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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 28 "THE ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE"

   It's very interesting, Isaiah predicts the rise of Babylon when they are insignificant nobodies, it is hardly believable that Babylon is ever going to rise to any stage of great prominence, never mind, defeat Israel and take them all in captive to be their slaves. Yet that's exactly what happened. Now we have Jeremiah, when Babylon IS the greatest force on  the earth predicting that they will be reduced to nothing, they will be something to be laughed at and mocked, this is also hardly believable, especially as he predicts this while they are great. Yet, approx 65-70 years later, the Medes and Persians come in and completely destroy Babylon, the Great. Isaiah predicts their greatness when they are nothing and he (Jeremiah) predicts their fall when they are great. The boldness of these predictions......these prophecies will either prove him to be true a Prophet or a false prophet! History (don't even have to use the Bible) proves both these Prophecies to be 100% accurat...
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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 27 "IS SELF-CONTROL A DIRTY WORD?"

    Paul in our text is breaking down Christian and ethical behavior in 4 categories. He's breaking it down for Men, Women & Children & Servants. There is variation in what he writes to all 4, but one common virtue Paul brings up in all 4 scenarios, the "only" virtue he brings up to all 4 parties is that of "Self Control". I think it is easier to understand that word if you say it backwards... Control Self , or even more specifically,  Control yourself ! Is this such a big issue with us? Do we not control ourselves? I know I control my bladder, it would be severely embarrassing to me to be with friends and have an "accident". I don't think they would look at me with much empathy but they probably would look at me with much sympathy, sympathy for what a sorry sucker I am that I cannot control my own bladder at my age. There are other areas that I am not so flawless at exercising self control. I have never, not once had a bladder accident, no...
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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 26 "CHRISTIAN LIVING, 101"

    The heading in most Bibles for Ephesians 4 "Christian Living".  Ephesians 4 & 5 are the basic manuals for Christian etiquette. The antagonist of the Church, ironically enough, is not necessarily the Devil, though he is one, but it is also you and I.  We by nature try to drag the church down to are level, rather than rise up to the standard Christ has set before us. This constant tension between what our flesh craves for and what the Holy Spirit desires. Any Pastor on any given Sunday could preach on this text and have the altars full. "Don't be bitter, don't fight, stop lusting, stop lying, let go of the anger, don't grieve the Holy Spirit" We can so easily be reduced to our base instinct, our base nature. So often we hear Christians say, "oh, they are so lucky I'm a Christian, or I would....." This only confirms that for many of us, as Voltaire, the French philosopher and acclaimed atheist wrote, "scratch the service of a Chri...
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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 25 "THE UGLY SIDE OF MINISTRY"

  I would much prefer not to talk about this, I would much rather not have to deal with this, this is messy stuff. If I wanted to be involved in politics and messy stuff, then I would get involved in that. I stay clear of politics, I stay clear of conflict, I just want to be a Christian, go to church and be happy. Paul today is writing about rebuking people, setting them straight, confronting supposed Christians, challenging people who are teaching false doctrine, people rejecting the truth and coming up with lies, I just want to ask Paul, "are you trying to discourage me from The Church or encourage me?". Reading about this discourages me, reading about this reminds me of when people say, 'the reason I don't go to church is because of all the problems in the church". There really is an ugly side of ministry, isn't there?! It's been like this since the beginning of the church, apparently. So what do we do then? What we do is keep going to church, keep ser...
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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 24 "ARE YOU A FOOL?"

I was reading Proverbs today with a little trepidation. Thinking, "I hope I'm not a fool?".  What a negative discourse this is. If the first four books of the New Testament are called "The Gospels" ie: Good News, what would we call Proverbs 26?  As you are reading through this proverb, you don't get the sense that there is much hope for a fool. It's sad because I know a few fools and so do you! Not only does it pretty accurately describe a fool, it also describes or alludes as to how we may try to work with a fool and you know what, I have tried them all and true to this proverb, the results have been as stated in the scripture. Let's look at the idea of "honoring a fool". Verse 8 deals with that. You may ask "who would honor a fool?", I have!  And obviously others have too; otherwise it would not be addressed in our text. I honored a fool in hopes that in honoring them, it would encourage them to change and just like it says, it ...
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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 23 "WOW! I SURE WISH I FELT LIKE THAT"

 Wow, I wish I felt like that in the morning! Somebody has had way too much Java this morning. "It is good to give thanks to the lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me,Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done." Somebody got off to a good start this morning, was it you? We're waking up tired, very tired. We're thinking about that dead end job we have to go to everyday, wishing we would win the lottery so we could quit, oh but we don't play the lottery, great, then we'll never get out of that dead end job. We still don't know how the rent is going to get paid, who's going to be able to fix the car, how our daughter is going to get out of this crazy relationship, how you’re going to deal with your husband being laid off, etc..etc…and ...
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THE ONE YEAR BIBLE OCTOBER 22 "WHERE IS GOD IN LIFE'S TRAGEDIES?"

Certainly, many of life's tragedies we are not going to get an explanation on. We will have to wait until we get on the other side of eternity before we can any reasonable explanation. Right now, all we can do is grieve and maintain our faith in God, when it seems hard, in the midst of tragedy. The end of the story that we read today is that Gedaliah is murdered and the rest of the Jews that are with him are slaughtered. First question we are going to ask is going to be, "where was God?", not "why did Ishmael do such a wicked thing?" No, the 1st question is always, "where was God?" However this is one story that we do get privy insight into, unlike most other tragedies, in this story we get to see the whole story unfold. It starts with a solemn warning to Gedaliah. Johanan is able to find out (now how was Johanan able to find out except by divine orchestration or you can say "coincidence" but I won't). So Johanan is able to find out, by d...
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