June 2 Bible Reading

Matthew 17

The transfiguration is one of the events that most demonstrates Jesus’s Deity.  He was shown to the disciples in His glory.  How wonderful must that have been!  It makes me yearn for the day when we too will see Christ.  It is important to understand the connection between His Deity being shown and His comments about His sufferings.  The only reason that Jesus is able to pay for the sin of the whole world is because He is God incarnate.  

Job 3&4

In chapter three Job is in the midst of depression.  He wishes he was never even born.  We must remember that Job’s mindset is not correct in this time.  He is looking at himself, instead we are to fix our eyes heavenward.  Job’s friend, Eliphaz, also has a misunderstanding about God.  Eliphaz has only seen that the wicked are punished in this way and the righteous do not suffer.  I’m sure we can all attest from experience that this worldview is simply not true.  Jesus tells us that it rains on the just and the unjust alike.  Your circumstances are not necessarily a punishment from God.

Genesis 34&35
God blessed Jacob with the promise first given to Abraham and then to Isaac.  The Lord is faithful, and he blesses those who honor Him.  Jacob made sure that as his family traveled to Bethel to worship, that they would not have idols among them.  Even before a commandment against other gods had been issued, God’s people knew that they ought not to worship idols.

Isaiah 49-51

God establishes those who are His servants.  He prepares, even before they are born, a life for His servants full of opportunities to submit to His will.  He then sets them up as lights in a dark world, and they call to those around them to come to the forgiveness of God.  God will deliver them from trouble and preserve them forever.  Although these promises were made to Israel, we know that God has promised these things to those who have faith in Him and His plan for redemption 

1Corinthians 6

Paul reminds us that our bodies and our life, interactions with others, are not are own.  We have been bought by Christ’s sacrifice.  We should live as though we are slaves to our Redeemer.  It is no longer for our own gain or our own pleasure that we live.  We live now to advance the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is important that we are in the world, but that we stand out as righteous so that the lost will be attracted to the message of the gospel of Christ.

1Samuel 1-3

The prayer of Hannah should be an example to us.  When we beg God for something, and He graciously answers with a yes, we should raise our voices and hearts in praise and thanksgiving.  God is a loving and giving God.  He gives His people things beyond their needs.  He works through those gifts then to do His will.