I've been wanting to write out these thoughts for sometime, but well, time seems to escape me sometimes, at least for blogging, but I think it's important, because it's what I've been learning in this time in my life. I was especially reminded of it after our
pastor's sermon about the Word of God, how it should be apart of our life daily, and practical things we can do to help make that happen.
I started something new this year that I have never done before in my Bible reading. After each chapter I read, I write down (literally write them in a notebook), short sentences of what I got out of the chapter or what I felt was the main point of it. It has made the Bible come alive to me. It's made me see patterns and insights I haven't seen before. It makes me want to read more. Maybe this sounds very juvenile to the Bible scholar, but to me it's a start. So I wanted to write down in my blog some of these insights. They seem to grip me the more I read over them and make me truly appreciate what God has already done (it is finished) for me and excites me to be more bold for Him.
Here we go...
In Mark we see Jesus as truly human. Jesus often talks about faith in this book. He wonders where people's faith has gone. He describes in different ways what faith is: being faithful to your spouse, having faith like a child, giving up idols, faith to serve others rather than be served, faith to be healed. We must be purposeful in prayer, having faith. Even the people closest to Jesus, his disciples, often lacked faith. Jesus gives several examples of people (the widow, the prostitute), who's faith was great!
In Acts...oh Acts...where do I begin? It's a book about spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth, and the boldness, faith, and community God desires for us to have. The early Christians truly lived life together. It talks often about how they often prayed together and how they gave to each other as needed. I realized after reading this book how much we (and when I say we, I mean I) isolate ourselves, and I truly think that is a great tool that Satan uses. It's about boldness and courage, and so often when those first Christians could have been weak or scared of threats (even to the point of death), they stood up for what they believed in. One of my favorite parts is when Peter is standing before the rulers of that day, and one of the rulers (in a nutshell) says, let him speak about this Jesus/God, if what he says is true it will live on, but if not it will fade. And God's word has done exactly that...it has lived on! How cool! This is definitely a summery, there is so much more I could say.
On to Hebrews....I just finished it, but need sometime to still reflect. I'll hopefully share soon.
