Daily Meditations on the Bible / We stand with Israel
And pray in the Spirit …
Summary: The voice of God is a still, quiet voice that comes to us in the night or the quiet of our prayers. Discerning the voice of God is a personal challenge that confronts every Christian who has the Spirit of God in them.
Continue reading “Ephesians 6:18a – The Inner Voice”… and gave himself up for her to make her holy,
Summary: Understanding spiritual matters is a challenge for all of us. We are all born of the flesh first, and born spiritually second. Learning to “see” spiritually is a skill, like learning to walk physically.
Continue reading “Ephesians 5:25b-26a – The Holy Within”You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self …
Summary: The language Paul uses to describe how belief in Jesus changes a person is remarkably similar to a modern psychoanalytic theory known as transactional analysis.
Continue reading “Ephesians 4:22a – Ego States”
But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.
Jesus continues the parable about the sheep with this verse about loyalty. It seems to me that Jesus is talking about a level of relationship that is not intellectual. Sheep are not known for being deep thinkers. Can you imagine sheep thinking abstract thoughts? A sheep wouldn’t be composing Shakespearean plays or pondering mathematics. A sheep just is.
And yet, a sheep knows who to trust and who not to trust. Jesus said, ”Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19: 14) There is a kind of similarity between sheep and little children. While neither one is going to have deep thoughts, they are clearly able to tell the difference between someone they trust and someone that they do not trust.
This weekend we are babysitting our youngest granddaughter. She is only about one year old, and yet she has the spirit of a Viking and a voice to match. She is not happy that Mom has left her alone for the weekend with someone who is not Mom. If a little child and a sheep can know who to trust, why should it be so hard for you and I to know the same thing?
Life as an adult is complicated. We sometimes listen to the wrong voices and think wrong thoughts. We move away from the simplicity of childhood and get lost in the cacophony of competing voices that surround us as we get older. Sheep and children don’t have that problem. Yet Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who simply know.
Continue reading “Loyalty – John 10: 5”
One of the hallmarks of living in a free country is that people can develop an aversion to being told what to do. Maybe this trend is a hallmark of all people, but it certainly is pronounced in this country. Imagine the government suddenly issuing a proclamation that requires you to drop everything you are doing, abandon all of your plans, and leave your home to travel a very long journey to some place where you have no real connections.
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
While he was still in his mother’s womb, Jesus was already on the road, being jostled hours on end while his mother rode a donkey or walked during the ninth month of her pregnancy. My daughter-in-law is a fitness instructor and has four kids. Each one was treated to multiple workout sessions during their pregnancies, so I have to assume that if a person was used to walking a lot this would not have been the trial that a couch potato like myself might have suffered. Even so, it was a trial and a journey.
Continue reading “What To Do”