2 Chronicles 34
Key Passages
1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years.2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.
Seems beyond imagination that an 8 year old was made king to rule over Israel. I see my son now who is almost 7. I can not imagine him as a king over a nation. Yet this young man did rule a nation, a tumultuous one at that, and he did it in a God honoring fashion even from such a young age. If God can use an 8 year old boy to rule a nation and bring it back to Him, then he can use me as a father and husband to be the spiritual leader of my family.
Hosea 2
Key Passages
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’
Chasing after other lovers is the past time of choice for most people including myself. I go after whatever I think is going to make me happy. I've chased other lovers, and have not caught them because they can not be caught. I've sought happiness wherever I thought I could get it, and found that it is not in any of the places I've looked. I need to get back to my first love. The only love that satisfies.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. 15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.16 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ 17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.
Acts 16
Key Passages
14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.
Lord open my heart to respond to your message. Lord give me a desire to know you the way you are. Reveal yourself to me Lord. Open my heart Lord so that my desire is to respond to You.
18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
There is so much power in the name of Christ. It says “At that moment the spirit left her...” there was no hesitation. That spirit knew what it had to do, and the authority that flowed out of Paul through the name of Jesus Christ showed no hesitation, fear, or doubt. The spirit that possessed that young girl had only one response and that was flee simply at the name of Christ spoken in authority and power by Paul.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
The first thing I would be doing if I were thrown in a jail cell is praying. I'd be praying like crazy. I know for a fact that I'd be praying unceasingly and I know this because I know myself. My prayer would definitely be much different than Paul and Silas' prayer though. While they were praying and singing praises, I'd be sitting silently probably scared to death praying that God would get me out of there. The last thing on my mind would be to sing praises to God. This is a true testament to the power of God in these men's lives that they thought to praise God in a very bad situation that I am positive they didn't want to be in. They saw their imprisonment as a blessing, and the other prisoners were listening to them and being ministered to through it. I hope that someday my life would be changed sufficiently so that in my darkest moments of life I would sing praises to God and have no fear.
Acts 17
Key Passages
10 As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
“...they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
God give me that same desire so that I receive your message with great eagerness, and I examine and study your word every day.
23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
God determined the times set for us and the exact places we would live and he did all this so that we may reach out to Him. God set us in the place and time we are because He wanted us to reach out to him. He engineered our lives so that we'd be placed in the best position possible to reach out to him. And in this place He has placed us, His Spirit dwells, and we quite literally live and move and have our being in Him.
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