THE ONE YEAR BIBLE CLUB

   Heard this lady say, after bitter divorce proceedings, "and I gave the best years of my life to that bum!" She is probably right and what can you say? ....Better luck next time??? I can tell you, nobody will ever turn to God and say, "I gave you the best years of my life and...".  What is the greatest lie that has been perpetuated to the human race? Ans: serve God when you're older. In other words, give the best years of your life to some woman, some man, some sinful pleasure and then live to regret it. If only every 15-25 year old would read Ecclesiastes 11.  Solomon emphasizes youth in our chapter today and is not shy to write that are youthful years truly are the best years of our lives; contrary to many trying to hype up the senior years. "young man it's wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it".  It's sad to think that our 15-25 year olds are giving the best years of their lives to drugs, violence, immorality, basically sin, the ...

    "Godly sorrow leads to repentance and leaves no regret."  It's interesting that there are different types of sorrow. "Godly sorrow" as opposed to what? I guess...."ungodly sorrow".  As the saying goes, "are you sorry for what you did or sorry you got caught?"  Both will bring sorrow, no doubt! What is the sorrow you are feeling? What are you feeling sorrow for? The sorrow that comes from God and is accepted by the individual with a right attitude and/or heart, will leave that person, better off.  Ungodly sorrow can ruin and destroy, it can send you into depression, the pit of despair or worse, even cause someone to take their life. We can conclude then, that not all sorrow is good for the soul and not all sorrow produces the same results. Sorrow and guilt from God, will bring forth something better, condemnation, which comes from the enemy is not to bring you to repentance but to crush you. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, is this guil...

 WE are a people that look "for signs" and try to base our assumptions on that.  If we have problems with weather and a flat tire on a road trip, only Christians begin to wonder, "should I have taken this road trip?" The unreligious person will just deal with the bad weather, fix the flat tire and move on.  We determine "the will of God" by omens or signs. When everything is out of joint and going wrong, we begin to think, "maybe this isn't the will of God?".  Is the "Will of God" always smooth and everything goes right; nothing goes wrong".  In our text today we read " For when we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn-conflicts on the outside, fears within. "       HOWEVER in the Book of Acts we had read this original story, how Paul describes to us the dream he had in which the Angel was calling him, beckoning him to go to Macedonia. Paul was going to another city, to...

 We have really digressed from Paul's admonition here to "live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us and no one will find fault with our ministry".  Today, starting at the top with Pastors and working our way down, we have totally let this scripture fall by the waste side and our famous line "nobody is perfect, get off my case". Paul admits he's not perfect in Philippians, Paul never claims to be perfect. Being perfect is not the issue. It's about thinking before you act, thinking before "you tweet" thinking before you speak, thinking before you "post". It's about THINKING, thinking of others, thinking of how your actions will cause others to stumble, even though you may receive forgiveness from God....what about the collateral damage? What do you do about that....answer is nothing! Today we have preachers unleashing tirades of profanity on the blogosphere, we have Pastor's divorcing their wives and marrying som...

God asks a very good question, " would you condemn me, to justify yourself " For how many thousands of years have we been doing this already! "I can't believe in a God that would allow children to starve in Africa, sorry!"  Meanwhile, that same person has children he has never cared to father nor provide a $1.00 to the woman he impregnated, to help raise that child and keep that child out of poverty; we have a woman has a child she has aborted because it was convenient, immorality is rampant in our lives, but none of that matters, "because I can't believe in a God who would allow 3000 people to perish in the Twin Towers back in Sept 11, 2001"     " Would you condemn me, to justify yourself? " God is asking YOU that question, today!  It's actually a rhetorical question.  In Job 41:11 God follows up on this thought, " Who has a claim against me, that I must pay? "  The reason these two questions are being posed is for the obvi...

JOB is apparently one of the 1st books written from the Bible. It's really a fascinating book into God's thoughts. "Were you there when I command those proud waves, here you will stop and go no further".  So much in life we take for granted and don't consider, that's now how it always was, until God "made it to be". The storage of rain in clouds, the insight into the mindset of even "a horse". We take it for granted that a horse is so strong, we take it for granted that this animal just races in battle with no fear of the sword. Try getting another animal to do that, but we take if for granted. God says, "I made the horse like that".  We get insight even in to the Ostrich, "not the wisest of animals, doesn't have much sense" but when it runs, it leaves the horse and rider behind. There's no way this insight is coming from Moses or any other man, especially way back then, what did Moses do, line up the horse and O...

 In the Book of Job today we read, "the godless are full of resentment".  It's a vicious cycle isn't it. The more we disobey God and do things our own way, the worse things get for us and the more bitter and resentful we get against God and the further we stray from Him. While the opposite is true for the sincere Christian. Those that obey spend the rest of their years in prosperity and their years in contentment; thence, drawing them closer to God.   We go on to read "For the godless are full of resentment. Even when God punishes them, they refuse to cry out to him for help".  In the book "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis, a fictional account of life for the soul in the netherworld, C.S. Lewis illustrates the truth of this scripture. Lewis shows that in the afterlife, people/souls will only become more resolute in their convictions. The lost person who dies in their sin, full of rebellion and pride against God will only become more resolute; as th...

   ALL men should be both comforted and challenged by Job's statement, in today's reading, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman."  Why did he make such a covenant with his eyes? For the obvious reason that this is what he was doing or being tempted to do. We should be glad that he did not just write, "my eyes look lustfully at young women".   If he had, we would all feel justified in unbridled lust. You think of King David, a man after God's own heart, according to scripture, he had hundreds of women that he had sex with, many wives and concubines.  He found a way to feed his lust for young women by trying to legitimize it by making them wives and concubines.  Many Preachers have joked about this, "it's hard enough to be married to one woman, who would want more than one?" If only that were the case. David was married to these women simply on paper, so to speak. He did not deal with them in the normal sense...

 I work with an elderly lady and when I walk by, I hold my breath, not because she stinks, but the perfume she wears, stinks. She does not take the time and pay the cost, to put that perfume on, so that others can say, "she stinks, but regardless, that is the end result. I'm sure there are others that will tell her that the perfume she is wearing smells very nice. Paul describes our life as a sweet smelling perfume. However Paul makes an interesting observation here, he writes that not all think our perfume is so sweet. Paul writes that to those who are being saved we are a life giving perfume, but to those who are perishing we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. At work, at school and family events, to some, as they see you walking over, they say to each other before you get there, "block your nose, he comes so and so and she/her stinks of death and doom". And they hold their breath the whole time you are there. The Word of God has a scripture that gives us insi...

Job is wanting a "one on one meeting" with God, to present his case before God. "Even till this day, my complaint is bitter". Job goes on to say. "Oh that I knew where I might find him". Job is clear here, in this text, that if he could find God, he would go to Him and plead his case, and his complaint, before Him. Recently, I did such a thing, not with God of course, but with a utility company that I have a complaint with and wanting to state my case before them. I went in, quite irate and perturbed, to say the least. They did not make any promises to change and/or reverse any charges, but would consider. The difference between the utility company and God though, is I was able to bring information to them, that they were not privy of, so that may change their recourse. However, with God, what information are we going to bring to Him that He does not already have knowledge of? Many of us, I'm sure, have at one time or another, wished if we could just h...

   One thing that is very interesting about reading through the One Year Bible is coming across days like today. Who could plan this out? Yesterday, in the Old Testament we are reading about "Lousy Comforters" and today in the New Testament we are reading about "Good Comforters". Paul writes that God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others in their troubles. The first problem then of a lousy comforter would be that he or she, is one that has not been comforted by God; therefore he cannot comfort others. The question to ask of course would be, "why hasn't he been comforted by God?". The answer is complex, but a simple answer for sake of time and space, would be that he/she is not able to be comforted by God because they are to distant from God and secondly, because they have structured their life in such a way that often there is not much trouble to be comforted in. Paul writes, "that as you share in our sufferings, you will also ...

   Job responds to his friends, "I have heard many things like this before; you are lousy comforters, all of you. Job is not trying to be mean and guess what?! Neither are his friends! They are simply, "lousy comforters". These are believers, they are well versed believers. Much of what they are saying is true. Their theology is correct, but their application is horrible.  A Christian employee was asked by the secretary why bad things happen to kids; another religious man in the company interrupted with his own answer, "everything comes down to sowing and reaping" and he began to quote scripture. In this Christian's world, everything is black and white. Just like Job's friends; and what a lousy comforter he would be. What would he say to comfort the woman who has a miscarriage? He would no doubt tell her she was reaping some kind of sin. Even Jesus' disciples were caught up in this tract, they asked Jesus, "who sinned, this man or his parents, ...

       JUST because someone is down does not necessarily mean that they are spiritually inferior to you.  There's some great insight into human nature in the Book of Job.  Verse 5, "Men at ease have contempt for misfortune".  There is a weird, sinister characteristic in humans that has a contempt for misfortune and people in misfortune. People need compassion and empathy when misfortune strikes, but often what they get from us is contempt and a cold shoulder. Why is that?  Why is our response, "here, here's $50.00 now get it together, I got it together, what is so difficult?"  I believe one of the reasons for this attitude and response towards struggling people is that we have seen many people in misfortune because of their own decisions as we watched them through their lives away and we begin to take on this mindset that all who are suffering, are suffering due to their own fault.  We assume they have ...

   Well, so much for the argument that I've heard Christians tell Atheists, "well, even if there is no God, and we are not resurrected, we have lived a better life". Paul doesn't seem to agree, Paul writes, if there's no resurrection then let's enjoy the sinful pleasures of this life" (paraphrased by me of course). Paul writes "there are many things that I am free to do, that I do not because they are not constructive to my walk with God or may be a stumbling block to others (paraphrased by me). In short Paul is saying that the Christian life is a life of much self restraint, that there are even things "which are permissible" that Paul doesn't do, for the sake of others. And I can relate to that, can you? If there's no judgement, no resurrection then Paul says, "let's loosen up a little, boys!" Never mind this mantra, "well, we have lived a better life"  Paul says, "no way, no resurrection, let's par...

        THE worse people to try to comfort are those that have spent their lives encouraging others, ironically enough (or not so ironic) is that they that have spent their lives encouraging others and expected those that they ministered to to receive their benevolence; now that they are recipients of such Grace and benevolence, they are not such good takers. Verse 3 in Job, "Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hand. Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees"  We don't have to guess at what Job's life has been, we are told here, he has spent his life instructing, strengthening and supporting others but now that he is down and out, he is not so good at letting others encourage him.  Ever met people like that?  They are great at helping others, they are great at encouraging others but when they need help, when they need encour...

    Okay, maybe my pessimism or cynical nature is going to come out here (I apologize in advance) but WHO in the world is contending for "Spiritual Gifts" in your church? You talk about an outdated scripture. We are the generation of the Mega and Entertainment Church, pop-psychology, feel good sermons and where does me seeking gifts, so that the church be edified, fit into that? I am here for me, I come to church so I can be lifted up, so I can be encouraged, so I can benefit, and it better be good too!  This whole foregone idea of desiring "Gifts" was back in the day when people wanted to help and be a blessing to their church. Can you imagine someone desiring The Gift of Tongues of Prophesy, risking, looking like a fool, for what? So the church can be edified, never mind that! I have been saved for over 23 years and have never, heard, in any conversation, someone say, "you know, I"m seeking spiritual gifts so the church may  be edified".  I know, I ...

     THIS is not the answer to prayer that Esther is looking for, ie: Fight.   She is going to The King (A God type figure in this story) and as we all know, The King (Jesus Christ) can do anything, right?   The King can put a stop to this! However, to Esther's surprise the King says, "I cannot!"  Whoever heard of such words coming out of the mouth of a King! How many times have we asked our King, and quoting with assurance "you can do anything" and God comes back to us and says, "this I cannot do, but if you will do thus and so then...."   The King says he cannot stop it but what he can do is make it so that they can fight and defend themselves.  Not quite the answer Esther was looking for and often not the answer we are looking for either, if we will be quit honest.      The King has limited his own self by this law that causes him not to be able to reverse what he has signed off w...

   How can we both be right? Easy, happens all the time. Where do you stand in this story? If you're a man then you probably will take sides with the man, "can't have a woman dissing her husband in front of all those people, especially a man of that authority, what kind of precedent would that make? Hmmm, true.      If you're a woman then you will probably take sides with the woman, "you have to stand up for yourself, if you don't respect yourself, then who will. He thinks he's going to get all drunk with his friends and then call me over in front of his drunk friends and parade me in front of them....I don't think so!" Hmmm, true.      He should not be getting drunk with his friends and then for entertainment be thinking of having his wife come parade in front of them so they can all gawk and grope at her, c'mon....she should not be disrespecting her husband in front of all his friends and setting a bad example for other woman to follow...

    This is our hope, when there is no hope. That God is a "Master Orchestrator", orchestrating events on our behalf, in our favor. Though God is not "specifically" mentioned throughout the Book of Esther, He is interwoven throughout the whole book. God is not speaking directly to Esther or Mordecai. God is not even sending Angels to speak to his people; as in other stories. The story of Esther is  a story that the 21st Century Christian should be able to relate to, more than any other story in the bible.  In our day and age, we are not seeing appearances of God nor speaking with Angels. We pray and we believe God; once we've prayed and sought his help to guide by divine guidance and to orchestrate, we, the 21st Century Christian, rely heavily on Providence! Often we quote Mordecai as saying to Esther "for such a time as this you have come to be Queen", but the actual quote is "who knows if perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this"...