Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 55, Judges 2
On October 1, 2023, my youngest son was baptized. Watching him commit his life to Jesus Christ is a joy like no other.
I have found such peace, comfort, and hope in knowing the Lord. I believe His Word that eternal life is only available to those who trust in Christ and that eternal damnation awaits those who reject Him. It absolutely breaks my heart into a million pieces to think that any of my children or grandchildren might abandon the Lord and wander away after other gods.
I believe that I have done my best through many ups and downs to be faithful to the Lord in shepherding and discipling my children, but ultimately their faith must be their own. I can’t force anyone to believe, but I can pray – and so can you – for God to open their eyes, that they might receive Him by faith.
Heavenly Father, I pray that my children and grandchildren and the generations not yet born will come to You by faith. Let them not wander away after other gods and turn their backs on You, the One True God. I pray that this generation will walk day by day in obedience, trusting in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Send out a mighty army of Christ-followers to share this good news to the ends of the earth! In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
I grew up in the great state of Iowa, where the corn grows tall and people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. My parents were hard workers, raised by hard workers. Maybe that’s why Matthew 11:28-30 is so special to me. I have labored ( to memorize this passage, treasuring it in my often weary heart. Indeed, I have labored, and indeed I am thankful for the rest Jesus promises me.
“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This past week, as I’ve been studying this passage in more depth, I’m finally seeing the context in which Jesus is speaking.
These verses are sandwiched between Jesus denouncing the Jewish cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, and Jesus telling the Pharisees that they don’t understand what “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” means. This paragraph begins in Matthew 11:25 with, “At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children.'”
Jesus is talking to the Jewish religious sect called the Pharisees. Despite being eyewitnesses to Jesus’s miracles and hearing His preaching first-hand, they did not recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah. The Pharisees remained unrepentant. The Pharisees would have been considered the wise and understanding, but they missed the joy, peace, and freedom that faith in Jesus could bring.
Like Jesus explains in Matthew 23:4, the Pharisees “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.” (Read Matthew 23 for more on this)
These heavy burdens are not farmers’ chores, like plowing fields, slopping pigs, and shoveling out horse stalls, nor are they housewives’ chores, like cleaning your house until the floors shine, cooking three nutritious gourmet meals every day, and homeschooling a dozen children. Rather, the Pharisees’ heavy burdens are religious duties designed to earn salvation from God. Religious duties like strictly tithing, offering animal sacrifices, and keeping the Sabbath down to the minute detail.
In the modern American Christian homeschooling circle that I ran with, it may indeed include cleaning your house until the floors shine, cooking three nutritious gourmet meals daily, and homeschooling a dozen children, along with keeping your kids in church with you, teaching your children’s Sunday school class, volunteering at your church’s VBS ministry, knocking on your neighbors’ doors to share the gospel, and serving at your local food pantry.
Friends, these are all good things. Please serve your church and community. Take good care of your children and your home. Please serve the homeless and share the gospel with all your neighbors. Please work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, as Colossians 3:23 instructs. Please be workers at home, like Titus 2:5 says. Please do! But do these works, because you’re following Jesus.
Does your SOUL need rest? Are you tired of working to pay God back? Are you tired of trying to earn salvation? Are you tired of trying to atone for your own sins?
Let your life flow from a place of rest and abiding in the vine, a place of joy and blessing. Jesus loves you, and He wants to work through you to bring Him glory. Wow! What a privilege that this little girl from Iowa has been chosen to bring glory to the Lord of Heaven and Earth!
Jesus, the promised Messiah, took my sins upon Himself by his death on the cross. Jesus bore my griefs. Jesus carried my sorrows. I have been healed by His wounds. Isaiah 53:4-6
Jesus invites us to give Him our burdens, to come to Him with the trusting faith of little children. In Jesus, we can find rest, not only for our bodies, but for our SOULS.
Friend, you can never, ever be good enough. Never. You can never pay God back. You will never deserve being saved.
Jesus paid the price for you. He is inviting you to take His yoke upon you and learn from Him, that you can have soul-rest.
Heart-check:
How are you tying up heavy burdens for yourself to carry? For others?
Have you come to Jesus and taken His yoke? What stands in your way?
Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for giving me work to do, and thank You for giving me the strength to do it. Help me to have joy in the journey, to follow Christ, to give grace to others as I have received it from You. Keep me humble and fill my heart with Your peace. In the Name of Jesus, my Savior and Master. Amen.
Come Unto Jesus – Laura Story, Jordan Kauflin, Keith & Kristyn Getty
All My Boast is in Jesus – Keith and Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 39, 1 Corinthians 16
We hear 1 Corinthians 13 read at every wedding. Love is patient and kind. Love does envy or boast. Love is not proud or rude. Isn’t it beautiful?
But love is also steadfast and firm, immovable and strong. Love is a mother telling her toddler, “No,” a hundred times in the same day. Love is a grown daughter telling her alcoholic mom that she’s got a problem. Love is refusing to stand idly by while pornography tries to ruin your marriage or homosexuality tries to steal your teenager.
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 ESV
Love takes guts. Love takes strength. Love takes the stamina of a thoroughbred racehorse and the patience of Job. Love requires you to be willing to get battle scars for the sake of another because you believe they’re worth the fight.
Ladies, sisters, friends, act like men. Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
Heavenly Father, Your Son, Jesus Christ, is the perfect manifestation of manhood and love. Strength and humility. Stamina and kindness. Make us more like Him. Teach us, show us, how to love like He loves, how to give up our lives for another, to be willing to suffer to save someone else. We need You, Father. We can’t do it on our own. In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Lover of my Soul. Amen.
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 37, 1 Corinthians 14
I remember many years ago when my oldest daughter was about five years old and playing on our town’s youth soccer team. My husband was the coach, and I was standing on the sidelines keeping one eye on our two-year-old son and one eye on the game. Midway through the game, the ‘soccer mom’ standing next to me struck up a conversation with me. Somehow she ended up asking me where I went to church and if my church was spirit-filled. I didn’t really understand what she meant, and I just replied with a brief, somewhat confused, ‘Yes, we were,’ because, well, we believe that people are filled with the Holy Spirit when they are born again by faith in Christ. After talking to her more, I came to understand that she was asking me if we spoke in tongues. Why, I wonder, has “Spirit-filled” come to mean, “Speaking in tongues”?
Maybe because of my background as an atheist, I have always really struggled with the pettiness of so many denominational differences, so I have really enjoyed studying Paul’s words on spiritual gifts here in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 – 14. 1 Corinthians 14:12 sums up my thoughts really well.
So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.
1 Corinthians 14:12 ESV
Sadly, in my experience, including that day 20 years ago on the sidelines of a soccer field, the people who have talked to me about the gift of speaking in tongues have been more concerned with building up themselves than with building up the body. The scriptures are clear. If the Lord gives you a gift, it is to be used for building up others and glorifying God, not yourself. We ought to see ourselves as stewards of whatever it is that the Lord has given us, whether that’s time, treasure, talents, testimony, or a spiritual gift of speaking or serving.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, who guides me and convicts me. Please help me to exercise the gifts You have given me for the building up of the body of Christ and for Your glory. Remind me that any good thing that I have is a gift from Your merciful hand, and any good thing I do is the fruit of Your work in my life. Keep me humble and grateful that Your light will shine such that people’s attention is drawn to You, the Gracious Giver of every good and perfect gift. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
God, the Uncreated One (King Forevermore) Official Lyric Video – Keith & Kristyn Getty
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 36, 1 Corinthians 13
If I choose all the strongest verbs and most descriptive adjectives and write the most compelling blog on the web, but have not love, I am no greater than a tabloid writer or paparazzi photographer.
If I study the Bible every single day and night and tell every person I meet on the street all about the good news of the gospel, but have not love, I am no greater than a Pharisee or prosperity preacher.
If I homeschool all my kids and feed them organic fruits and vegetables with every meal, but have not love, I am no greater than Elmo or the Jolly Green Giant.
If I teach preschoolers every Sunday morning and women every Wednesday night, but have not love, I gain nothing.
If I volunteer every Tuesday at my local food pantry and march every Friday morning at the abortion clinic, but have not love, it profits neither me nor my neighbor.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; Love does not envy or boast; It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; It is not irritable or resentful; It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
As for prophecies, they will pass away; As for tongues, they will cease; As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV
Heavenly Father, I love You, Lord, because You first loved me. You made the first move, the move of love. You pursued me while I hated You. Strengthen me to love others like that. Help me to love others as You loved me. Help me to love them while they are yet sinners, for that is how You loved me. You *are* love and all You *do* is loving. Make me more like You, for I am Your child. I want to live and move and have my being in You, that I might live and move and have my being in Love. To the glory and praise of Your Holy Name. Amen.
Love Never Fails – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a – Truth Songs
Here is Love, Vast as the Ocean (Everlasting Praise) – Live from Sing! – The Gettys, Sandra McCracken
Using the Bible Memory App to memorize 1 Corinthians 13
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 27; 1 Corinthians 2
Two years ago, when I originally wrote this post, I’d woken up early because I wanted to watch the sun rise. I was eagerly anticipating the sun turning the sky pink, purple, and orange as it crested the horizon over the lake where my sisters-in-Christ and I have been staying since Friday. Instead, I was greeted by a rainstorm beating down on the metal roof of the porch under which I was taking shelter.
But still, the sun rose.
But still, it got brighter minute by minute.
But still, a new day dawned.
Friends, God is still on His throne even when we don’t see His glory. God still reigns even when His presence is hidden behind clouds, and His voice can’t be heard over the pouring rain.
In God’s perfect wisdom, He had decreed before the ages that His Own Son would be hung upon a cross to die for the sins of man. In the eyes of human wisdom or logic, it appeared that Satan had won and God had been defeated.
Oh, sisters, but God. Up from the grave He arose!
Suddenly, the cries of a bird rang out over the pounding of the storm. The birds were awake and singing in the trees, despite the rain. The storm won’t stop them, and it shouldn’t stop us, either.
Darkness can’t overpower the light. The rain can’t drown out the sun. The sun still rises, even in a thunderstorm.
Heavenly Father, Death could not contain Him. A grave could not defeat Him. Darkness, no matter how deep, cannot keep the King of Glory from shining. I pray that our faith would be in You and You alone. You are Almighty. You are Victorious! No storm can delay what You have decreed. Your purposes will stand. You don’t always give us “cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels.” Sometimes you give us pitch black nights and thunderstorms that last for hour upon hour. Help me remember that the trees need the rain so they can grow, and the world needs the darkness of night so it can rest. Help me trust You, rather than myself. Help me to doubt human reasoning and believe Your Word. Help me remember that You reign over the rain. In the Good and Sovereign Name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
“Draw Me Close” – Shane and Shane
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 24, Joshua 24
“Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” …
“Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.”
He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.” And the people said to Joshua, “The LORD our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.”
Joshua 24:14-15; 22-24 ESV
Heavenly Father, What foreign gods am I serving? Where is my heart not inclined toward You? Where am I still limping between the world and the Lord rather than fully surrendering all to You? Show me where I’m falling short, Lord. I don’t want to be blind to my own iniquity. I want to love You more, that I might serve You better, for You are worthy and good. I pray that my whole family will be surrendered to Your will and live for Your glory. In the Name of Jesus Christ who died in my place I pray. Amen.
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