17 January 2015

Hi Everyone!!! Yes, I know, I did not keep up my blog again.  I could give you some lame excuse, but that wouldn't be right.  We had a great time with my son being home for Christmas break.  We started school on Thursday.  We would have started earlier, but my husband had three days off in a row, and we took advantage of that.  Last night, my daughter and I were reading a John Ortberg book called The Life I've Always Wanted.  I really like it.  We were reading about allowing the Word of God to transform our lives.  However, It can't really do that if we just rush through It like we would a to- do list.  I'm seriously guilty of this.  It is a good thing to do a reading program or even try to read through the entire Bible.  It is a great thing to memorize Scripture.  But to be really transformed by God's Word, we need to take It in slowly, really think about It, and REALLY practice It.  My husband gets to study all these theology books.  These people are suppose to know their Bible.  But the way they talk about It, you would think they never saw a Bible.  Church- going Christians, especially me, act like they never seen the Bible also.  It could be that we are racing through this Book (or not looking at It at all) instead of letting this Book race through us to change us for God's glory.  So I have started something new today.  I want to read, during my devotional time, one chapter a day out of the New Testament.  The rest of the day, I can race through the reading program and try to read through the Bible this year.  But, that time I seriously set aside for God  one chapter a day.  Pastor Ortberg said that you should start with prayer.  Great advice I'm going to follow.  So, I began today.  First chapter of the New Testament is (drum roll please) Matthew 1.  Hmm.  The first part of Matthew 1 is the family line of Jesus Christ.  I never told you all in blog land that I write a whole lot better than I can talk.  Pastor Ortberg also suggested that the Chapter be read aloud.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  So, being me, my immediate attitude was bad, very bad.  I had to repent a couple times before I even read Matthew Chapter 1.  God is good.  I asked Him to speak to me still in spite of my crummy attitude.  By the way, the second half of Matthew Chapter 1 talks about the angel telling Mary about Jesus and Joseph to get with the plan of God.  Anyways, the Lord showed me something in Matthew Chapter 1.  It is verse 5:  "Salman begat Boaz by Rhab, Boaz begat Obed by Ruth, Obed begat Jesse."  The question I asked was is this Rahab, the Jericho prostitute that helped Israel's spies, and then her family was the only ones saved when Jericho fell?  Yep, sure enough.  Not only that, God let her be the grandmother of King David, a man after God's own heart, and a distant relative of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, and she wasn't even Jewish.  Oh, also, she is honored in the New Testament a couple times on top of that.  Rahab, the prostitute, a sinner and an outcast, God blessed.  Here is another thing, Ruth wasn't an Israelite either.  But because of the way she treated God's people, she also is in Jesus lineage.  What a trip.  Two women did the right thing for the right reasons, and God honored them for eternity.  Their beginnings were downright horrible.  But, oh, did they end well.  The point is that it doesn't matter where you come from or what you've done.  God can and does give you a new life and a place in His family.  Have a great week.