Daily Archives: January 28, 2021

Devotional Series, Holy Habitation

Soaking in God’s Word

Leave a comment

I have started a new journey, just absolutely soaking in God’s Word. Through the years, I’ve taken a book and focused on it for a month from time to time. This is the first time I have sensed I am to do this through each book of at least the New Testament of scripture. Doing so the way I am sensing God’s leading to do will take several years to complete and will truly allow me to soak up God’s word. I believe doing so will greatly benefit me.

I have thoroughly enjoyed Matthew and will finish it up the 31st. I’ll have read through and listened to it 10 to 12 times by month’s end, using several versions of scripture. It is taking me to greater depths of understanding and setting it securely in my heart and mind, which is my main goal as my aging brain does not memorize and retain as well as in younger years. I’ll skip to Acts starting February 1, kind of following my usual reading plan:

  • #1 Gospel, Acts-Revelation
  • #2 Gospel, Acts-Revelation
  • # 3 Gospel, Acts-Revelation
  • # 4 Gospel, Acts-Revelation
  • # 1 Gospel, Acts-Revelation
  • Genesis-Revelation

For this I will probably rotate, focusing on several letters, then do another gospel. I know I am to at least do the New Testament this way. Then we will see what the Lord leads to as I start Genesis through Revelations.

Whatever plan you use, I pray you get into God’s word daily, and feast on Him. Seek Holy Spirit to open the Word to you and you to it. Then begin. Trust in the Lord, and do the good He shows you.

“But He replied, It has been written, Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. [Deut. 8:3.]” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭4:4‬ ‭AMPC‬‬

Devotional Series, Holy Habitation

To Greater Depths

Leave a comment

Read Matthew 25:31-46

One purpose in Jesus coming in the form of a man was to clarify the deeper understanding of the intent of God’s Word. This passage in Matthew 25, is one of those greater depth teachings. To get there, we must look at the sermon on the mount. There we find several greater depth teachings in Matthew 5.

For example, in verses 21-26, Jesus reminds us we are not to commit murder. Then He points out that, when we tear a person down to the point that they loose all confidence, feel hopeless and helpless, and become dispirited, we have murdered them already.

In verses 27-30, He reminds us that we are not to commit adultery. Then He broadens that to stress that just looking at anyone other than our mate, with lust for them, is to commit adultery in our hearts. This kills the theory that, “It doesn’t hurt to look.” It does. Sin starts in the heart, then issues forth into words, deeds, and actions. “For from the heart flows the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23 KJV; Matthew 12:33-37; 15:17-20).

On He goes, covering divorce, the “eye for an eye” subject, and more, ending chapter 5 with the greater depths of love, that extends even to those who are our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48 NASB).

Then, in chapter 7, Jesus commands us: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12 NASB). That leads us to our passage today, in Which Jesus tells those, who did well in their treatment of others, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40 NASB).

In my focus on the Gospel of Matthew throughout the month of January, those Words of King Jesus speaking to His sheep, shouted to me the greater depth of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (KJV). It says to me that I am to treat others as if they are Jesus in flesh. To do so, I must remember, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). So to treat others as Christ in my flesh wants to be treated, I must take every thought captive to make thought and desire obey God in Christlikeness. Only then can l, in Christlikeness, hope to receive Christlike treatment in return.

“… We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ …” (‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭10:3-7‬ ‭NASB)