Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 116, Amos 8-9.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.”
Amos 8:11 ESV
Would I rather worship or wander through Wally World?
Would I rather scroll through the truth of the Word or the foolishness of Facebook?
Would I rather skip my daily dose of carbs or the daily bread of the Lord’s presence?
Would I rather sit in a pew or sit on a couch?
Would I rather be in the front row of a church or the front row of a concert?
Would I rather listen to the correction of a wise counselor or the consolation of a foolish friend?
Would I rather miss a dinner date with my BFF or a breakfast date with my Heavenly Father?
Would I rather miss my morning cup of java or my morning cup of living water?
Would I rather have an empty belly or an empty mind?
“Sabbath days and sabbath work are a burden to carnal hearts, that are always afraid of doing too much for God and eternity.
Can we spend our time better than in communication with God?
And how much time do we spend pleasantly with the world? Will not the sabbath be gone before we have done the work of it and reaped the gains of it? Why then should we be in such haste to part with it?
They were fond of market-days: they longed to be selling corn and setting forth wheat. When they were employed in religious services they were thinking of their marketings …
Those are strangers to God, and enemies to themselves, that love market days better than sabbath days, that would rather be selling corn than worshipping God.”
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Amos 8
Heavenly Father, Align our hearts with Yours. Make us love what You love. Break our hearts for what breaks Yours. Give us a holy hunger. Make us hunger for what is healthy and right, what is pure and true. Make us sick over what makes You sick. Give us discernment to recognize what is truly lovely and what is a joy stealer. Help us spot the counterfeits, the deceptions, those things that masquerade as beautiful, and give us hearts that hunger and thirst for righteousness for Your Name’s sake. In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, the One who meets our every need, the well that never runs dry, the unending source of living water and the eternal bread of Your living presence, we pray. Amen.
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 115, Amos 6-7
Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
Amos 7:14-15 ESV
God chose shepherds like David, Moses, and Amos and God chose fishermen like Peter, Andrew, James, and John. God chose tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus, and God chose well-educated men like Paul and Luke.
It’s not what you do from 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, or what family you were born into, that matters. It doesn’t matter how educated you are, or how much money is in your bank account. God calls and chooses whom He will according to His own plan and purpose.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV
God chose Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews and a persecutor of Christians, to write these words,
“[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”
Titus 3:5 ESV
And to the church at Ephesus,
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10 ESV
Heavenly Father, You didn’t choose me because I was rich or powerful or good. I wasn’t. I was a simple college student, a blasphemer and an opponent of the gospel. I was Your enemy, slandering You and hurling insults at Your children, yet You plucked me out of the miry clay and planted my feet on the rock. You called me in spite of myself. Thank You. Thank You. Father, please, help me to love and pursue others like You loved and pursued me. Help me to love my neighbor as myself, loving them even while they’re drowning in sin. For the glory of Your Name and the growth of Your kingdom, in the name of Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord, Amen.
Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 111, Jonah 2-4
Jonah cared more about the death of a plant that was giving him shade than he cared about the lost souls of the Ninevites. 🥹
Friends, every man, woman, and child has been created by God after the image of God. They deserve our love and care. They are not objects to be used or abused or disregarded. May we be as gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness as our good God!
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Jonah had No Pity for the People of Nineveh. Do We? – FormerAtheist58
Beloved, Let Us Love One Another – FormerAtheist58
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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 110, Jonah 1
Who was Jonah thinking about when he refused to go to Nineveh?
Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.
Jonah 1:1-3 ESV
Who were the sailors thinking about when they didn’t want to throw Jonah into the sea?
Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”
Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.”
Jonah 1:11-14 ESV
Who was Jesus thinking about when He left heaven and came to earth and suffered to the point of death on a cross.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:4-8 ESV
Thinking of Others More Highly than Yourself – FormerAtheist58
Bless the Lord O my Soul (Psalm 103) – Sovereign Grace Music
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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 52, 2 Chronicles 34-36
“Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up to the house of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin join in it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.
2 Chronicles 34:29-32 ESV
Love God? Love Others – 2 Chronicles 34-26 – FormerAtheist58
How Deep the Father’s Love for Us – JJ Heller
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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 50-51, 2 Chronicles 33
The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.
And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
2 Chronicles 33:10-13 ESV
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Psalm 51:10-12 ESV
Our Sins are MANY – His Mercy is MORE – 2 Chronicles 33 – FormerAtheist58
Create in me a Clean Heart – Keith Green
His Mercy is More – T4G Live
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Read the Bible in 2 Years: 2 Chronicles 31-32, Psalm 49
And [King Hezekiah] commanded the people who lived in Jerusalem to give the portion due to the priests and the Levites, that they might give themselves to the Law of the LORD.
As soon as the command was spread abroad, the people of Israel gave in abundance the firstfruits of grain, wine, oil, honey, and of all the produce of the field. And they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything.
And the people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of cattle and sheep, and the tithe of the dedicated things that had been dedicated to the LORD their God, and laid them in heaps.
In the third month they began to pile up the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month. When Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed the LORD and his people Israel. And Hezekiah questioned the priests and the Levites about the heaps.
Azariah the chief priest, who was of the house of Zadok, answered him, “Since they began to bring the contributions into the house of the LORD, we have eaten and had enough and have plenty left, for the LORD has blessed his people, so that we have this large amount left.”
Read the Bible in 2 Years: 2 Chronicles 29-30, Psalm 48
In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. He brought in the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the square on the east and said to them, “Hear me, Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place. For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs….”
2 Chronicles 29:3-6 ESV
Consecration and Sanctification – 2 Chronicles 29-30 – FormerAtheist58
Sanctuary – Randy Rothwell
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Read the Bible in 2 Years: 2 Chronicles 26-28, Psalm 47
[King Uzziah] set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper. He went out and made war against the Philistines and broke through the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabneh and the wall of Ashdod, and he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines…. In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.
2 Chronicles 26:5-6, 14 ESV
Relying on God and Working by HIS STRENGTH 💪🏋️♂️⚜️ 2 Chronicles 26-28 – FormerAtheist58
Selah – “Twila Paris Medley” – (Official Lyric Video)
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