Reading from Thursday, November 18

Hey friends. So here's the plan. Today is the first day of December and I am still about two weeks behind on this thing. So I'm going take the month of December off of my game blog so I can focus on finishing the Bible by the end of the year. Jilly and I are also moving on December 15 so that will add an additional layer of difficulty to the whole thing. Wish me luck, gang.

Reading for November 18
Ezekiel 37:1-38:23
Chapter 37 opens with a really strange vision. Ezekiel is in a yard with dry human bones everywhere. God tells him to command the bones to come to life. Ezekiel does as God commands and the bones join together and flesh forms around them, springing to life from a valley of death. At first this sounds like a pretty unbelievable story, but then God provides the symbolism behind it:

“Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”

This is kind of the same thing God has been promising since the mid-point of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, but presented in a much more symbolic fashion. There's something so powerful about the idea of dead bodies rising up and being completely restored to life. This is what God promises to Israel, but I think this promise also carries over to modern Christianity. People who are spiritually long dead like this valley of bones, can be restored to life just as dramatically as this fantastic scene from Ezekiel.

James 1:19-2:17
This is why James is my favorite book of the Bible:

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

For the past  ten books of the New Testament we have heard that faith is more important than works. Your works will not save you and faith alone in Jesus is what you need to have. The problem that James points out is that having this faith in Jesus should inherently change a person. It should drive them to want to go out and feed the homeless and donate to charity. So as James says in the last line there, if you claim to have faith, but you just sit on it and talk about it, your faith is dead. For our faith to be alive we have to let it influence our everyday. We have to take the grace we were given and give it to others. We have to let the love and kindness bestowed upon us make us be kind and loving to others.

Psalm 117:1-2

This one is tiny:

¹ Praise the LORD, all you nations;
   extol him, all you peoples.
² For great is his love toward us,
   and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.    Praise the LORD.

That's the whole thing...

Proverbs 28:1
 ¹ The wicked flee though no one pursues,
   but the righteous are as bold as a lion.