned the rule. Try to live by the exceptions, and you court disaster.

The rule is that the godly, moral, hardworking, and wise will reap many rewards. Those who learn the practical and godly wisdom of Proverbs not only sleep better, they succeed and become able to help their family and friends. Fools and scoffers, though they appear successful, will eventually pay the cost of their lifestyle.

Much of the practical advice of Proverbs makes no mention of God, and its concern for success may therefore seem quite secular. But if you take the book as a whole, it becomes obvious that the lifestyle Proverbs teaches depends on a healthy respect for God (Proverbs 1:7) affecting every aspect of life (Proverbs 3:5-7). Proverbs frankly concedes that the wise path will not be chosen by many: it is easier to live carelessly and godlessly. But those who choose to live by Proverbs will get success and safety, and more: they will get to know God himself. "Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:5). ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=7 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=6 Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:57:56 GMT Why have we come here? Anyone can provide different answers for this single question. All the answers are correct. But there is a universal answer....
Why have we come here? Anyone can provide different answers for this single question. All the answers are correct. But there is a universal answer. We have come here to enjoy our existence during the stay in this world. Some people work towards a definite goal, others work all through their life to find one.

We are always taught the tactics how to win, to succeed in our life, and to earn sufficient splendor to live a happy life. Many of us spend their whole life to win the race but never is known the finishing line. Every time the blind race wins and the racers lose. Because whatever they achieve, all seems a little less when they see others living a better life than them. This race sometimes draws towards unfair means keeping only victory in mind.

The happiest ones are who work on their inner instructions and not on the popular viewpoint, because they know where the peace lies. It lies inside us.

Victory is nothing but merely an illusion of mind because people have different lives, different thoughts and different levels of mind power so their relative goals can’t be compared. Many people carry on their hunting for happiness all through their life but never achieve it because happiness comes from inside. It blooms in heart only when we have no overburden of worldly matters. Real life and happiness run inside us like fresh streams of water. They can’t be accumulated.

Actually life is self satisfied. It changes its form according to our opinion about it. It neither supports anyone, nor rejects. If we think life is hard, it becomes hard. It has its own flux in which we move automatically towards the absolute destination. The more we resist the direction of flow, the more its natural flow makes it hard for us to move ahead. Some walk at their own speed, others sit quiet. It is a tough game, very hard to win.

We are here neither to win nor to succeed. We are not here to work like a machine but to find pleasure in work. Winning is very good but if it costs us our real self then it can be dangerous. Some logic, that competition is necessary for progress, but the truth is that as human minds will become more civilized, they will tend not to compete but to cooperate. They will cooperate to work for common progress, for elimination of common threats to our life. Then a healthy thinking will spread in whole world and the world will be no more thoughtless. ]]> MorningPrayer http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=6 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=5 Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:40:07 GMT "The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods." Daniel 11:36

Josef Stalin, head of the USSR from 1924 to 1953, murdered millions. His supporters knew that the slightest slip would lead them to the executioner. Of 1,966 delegates to one Party Congress, Stalin had 1,108 -- all Stalin supporters -- arrested and killed. Of the 139 Central Committee members, 98 were shot.

In spite of this, the nation virtually worshiped Stalin. He had made himself a god. Every public park displayed his statue. Every newspaper published lavish tributes daily. For one of his birthdays, an entire museum in Moscow was stripped so it could be filled with his birthday presents. He was called Father of the Peoples, the Greatest Genius in History, the Shining Sun of Humanity, the Life-giving Force of Socialism.

He was not the first, nor the last, of his kind. Increasingly, it seems, totalitarian leaders promise everything -- and demand everything. They brutally dispose of anyone who opposes them. Hitler, Stalin, Amin, Mao, Khomeini... the list grows longer.

A Single, Cruel King

Daniel's visions predicted such tyrants. History, in these visions, is one terrible empire after another. Each is stronger but more bestial than the last.

The focus narrows in Daniel 8:23-25 and 11:21-45 to a single, cruel king. Most scholars agree the description matches Antiochus IV of Syria. An obscure tyrant who ruled a century and a half before Jesus, he was the Jews' worst enemy in history, until Hitler.

Antiochus, never totally victorious against archenemy Egypt, took out his frustrations on little Jerusalem. He determined to make that city Greek rather than Jewish by rooting out its religion. He sold the high priest's position to an opportunist and transformed the temple into an altar for the Greek god Zeus. This desecration sparked one of history's earliest guerrilla wars, the Maccabean rebellion. Antiochus conquered Jerusalem twice, slaughtering thousands. He outlawed Judaism and proclaimed himself as God incarnate.

The End of the Tyrant

And yet, for all his power and terror, Antiochus died raving from insanity, and his mark on history has virtually disappeared. Ironically, the religion he sought to destroy has endured and touched the whole world. This is just what you could expect from reading the Book of Daniel. Terrible rulers rise up one after another, but they disappear just as quickly. We can expect political terror. But we can count on God.

The New Testament suggests that Antiochus's brutal pattern will culminate someday in the antichrist, an arrogant leader who will dominate the world and persecute God's people as never before. Many scholars believe that the last part of Daniel's final vision refers to this character. Yet despite the antichrist's power, he too will fall in the end. God's justice will rule the earth. Those who believe in such an outcome have reason to be as brave as Daniel. ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=5 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=4 Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:16:20 GMT *Do only good things happen to good people?* When your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is... Do only good things happen to good people?

When your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 8:13,14

Do Christians have car accidents? Do they get cancer? Are they ever fired from their jobs? The answer to all three questions is, of course, yes. But that answer causes big problems for some new Christians. Doesn't the Bible promise that God will look out for and protect his followers? How can such bad things occur?

People puzzled by such questions often refer to Old Testament books, where God clearly promised success and protection to the Israelites. In Deuteronomy, Moses spelled out God's promises in complete detail. Israelite wives would have many babies. All the crops -- grain, grapes, olive trees -- would produce bountifully. Cattle and sheep would multiply. And Moses even included this extraordinary promise: "The Lord will keep you free from every disease" (Deuteronomy 7:15).

A Special Arrangement

For the Israelites to receive these benefits, God asked only one thing in return: follow the covenant agreement first set forth in the Book of Exodus. Deuteronomy repeats much of the covenant and affirms, "It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today" (Deuteronomy 5:3).

God had a unique relationship with the band of refugees who had been roaming the Sinai for 40 years (Deuteronomy 10:15,14:2). Moses, for one, could not seem to get over the arrangement. "Ask from one end of the heavens to the other," he said. "Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation... like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?" (Deuteronomy 4:32,34).

Moses promised that good things would come the Israelites' way if they merely held up their end of the covenant. If, he said -- underscoring that small but very crucial word. Threads of doubt and anxiety run all through the book. Will the Israelites stick to terms of the covenant? Will they obey?

Dangers of Success

Moses seemed to fear the coming prosperity even more than the rigors of the desert, and he voiced those fears in Deuteronomy Chapter 8. In the promised land, a lush country of streams and fruit trees and valuable resources, the Israelites might forget God and begin to take credit for their own success. That, at least, was the danger, and the reason Moses kept urging, "Remember!" Remember the days of slavery in Egypt, and God's acts in liberating you. Remember your special calling as a peculiar treasure of God. Do not forget, as a prosperous nation, what you learned as refugees in the Sinai.

God predicted bluntly, "When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant" (Deuteronomy 31:20).

As the books following Deuteronomy record, all that God and Moses feared came true. The covenant was irreparably broken. Ultimately, the Israelites received not wealth and happiness but slavery and suffering.

A Message for Us Today

The promises of Deuteronomy were given to a particular people, the Israelites, in a special covenant relationship -- a covenant that God prophesied would be broken. The formula was simple: "Do good, get blessed; do evil, get punished." But Christians today cannot simply turn to those flagrant promises of wealth and prosperity and apply them directly. Rather we must look at the Book of Deuteronomy in light of the new covenant introduced by Jesus Christ and spelled out in the New Testament.

When Jesus came, he promised certain rewards for Christians, but he also predicted poverty, rejection, and even persecution. Rewards on this earth cannot be reduced to such a simple "Do good, get blessed; do evil, get punished" formula. (See Hebrews Chapter 11.) Jesus' disciples proved faithful to him, and yet most of them lived through poverty and persecution and died martyrs' deaths. For them, full rewards had to wait until heaven.

Deuteronomy may offer a clue to why God does not exempt his followers from every bad thing in life. Ironically, prosperity and health may make it harder to depend on God. Moses' fears came true: the Israelites proved least faithful to God after they moved into the prosperity of the promised land. In the desert, at least, they had been forced to lean on God just for daily survival. But after a very short time in Canaan, they forgot about Him. There is a grave danger in finally getting what you want.

When do you think most about God: when things are going well or when you are in trouble? ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=4 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=3 Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:54:12 GMT To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Exodus 24:17... To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Exodus 24:17

Why doesn't God intervene more? Why doesn't he directly feed the hungry, heal all the sick, and stop all wars? If God really exists, at the least why doesn't he make himself more obvious?

People who ask such questions often assume that, if God ever did spectacularly reveal himself, all doubts would vanish. Everyone would line up to believe in him.

Astonishing Reactions

The Book of Exodus tells of a time when God made himself perfectly obvious. The plagues on Egypt revealed his mighty power. An enormous miracle at the Red Sea provided sensational deliverance. A recurring miracle supplied food for the Israelites every morning. And, if questions about God's existence arose, doubters needed only to look to the ever-present glory cloud or pillar of fire. It must have been hard to be an atheist in those days.

Yet every instance of God's faithfulness seemed to summon up astonishing human unfaithfulness. The same Israelites who had watched God crush a pharoah quaked at the first sign of Egyptian chariots. Three days after a miraculous escape across the Red Sea they were grumbling to Moses and God about water supplies.

A month or so later, when hunger pangs began to gnaw at them, they bitterly complained, "If only we had died by the Lord's hands in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." Exodus 16:3. God responded with a provision of manna (that would continue for 40 years) and quail, but he Israelites were soon grousing about the water supplies again.

The Great Rebellion

Exodus 32 shows the Israelites at their worst. People who had eaten manna for breakfast, who had just solemnly agreed to keep every word of the covenant, who were at that moment standing beside a mountain stormy with the Lord's presence -- those very people proceeded to melt down their gold jewelry and flagrantly flout the first commandment.

"Stiff-necked," God called the Israelites as he burned in anger against them. Only Moses' eloquent appeal saved their lives.

The history of the Israelites should nail a coffin lid on the notion that impressive displays of God's power will guarantee faith. (Jesus would later say, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead," Luke 16:31.) People who had everyday proof of God demonstrated only one thing: the monotonous consistency of human nature.

The offenders would pay for their acts by wandering 40 years in a desolate wilderness while a new, untainted generation grew up to replace them. But a pattern was beginning to emerge: if the Israelites failed God in the shadow of Mount Sinai, how would they possibly withstand the seduction of new cultures in the promised land? The next generation, too, would fail God, as would all their descendants. The old covenant, as Paul would so convincingly argue in the Book of Galatians, succeeded mainly by proving undeniably the need for a new one. ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=3 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=2 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:41:24 GMT The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7... The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

The biology teacher displays a chart showing six animals. At one end is an ape standing upright, its hands swinging below its knees.

At the other end, a rather hairy, stooped man in skins. "These are the stages of human evolution," the teacher declares, "over a period of several million years."

One agonized student shoots up his hand. "I believe in the Bible," he stammers, "that God made the earth and that the first man was Adam."

The teacher lets him finish, then dismisses his view. "Everybody is free to have his own religious beliefs. But science has proven that evolution is a fact."

Scenes like this have thrown confusion over the first three chapters of the Bible. It's impossible to read about Adam and Eve without wondering how they fit in with the bones anthropologists proclaim as "earliest man."

The Main Point

These differences stir up controversy, even court cases. Certainly they are important issues. It's unfortunate though, that they distract attention from the main truth Genesis teaches.

Above everything else, its witness is this: God did it. We are not here by accident, nor are we here merely to please ourselves. We owe our very existence to God. Every helium atom, every spiral galaxy, every living creature exists because God wants it to. Genesis chapters 1-3 is the artist's signature on the painting, saying, "This is mine."

God Made Us Good

Genesis chapters 1-3 pays humanity its highest compliment. After making all the glories of the world, God topped off his work with man and woman. He put them in charge. Unlike the animals, they were like him, "in his image." "Very good," he said to himself when he had finished (Genesis 1:31). With humans he quit, satisfied.

Nobody, including God, has been satisfied with human beings since then. We were made good, but we disobeyed God right from the beginning. We've been suffering the consequences ever since. Genesis helps us understand why the universe is so flagrantly lovely, and yet so tragic. It is lovely because God made it. But it is tragic because he trusted it to us -- and we failed. ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=2 http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=1 Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:35:46 GMT And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Genesis 2:3 The Bible... And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Genesis 2:3

The Bible begins with words that have become famous, "In the beginning God created." God, like an artist, fashioned a universe. How can we grasp the grandeur of this? Michelangelo, perhaps the greatest artist in history, may help us to understand. He painted the famous Sistine Chapel to retell Genesis' story of creation. His experience proves one thing: creativity is work.

An Exhausting Effort

Michelangelo had 6,000 square feet of ceiling to cover -- the size of four average house roofs. Anyone who has painted a ceiling with a roller has caught a hint of the physical difficulty of such a task. But Michelangelo's plan called for 300 separate, detailed portraits of men and women. For more than three years the 5' 4" artist devoted all his labors to the exhausting strain of painting the vast overhead space with his tiny brushes.

Sometimes he painted standing on a huge scaffold, a paintbrush high over his head. Sometimes he sat, his nose inches from the ceiling. Sometimes he painted while lying on his back. His back, shoulders, neck, and arms cramped painfully.

In the long days of summer, he had light to paint 17 hours a day, taking food and a chamberpot with him on the 60-foot scaffold. For 30 days at a stretch he slept in his clothes, not even taking off his boots. Paint dribbled into his eyes so he could barely see. Freezing in the winter, sweating in the summer, he painted until at last the ceiling looked like a ceiling no more. He had transformed it into the creation drama, with creatures so real they seemed to breathe. Never before or since have paint and plaster been so changed.

The Miracle of Life

But, as Michelangelo knew very well, his work was a poor, dim image of what God had created. Over the plaster vault of the Sistine Chapel rose the immense dome of God's sky, breathtaking in its simple beauty. Mountains, seas, the continents -- all these, and much more, are the creative work of God, the master artist.

God's world, so much bigger and more beautiful than Michelangelo's masterpiece, is the product of incomparably greater energy. As Eugene Peterson has written, "The Bible begins with the announcement, 'In the beginning God created' not 'sat majestic in the heavens,' and not 'was filled with beauty and love.' He created. He did something." In the beginning, God went to work.

Genesis focuses attention on this creative, hard-working God. The word God appears 30 times in the 31 verses of chapter 1. He grabs our attention in action. Genesis is an account of his deeds, ringing splendidly with the magnificent effort of creation.

Mending Broken Pieces

Genesis also talks about the work of humankind -- but the tone changes abruptly. God had barely finished creating the universe when human rebellion marred it, like a delinquent spraying graffiti on the Sistine Chapel. Chapters 3-11 of Genesis portray a series of disasters: Adam and Eve's rebellion, Cain's calculated murder of his brother, the worldwide wickedness leading to the great flood, and human arrogance at Babel.

God immediately began to mend the pieces his creatures had broken. He narrowed his scope from the whole universe to a single man -- not a king or wealthy landowner, but a childless nomad, Abraham. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, Joseph -- the upward thrust from chapter 12 on came through God's work in these startlingly human individuals. They were far from perfect, yet God picked them up where they were and carried them forward. He promised them great things. He moved through them to restore his art. His creative activity did not stop on the seventh day.

Genesis and Revelation

Many people read the Old Testament as though it portrayed the "bad old days" before Jesus. But that's not an accurate picture. Actually, the first three chapters of Genesis link to the last book of the Bible, Revelation. They are like brackets of perfection around the sadness of life marred by sin, death, suffering, and hatred. In Genesis we learn that life did not start out that way. In Revelation we find out it won't end that way either. But the Old and New Testaments take place between those brackets. Through Abraham, through Moses, ultimately in Jesus, God is hard at work to make things right. ]]> PrayerPosts http://prayerposts.com/forum/blog.php?b=1