THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

      Such a short verse here, slipped in the midst of all the numbers and counting, but did you catch that?  Vs. 9 "...were among Korah's followers when they rebelled against the Lord".  Moses must be mistaken here, so I went back and read the story where it actually happened.  It seems as I read the story that Korah approaches Moses, with his gang, to confront Moses. Korah says, "why do you set yourself above the people, we are all holy too!".  So at first appearance, it seems like Korah is not rebelling against the Lord (after all, who would do that?) Korah is merely rebelling against the leadership.       I like (actually I don't) how we separate the two. "I love the Lord and would do anything He tells me, it's just this incompetent leadership I am rebelling against. And not only will I rebel, but I will spend my time convincing others to join me, against him. Rebels in the Church are always pretty convinced that they are rebell...

  HOW spiritual are you? Of course nobody likes "super spiritual" people, but that does not mean we should not be spiritual. "Super Spiritual" people are those who try to spiritualize matters that are more practical in nature than anything else, they also try to hide their flaws and judgmentalism behind "spirituality"...., well we know all about them, but let's talk about us. We are proud that nobody would call us "super spiritual" but would anybody call us "spiritual" ??? THE FACT IS some of us are more spiritual, more in tune with God and seem to have more of his Spirit, than others. Paul prayed, "that they may be filled to FULL measure with His Spirit". Full meaning that any Christian can be from a quarter empty to overflowing full (just like a gas tank) with God's Spirit. If only we had a gage like our gas tank, to show us where we are at. Aside from violations & money problems, the balance of divorces stems fr...

 Balaam is a confusing character to many people. At first when we are reading about him going over to meet Balak to partner with him against Israel. However when Balaam pronounces blessing on Israel instead of cursing; Balak sends him off angry so now we think, "oh, he's a good guy". Balaam is saying good things, but he is still bad. Later on Balaam mentions to King Balak that although he cannot curse Israel himself, Balaam suggests to King Balak that he can have the Israelites curse themselves by enticing them into sexual immorality. This turns out to be quite an effective course and thousands of Israelites die in a plague that strikes the Israelite community because of their sexual immorality between the moabite women and the men of Israel..What we can learn from this is "saying good things does not make you good", doing good things makes you good, even if you don't say a thing. We are confused about Balaam, but there really is nothing to be confused about...

  A healthy dose of reality for us is to be able to see ourselves in the Israelites. I sure don't dress like them and I sure don't talk like them, but I sure act like them, how about you? First of all, they have to get angry, before they are willing to pray. It shows they know the value of prayer but only seem to pray when it benefits them; nonetheless, they pray to God. Our scripture says, "The Lord heard the Israelite's request and gave them the victory". A tremendous victory and it was 100% correlated to their prayer to God. You would think that would be a reference point for them of how real God is and how good He is, but as the story goes on, as it will with you and I. the journey grew long. This is where we become fickle. If only serving God was a 50 yard sprint, we would all be doing much better. However it's not a sprint, it's a long distance journey, called life! The long journey causes many of us who once had fire coming out of our finger tips, t...

  We read about this Godly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, both our text is clear to tell us come from a Godly/Priestly, lineage. They are described as being a Godly COUPLE , righteous in God's eyes careful to obey all his commands. There is no greater blessing to the Church than a Godly couple. More often than not, you have a devout single mom, or a married woman coming on her own, serving God faithfully, while her husband stays home or you have the couple that comes out, the husband is devout and the wife is more interested in many other things, but the rare jewel of the Church and/or the Kingdom of God, is the Zechariah and Elizabeth or the Joseph and Mary. There is nothing more powerful and influential in the Church than a Godly couple, without sounding redundant. There is the situation where a couple comes into the Church and the other simply does not have that same passion, what can you do? However, how often single men and women are Christian Singles and have the oppor...

  God in the Old Testament reminds me of a parent with young children. The constantly argue and squabble and mom and/or dad spends most of those early days settling disputes amongst the children. The children learn to depend and expect that mom or dad is going to settle the dispute, make a judgment of who is right and who is wrong and then discipline the guilty party. There is immediate intervention and immediate judgment when we are young. I liked the God of the Old Testament, how about you? There's squabbling and fighting against Aaron and God intervenes, shows them who's right and who's wrong, who's side He is on and the matter is settled. God is continuously intervening in their lives and settling disputes as the parent(s) of young children. My children are at a stage now where I hear the arguments and squabbling and more often than not I stay out of it, they need to start learning how to resolve conflict themselves. There is just as much conflict "in the camp...