Wednesday, February 3

Ugh. Worst day in a while. A lot of the work that's on my plate has come to a head and its just insanely stressful. Plus I was late today becuase I forgot that both cars needed to be de-snowed and I was late for a meeting. Buh.

Reading for February 3
Exodus 17:8-19:15

That's weird...
This is a very strange piece of text. All of a sudden we're introduced to Joshua and a war breaks out and ends within one chapter. Then Moses' father in law comes to visit, he gives him some advice and then leaves.

Then Moses goes up on Mount Sinai to meet and speak with God. God tells him to tell his people that if they obey him and follow his commands then they will be

'my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. ⁶ And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.’

Again, this is pre-Jesus but it does show that God's love was at one point conditional, which makes the unconditional love of Jesus that much more incredible. After this scene he tells Moses that he will be appearing to the Israelites in three days by coming down the mountain.  The people are warned not to go near the mountain, and anyone who does should be murdered. He also tells them not to have sex for three days. Very, very weird.

The other thing of note is that God will come down to earth on 'the third day'. I know there's a parallel here for Jesus' resurrection - but what is it? God didn't die, but I don't think he had appeared on earth for a long time. But what is the significance of those specific three days? Or is it not supposed to mean anything at all, and its just a coincidence? I hope Andy Newberry is reading this - he'd know how to answer that.


Matthew 22:34-23:12
This is why I like reading this path and jumping around from old to new testaments - because you see parallels that are very interesting that you wouldn't see if you were reading chronologically. So here, some Pharisees ask Jesus what the most important commandment in the law of Moses. I haven't quite gotten to the ten commandments yet, but its just cool they mention Moses while I'm reading through his story. So Jesus answers with two commandments. The first and most important is Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind. The second is love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says that all laws are based around these two. Which is funny becuase these two weren't part of the ten commandments - at least they weren't worded this way.

Darn those Pharisees! Jesus begins to tell the crowd about the Pharisees; he starts by telling the crowd to obey what they teach but not to follow their example. He says that they love praise from people and love to be referred to as Rabbi and sit at positions of authority when out in public. He warns everyone ot not let anyone call you Rabbi or try to exalt yourself. He said "The greatest among you must be a servant". I think that's really freaking cool. We can only hope to be the greatest among humanity, to be worthy to be called a servant of Jesus.

Psalm 27:7-14
 ¹³ Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness
      while I am here in the land of the living.
 ¹⁴ Wait patiently for the Lord.
      Be brave and courageous.
      Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

Easy for me to say in my position of comfort, but this reminds me of the situation in Haiti - which I have shamefully not been following as much as I should have. I know that a lot of  them have great faith in God. I hope some of them are clinging to this verse. 

Proverbs 6:27-35
So while the first 2-3 weeks of reading proverbs focused almost exclusively on the idea of wisdom, the past week and a half have focused almost exclusively on adultery.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone.
Solomon likes to make his points with one tactic and one tactic alone. See what I did there?

Alright Goodnight.

Dear God, please let tomorrow be a better day than today. That prayer goes for everyone. Haiti especially. 

In Jesus' name, amen.