THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

   Our Old Testament reading in Genesis today,  gives us insight into what we may already know, and that is that there's grace for us when we sin in ignorance. Honestly, as long as I was a sinner I really did think I was Heaven bound, I knew I was not the best, but surely my sins were not ones that would cause be to be hell bound, but when it was revealed to me that I was a sinner and that my sins were not minor in the eyes of God, then I was faced with a decision, continue in my sin with full knowledge or repent and stop. Well, needless to say, I stopped! Thank God there is Grace for us when we sin in ignorance, but unfortunately, most often, that is not the case, more often than not it is premeditated sin, willful disobedience, just as the child who knows the rules and intentionally breaks them. Even the courts have lesser sentences for crimes of passion than premeditated murder. Even a secular Judge will rule that a person deserves a higher punishment for pur...

    I love it when the world takes ideas and thoughts from the bible and secularizes them, actually I hate it, it really bothers me! “Don’t Worry Be Happy” was a song composed and sang by Bobby Mcferrin in 1988. It became the first acapella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, a position it held for two weeks. The song’s title was taken from a famous quotation by Meher Baba. But we know, Meher Boba, whether he knows it or not got the thought from Jesus, as we saw in our reading today. However, the true saying was not simply, "Don't worry, be happy", but Don't worry, put your faith in me (Jesus) and be happy or "worry not". The World takes this saying, takes Jesus out and re-phrases it to simply say, "Don't worry be happy". And so the song takes to the airwaves and becomes a huge hit; people started singing, "yeah, don't worry, be happy", but the song quickly faded as people's problems and lives quickly over took ...

    It’s interesting how this all ends up being Abram’s fault. Sarai approaches Abram in her frustration, blames God “He has kept me from having children” now go and sleep with my Egyptian maidservant, Hagar! Abram is simply just trying to keep the peace, Abram is just trying to say, “yes dear, just stop yelling and get a grip on yourself”. Abram does the deed and now his wife looks at him and blames him.  Abram is caught in the middle, he now has a son through this woman (half Egyptian!), Abram now has a bond with this woman, but of course he’s not going to mention any of that to Sarai, so he just says, “do with her what you want” and you know that hurts him to say that, but right now he has a mess on his hands that is way too big for him to handle. Yes, it’s interesting how Sarai ends up blaming all of this on Abram.  And you know what, she’s right! But no, you just said, Sarai is the one that was frustrated, Sarai was the one who told him …” But Abram sh...

   I couldn't help but think as Abram victoriously rescues his nephew Lot, that Lot is only going to go back to the slime. How often have we risked our lives, "so to speak" to rescue family members and or friends only to see them go back. So what do we do? Keep doing right! Was recently talking to a man who took in a 13 year old for a couple of years and was nothing short of a father to him. Now that teen has gone off to be with some other family members and does not even call. This man was telling me how much it hurts. We can have one experience like Lot, where we risk our lives for nothing; and then make a decision not to help anyone anymore!  But as I told this man, I will tell you, "we don't necessarily do it for them or the the accolades we will get, we do it because it was the right thing to do at the time. It's who we are that matters, not who they are. You can also be sure that no matter what the other person does with our help, God honors our labors ...

If you were on a flight and your destination was Hawaii (sounds real good right now) and your Airline stopped in Chicago and announced over the speakers, “this is it, your final destination” you would argue, “no, my final destination is Hawaii” and they responded, “true, but this is good enough, please disembark we have new passengers coming on, Thank-you for flying with us”.  If this happened to you, I think you would be irate. The final destination was  Hawaii , what kind of nerve do they have, I will have a lawsuit against this company, I will get a hold of every newspaper…”  Religious people have all sort of little clichés they use and nuances, one of them is “Jesus is my co-pilot” which always starts an argument amongst religious folks, over the internet stratosphere, that sounds something like this, “what’s wrong with you, Jesus is not your co-pilot, He is the Pilot!!!” to which a bunch of people applaud and say “Amen, Amen!”  However, if you’ve lived for God f...

  It's interesting that in the book of Psalms we read about the wisdom of " not sinning by allowing anger to rule over you". There is a huge gap between the writing of the Psalms and the murder that was committed by Cain, by doing this very act, "allowing anger to rule over him". In chronological time, the gap is huge, but for us reading The one Year Bible it's just a couple of days. How fitting that just a couple of days after we read a verse that can give us the wisdom in not committing the same sin that we just read about a couple of days prior. Through out the year this is a common occurrence, that the wisdom of one book lends or compliments another. I wonder if when the Psalmist wrote the Psalm we read today if he ever knew it would be placed next to the horrible murder that Cain committed, which obviously the Psalmist was familiar with. It was very much part of their history. The answer is obviously "no" the Psalmist did not know, but God did...

        When we have the opportunity to read about the confrontation between the devil and Jesus; and what manor of temptation the devil is going to tempt Jesus with, we are thinking...."this should be good!" Oddly enough, if we'll be honest, this scenario falls kind of flat. It is definitely hurting in the area of action and drama. The temptations do not seem at all, "overtly spectacular!"      3 Temptations the devil throws at Jesus. These 3 are going to be, or should be "The Devil's best". The first one is for Jesus to tempt God or put God to the test by throwing himself off the cliff. The 2nd is to yield to evil for power and the 3rd is to satisfy the craving of his flesh. These, I don't find, to be out of the ordinary temptations, they are actually, pretty common temptations. We see people every day, tempt God, yield to evil to gain power and we see people give in every day to the cravings of the flesh. Perhaps our temptations, like Jesus...

    It’s hard to believe the first sin was so innocent. The eating of forbidden fruit, I mean, really!? Compare that to what we deal with today in society. We are dealing with human trafficking, the Holocaust, Genocides, rape, murder, etc…etc….How did we get here? Well, if we continue to read, we discover that there is a progressive element to sin. The first sin seems innocent in itself, “eating forbidden fruit, in essence, the first sin is disobedience, the second sin is anger/jealousy, the third sin is rebellion, the fourth sin is lying, the fifth sin is murder and the sixth sin is a repeat of the fourth sin.  We learn that there is a progressive state towards sin and once we embark on one sin there’s no telling where it will lead us. One place we know for sure it will lead us, is “away from God”. The culmination of Cain’s progressive venture on sin is…… “Cain left the Lord’s presence”. You can be sure, everyone who goes away from the Lord is dealing with some...

God gave us the calendar year, days and months to help us process life, in Lamentations 3:22 we have the promise "because of his great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning." Of course God could not have inspired that to be written had He not created "the morning". Today, on the 1st day of the year we read, " and God said, let there be light and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and he called the darkness, night and then there was morning, the FIRST DAY!”   I can just  imagine that! The first day ever, what that must have been like!! (dialogue) "whats that, Lord,  that you've done?", asked Michael, the great archangel. "I've just created a day!, says the Lord. "what's a day?", asked Michael. "what's a day, that's a good question Michael; how do I put this........a day is a bite s...