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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Saturday, 30 September 2023:
Ezekiel 32:3-9 – Thus says the Lord God: I will throw my net over you with a host of many peoples, and they will haul you up in my dragnet. And I will cast you on the ground; on the open field I will fling you, and will cause all the birds of the heavens to settle on you, and I will gorge the beasts of the whole earth with you. I will strew your flesh upon the mountains and fill the valleys with your carcass. I will drench the land even to the mountains with your flowing blood, and the ravines will be full of you. When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord God. “I will trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I bring your destruction among the nations, into the countries that you have not known.”
Throughout the Bible we are warned that everyone will face God’s judgment. Christians approach the Judgment Seat clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
God uses both domestic and international politics to glorify Himself. God is currently setting the stage for what He will do in the future. To understand what might be coming about, you must first understand Him. However, deeper understanding can come only from the Holy Spirit revealing God’s will and the pattern of His ways through God’s word. Human intellect apart from revelation will always fall short. Only God knows what He is bringing about. Today, many are raging in the streets when they should be repenting.
God knows a nation’s or person’s impact on people and generations far beyond the nation’s or person’s understanding of that impact. Sin has a ripple affect we cannot even imagine; God’s judgment on a nation or person is intended, in part, to send a message to an immeasurable number of other people who might hear and understand. When we spread the Gospel, we cannot imagine who might be impacted, people we will never meet.
Ezekiel 32:12 – I will cause your multitude to fall by the swords of mighty ones, all of them most ruthless of nations. “They shall bring to ruin the pride of Egypt, and all its multitude shall perish.”
Again, God will eliminate human pride. Be on constant vigilance against pride in your heart.
Ezekiel 32:17-19 – In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, wail over the multitude of Egypt, and send them down, her and the daughters of majestic nations, to the world below, to those who have gone down to the pit: ‘Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be laid to rest with the uncircumcised.’”
God will judge all those who do not “know” and acknowledge that He is God so that His name will be glorified. A person’s or nation’s only hope is to acknowledge God as God. God has one final destination for those who oppose Him.
Psalm 112:6-9 – For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries. He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.
True faith makes you resolute, confident in hard times, steady, fearless, forgiving, and giving. What does how you handle challenges, how you forgive others, and how you give to others say about your faith? Does your confidence, forgiveness, and giving serve as a visible testimony to others of the truth of the Gospel?
From the above verses, why is the righteous person firm hearted, steady, and unafraid of what has happened, what is happening, what will happen, and what might happen? Because he or she trusts God. The “righteous” person trusts they are in ‘right’ relationship with God through Christ, growing in righteousness, mercy, grace, and love while they abide in God’s righteousness, mercy, grace and love. The righteous person understands that when the Sovereign Almighty Father loves you enough to give up His Son for you and loves you so intimately that He counts every hair on your head, you have nothing to fear and every reason to be uncontrollably joyful (see Romans 8). The righteous person has faith (trusting God in the here and now), hope (trusting God with the future – faith projected forward), and love (abiding in God’s love and bearing fruit in God’s love) because God is perfectly faithful and loving and in control of all things, bringing all things together for a perfect outcome for His precious children.
- Romans 5:1 — Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- 2 Corinthians 3:4 — Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.
- Proverbs 14:26 — In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
- 2 Timothy 1:7 — For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
- Romans 15:13 — May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
- Hebrews 13:6 — So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
“He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor.” Today’s Psalms point out that those who trust in the Lord give abundantly. It takes genuine faith to give and forgive. Your level of giving is based on how much you believe you have abundantly received and will receive in Christ; it is a question of whether you think you need to provide for your every need or God will provide for your every need and more than you could possibly imagine. Likewise, forgiveness is not about what you think you deserve from others or about defending your rights; it is based on how much grace you feel you have received from God, whether or not you trust God to be your Defender, and whether or not you trust God to obey His command to forgive others as He has forgiven you while you serve as His ambassador and messenger of reconciliation. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) Again, how much you give and forgive reveals what you really think about God.
- Luke 6:38 — Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.
- 2 Corinthians 9:7 — Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
- 2 Corinthians 8:3-5 — For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.
- Ephesians 4:32 — Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
- Mark 11:25 — And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
- Colossians 3:13 — Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
- Matthew 6:14-15 — For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
- Colossians 3:13 — Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Psalm 112:10 – “The wicked man sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked will perish!” Those who are ungodly can’t help but despise who you are in Jesus, but they are no factor.
Proverbs 30:7-9 – Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
Trust God to give you what you need, not what you want.
Agur understood the limits of his own integrity and character. So, he prayed to God for strength of integrity. Wisely, Agur understood that the most important thing in life was the quality of his character before the Lord. Reputation is what others say about you, but character is what God knows to be true about you. With what sins are struggling? Are these issues at the center of your prayer life? The things that hinder your relationship with God (sin) should be your greatest prayer concern. Remember, self-control, the power to do what you ought, is a fruit of the Spirit, not of the intellect. For the most part, people know what they should do; they just fail to do it because the sinful desires within them (the flesh) has not been surrendered to the Holy Spirit. Pray for God to reveal the truth of you and to strength your faith, hope, and love that you would be “one” with God in thought, word, and deed. This was Jesus’ prayer for you before His crucifixion. (see John 17)
The bookends of sin are fear and pride.
Contentment is critical for a Christian. Paul learned to be content in any situation, and we need to do the same. Be satisfied with what God has given you, and trust Him enough to give to others in need.
We take falsehood far too lightly. There are many forms of deceitfulness, many we justify, but all are serious and damage our character.
Sin, all sin, is to reject the Lord and profane His name. We take it so very lightly, but God does not. Sin always starts with desires that become bigger in our life, more important, and more influential than God. Even desires that are, in the right application, good, such as the desire to eat, can become sin when they start to control us and lead us to depart from God’s will. When the God-given desire to eat becomes gluttony, we are caught in sin and need to recognize the remove the idol we have created.
Both good and bad circumstances can tempt us to sin. Good times can make us complacent and prideful; bad times can make us desperate, disgruntled, and disobedient.
God will not give you more than you can handle; if you choose to be unfaithful, it is not because you couldn’t have remained faithful.
God may be withholding from you what you want because He knows you cannot handle it faithfully.
Proverbs 30:10 — Do not slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you, and you be held guilty.
Don’t judge the worth of others; you don’t have God’s perspective on their lives. God is the judge of people. We can only judge behavior. You can speak to whether or not a person is doing what is right or wrong, but you cannot judge the value of the person. What a person does today isn’t the sum total of who they are or who they are becoming. At one point, both Moses and David were murderers, but God was making them into people after His own heart. You have to assume that God is doing great things in the lives of every person you meet, even the difficult people.
Be very careful what you think and say about a fellow Christian. You don’t know what God is doing with them and within them. We are quick to see the faults of others, but we cannot know from where they have come and to where they are going. In God’s economy, He may view them as more worthy to be praised than you. For example, the one who grew up in a good environment might act better than the one who grew up in a bad environment, but the latter might still have a more receptive heart for the Lord than the former.
Proverbs 30:11-14 – There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth. There are those—how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift! There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.
Once again, the Bible reminds us that character is formed in the home. The way people treat their parents is how they will treat others. The respect they have for their parents reflects the respect they have for God. If parents allow their children to speak disrespectfully to them, they will grow to be disrespectful, unloving people. The power of the Holy Spirit can heal old wounds and change old habits that were forged during childhood, but it will also take much effort on the part of the person who learned the bad habits.
Proverbs 30:12 – There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.
If you don’t think you need it, you won’t ask for it, and your need will remain unfilled to your loss.
After the writer of Proverbs 30 proclaims in verses eight and nine the requirement to maintain God as your highest desire, honoring Him as KING, obeying Him, and rejecting competing desires, he describes the attributes of those who lack proper humility and are self-serving rather than disciples. They are slanderers (v 10), disrespectful (v11), self-righteous (v12), arrogant (v13), sharp-tongued (v14), greedy (v14), never satisfied (v15-16), disobedient (v17), unpredictably driven by human passions (18-19), callously deceptive (v20), and unfit for service (v21-23).
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 30 September 2023: Pray that God will give you the faith to deal with circumstances and other people in a way the brings glory to His Name.
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 