Book of Luke

Tonight we read from Luke 12:8-21.

The portion that we focused on was verse 15 - 

And He [Jesus] said to them, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses."

Then a parable to illustrate - 

The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.  And he thought within himself, saying, "What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?"  So he said, "I will do this:  I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.'"  But God said to him, "Fool!  This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?"  So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

It's not about the stuff.

Book of Luke

Tonight we read from chapter 8.

At verse 4 we read the parable of the sower--I love the parable of the sower!  But I'm not going to talk about that today.  Jesus explains this parable to his disciples in the verses that follow.

When we got to verse 16 there is a passage that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense on it's own.

This beautifully illustrates a principle I just told my son the other day.  He asked if some people are confused when they read the Bible.  I said there are a lot of people that are confused by the Bible.  I told him that the best way to understand scripture is to read more scripture.  I left it at that, he's almost nine, I will elaborate on it more as he grows.  I also told Him that when Jesus left, He said He was sending the Holy Spirit and that one of the reasons was so that He would teach us what the scripture means.

So 1) If you don't understand what you've read, pray and ask God to reveal the meaning to you.  I have heard Dr. Chuck Missler say that you should write it down in a journal, because when God reveals the meaning to you later you will probably have forgotten that you didn't understand it.  This way you can go back and write down the date that God revealed the meaning to you and see a record of all the times the Holy Spirit taught you.

And 2)  The more you read, the more you will understand.  The pieces of the puzzle will start to fit together.  I tell you, it wasn't too many years ago that I would feel guilty for not doing any regular Bible reading, but each time I opened up the Bible, I didn't understand much of what I had just read.  This, of course, discouraged me from further reading.  Then one day I decided I was going to do a Bible reading schedule (one-year schedule).  I was faithful with that schedule for 3 or 4 months.  Each day there was a selection from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms or Proverbs.  I did not complete the Bible in one year, but after a while it was starting to make sense to me and the desire to read more and learn more was growing.

So the reason this passage illustrates this is because each verse in this passage is related to other verses.

Luke 8:16-18

No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light.  For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.  Therefore take heed how you hear.  For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.

Verse 16 makes me think of Matthew 5:14-15.  Jesus says that we are the light of the world and we are to let our light shine.  The works that we are doing are supposed to bring glory to God.

Verse 17 (nothing is secret) brings to mind the passage we read a few weeks ago about our works being tested by fire (I Cor. 3).  You can read more about that here.  I explained to my son that a lot of people do things that they know are wrong (their conscience tells them), but they justify that no one will ever know, no one sees, but God sees.  Those secrets will be revealed in the end.

Verse 18 points to the same passage.  Whoever has, more will be given--that hardly sounds fair!  And whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken away?  Go back and read the passage in I Cor. 3 about the fire.  If your works are eternal they will withstand the fire and you will receive rewards (the more that is given you), but if your works were worthless (career, house, car, money, etc.), they will be burned up and what you seemed to have is taken away by the fire.  The things that matter here on earth will not matter in heaven.

Galatians

I haven't been able to do my Galatians study lately.  With Christmas Train our schedule has been all out of whack.

I sat down to listen to the 16th broadcast in the series and I noticed that it was an overlap from an earlier broadcast.  You know when you listen to radio shows they sometimes overlap or sometimes leave a gap?  Well, this one went back almost a full chapter, but I could tell it was a much more recent recording so I thought I would go ahead and listen and see if there was any difference.

Well, my re-listening was well worth it!

Reading in chapter 4, we got to verse 19 - "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you."

What does this mean?

Paul had ministered the gospel to the Galatian people and now he was away from them and writing them a letter.  He fondly refers to them as his children, he labored for their birth, much like a woman, but for their spiritual rebirth.  He is writing to Christians.  They are already saved, but he is expounding on the differences between the old covenant, the law, and the new covenant of grace.

What does it mean "until Christ is formed in you."?

Well, simply this is our purpose here, for Christ to live IN and THROUGH us!

Salvation is not the end, but the beginning.  Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; 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 for me."

I'm saved and so now Christ lives in me, but does that mean I will never again make a mistake?  Am I perfect now?

Certainly not!  My spirit has been reborn, but not my flesh.  There is a transformation that happens while on this earth and it will not be complete until Jesus comes back.

Philippians 1:6  "...He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;"  At the moment you are saved, the Holy Spirit starts a work in your life that does not stop until the day of Jesus Christ, that is the day that Christ returns.

How does this transformation work?

Romans 12:2  "...be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

You renew your mind simply by putting something different into it.  If you want to learn a new skill, you study, if you want to break a habit, you first make up your mind.  You renew your mind to the things of God simply by putting God's Word into your mind.  Reading, listening, studying, etc.  The difference though is that God's Word is alive and it has the power to bring lasting change.

Ephesians 5:26  "that He (Christ) might sanctify and cleanse her (His Bride, the church) with the washing of the water by the word"  The Word of God cleanses us, refreshes us, and sanctifies us.

Jesus was praying for His disciples right before He was to go to the cross.  He prayed in John 17:17 that God would, "sanctify them by Your truth, Your word is truth."

What does sanctify mean?

I looked it up the other day.  My dictionary said that to sanctify is to make pure and holy.

Is this salvation?  No, we are not saved simply by reading the word.  Being saved is called justification.  Sanctification is this lifelong transformation that the Holy Spirit is working in you.

I heard this recently and thought it was very interesting.  Salvation is really a 3-step process.  Or rather there are three tenses of salvation.

We HAVE been saved, we ARE being saved, and we WILL be saved.

Let me explain.

We are FIRST justified, we ARE being sanctified, and we WILL be glorified.

Justification removes the penalty of sin.  What is the penalty of sin?  The wages of sin is death, but we have received a gift from God of eternal life.  (Rom. 6:23 & Eph. 2:8-9)

Sanctification removes the power of sin in our life, the bondage of sin.  The Holy Spirit is our Helper and He will lead us and guide us into all truth so that we can be free from sin's hold.  (Rom. 6:18 & John 16:13)

Glorification removes us from the presence of sin.  When Jesus returns, our physical bodies will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, they will become immortal and incorruptible and we will be taken out of the presence of sin altogether.  (Rom. 8:23 & I Cor. 15:50-58)

So let's go back now to the first verse, Galatians 4:19, speaking of Christ being formed in us.  This is an on-going process, the more we are sanctified, the more we grow and mature, the more we reflect Christ to the world.

The sad news is that many just stop at justification.  Oh, they're headed to heaven all right, but they don't grow and mature and renew their minds and seek first the kingdom of God, so they don't experience transformation.  They don't experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give.  (John 10:10)  I mentioned this before, how silly it sounds to kids, that some people stay babies their whole lives.  Now I do not believe that those people lose their salvation (and that is a topic for another day), but they do not get the crown (I Cor. 9:25 & II Tim. 4:8) that Paul speaks of or the rewards in heaven (I Cor. 3:8).

Do you feel you are living the abundant life that Christ promised?  What is included in that abundant life?  Well, the fruit of the Spirit is love (this is loving more than just those that love you back), joy (not circumstantial happiness that comes and goes, but true joy all the time), peace (are you really at peace?), patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (or also translated meekness, which is teachable--are you teachable or do you feel you have it all figured out?), and self-control.

If you are not experiencing those fruits, perhaps you need to wash in the water of the Word.  I can hear some of you say, "I go to church, a really good one, that teaches the Word and in a way that I can understand it, it's awesome!"

I will leave you with this thought--how well will a baby grow if it's only fed once a week?  Will that baby be healthy and strong?  Or puny and weak?

Thought Life

I have been thinking about my thought life a lot lately and how I think it needs cleaned up a bit.

At my homeschool group mom's meeting in November we had a guest speaker, a missionary originally from her, but currently living in Indonesia.  She was really great to listen to.  She told us to go home and read Romans 8 and see what needed cleaned out of our "though closets", thoughts that don't line up with God's Word.  

I feel that lately my "thought closet" needs organized!  If I go into my thought closet to wear a black t-shirt and jeans, the red shirt is jumping out of the closet, yelling, "wear me, wear me!"  Or sometimes, 5 outfits at a time are jumping out of the closet saying, "Pick me, pick me!"  

Basically I feel like what ever I'm doing, my mind is on other things.  Maybe I'm the only one with these issues.  :)  I think I need to be more deliberate in my thoughts and focus my mind on whatever task is at hand.

So with this in mind, I went to bed the other night and wanted something quick to read.  I looked up the scripture that talks about bringing your thoughts into captivity.  I found it, it is in II Corinthians 10.  I read the whole chapter and many good things stuck out to me.

Verse 3 - we must always remember the battle is spiritual and we can only resist the devil with the Word! (James 4:7 & Ephesians 6:10-18)

Verse 4 - our weapon (the Word) is MIGHTY for pulling down strongholds!

Verse 5 - bringing every thought into captivity to the OBEDIENCE of Christ - this one got me - ouch!  Is it obedience to Christ to be so scatter-brained?

Verse 7 - we are Christ's!  We cannot focus on the external, but the internal and on the things of God.

Verse 12 - this one has been a favorite of mine for a while - it is not wise to compare yourself with others (I call this a trap, many get caught in it and let it rule their lives).

Verse 17 - we must not every forget - God wants ALL the glory!

Then I looked up in my concordance some other "thought" verses.  I came up with Psalm 139 and Psalm 40.

Psalm 139 tells us how God knows us inside and out, for He is the one who made us.  Verses 17 and 18 stuck out to me, they say, "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How great is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would be MORE in number than the sand;"  (Emphasis mine.)

Did you know God is thinking about you?  And thinking precious thoughts?  So many that they can't be numbered?  That's got to make you feel good!

Psalm 40 has a theme of God always being there for us, especially in times of trial.  But verse 5 tells us again that God's thoughts toward us cannot be numbered!

Book of Luke

We are currently going through the book of Luke for our dinnertime reading.  My husband reads this when he is home (which is most nights).  The other night I read since he had to work late.  I have a tendency for rabbit trails.  Here is the trail we went on.

We had left off the night before at Luke 3:7 (sometimes we don't make it all the way through a chapter with a 3 year old and 9 year old).  So I started reading at verse 7 where John the Baptist is telling the people to repent.  He tells them in verse 8 that they can't just say that Abraham is their father (the Jewish people considered themselves righteous just because they were descended from Abraham).  John the Baptist tells them this is not true and that they should be bearing fruit in their lives.  In verse nine he says that trees that don't bear fruit are cut down and thrown into the fire.

At this point my son said he knew that this was talking about hell.  It is fun seeing his mind working.  But I told Him that this was talking about God's fire.  He looked perplexed.  So we turned to I Corinthians 3.  I have a penchant for reading a whole chapter rather than just a few verses to get the context so we started at the top.

This was a great read.  First Paul starts out telling the Corinthians that as baby Christians he had to feed them the milk of the Word and not the solid food, and that they were still at the baby stage, they hadn't grown up.  He tells them that as babies they are carnal, or worldly.  Their minds are on worldly things and not the things of God.  This is fun to explain to kids--the fact that not all people grow up.  We all physically grow up, but a lot of people don't mentally or spiritually grow up.

Paul goes on in verse 5 to explain that we are all workers and we will each receive a reward if we are doing the work of God.  Verse 13 says that, "each one's work will become clear, for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is."  If it is gold, silver, or precious stone, it will survive the fire, but if it is wood, hay, or straw, the fire will consume it.  If your work endures, you receive a reward.  If your work was consumed in the fire, you will suffer loss, but you will still be saved, just without a reward.

I then went on to explain to the kids that the verses (Matthew 6:19-21) that talk about laying up treasure in heaven are talking about the same as the passage in Corinthians we just read.  That seemed to make it add up in my son's mind.  I could see that the dots were connecting for him.  

I also told him that I believe that Revelation 21:4 is referring to the people whose life work was burned up in God's fire.  It says that God will wipe away every tear.  Why are people crying?  The chapter is describing the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem, how there will be no more death or sorrow, so why are people crying?  

I believe when we see our life burned in the fire, the ones whose work gets burned up will be devastated and there will be tears.  I don't know about you, but I want to be one of the ones who gets a reward.  I want my life's work to be gold, silver and precious stone that will withstand that fire!  Good works will NOT save you, but a Christian should be bearing good fruit--doing the work that God has called them to!

We wrapped up our reading by going back to Luke and finishing the passage, through verse 20.  John the Baptist's ministry was to tell people to repent, to prepare the way for Jesus.  He was not politically correct, he didn't care if he ruffled feathers.  Herod had him thrown into prison as a result.

Galatians

I am currently doing a study of the book of Galatians and it is wonderful!  I like to sit down for a half hour, most of the days that I can, at my computer and listen to Dr. Chuck Missler's commentary for my personal Bible study.  You will find a link on the right for Khouse, his ministry website.  He sells commentaries on practically every book of the Bible, but most of them are also broadcast in half hour segments on the radio, his show is called 66/40.  You will find a link for that on the left bar of his website.  These radio broadcasts are streaming, not downloadable, but free, so I'm not complaining.  :)

Here is the link for the Galatians broadcasts.  I just checked the site and see that Galatians is the current broadcast so it WILL be available on podcast for a while.  They do not keep all their podcasts out there forever, though, so if you want it you will need to download it soon.  The first one was on Monday the 8th, I believe.  The series will probably last a few weeks if it is the same as I've been listening to.

Do you have trouble sorting out law and grace?  Have you ever been in a church that handed out a list of dos and don'ts?  Are we supposed to keep the Sabbath?  Or the feasts?  What is grace?  Is it that God let's you off the hook?  What was the purpose of the law?  What about when Jesus said He didn't come to do away with the law, but fulfill it?

Check out this Galatians commentary and it will all make sense.  It did for me!

Prophecy

Update below 12/24/08

As an advent activity last year I decided to cover prophecy scriptures about Jesus, and their fulfillments, with my kids.  You can read about that here.  It didn't seem to have the impact that I was looking for so I wasn't going to do it again this Christmas, but have changed my mind.  I will tell you why.

A little while back (can't remember what we were reading), my son had a lightbulb go off in his head during Bible reading.  He said, "you mean the Bible not only tells us things that happened, but things that are going to happen, too?!?"  I thought I had explained that last Christmas with the prophecy scriptures.  Oh well, now that he understands this he thinks it's really cool.

I also got to thinking about the method I used last year.  I printed out the scriptures on red and green paper and cut them out with fancy scrapbook scissors and each day that we read them, I let the kids tape them on the fridge in a long string.  We alternated the red and green papers.  Well, since I was the one that did all the work, I was the one that learned!  None of the information stuck in my son's head.

So this year I am reading to him, but having him do a little notebooking.  I had him title his page, "Prophecy" and he is making a list.  We have one through nine so far (we do these on week days).  I have him write the basic synopsis of the prophecy (I usually help him think of it) and the scripture reference and then I ask him if it has been fulfilled or not.  This gets him to thinking of the fulfillment and usually he'll tell me what the story is for the fulfillment, sometimes I'll read the fulfillment, as well.

Now since I decided to do this again this year, I just pulled up my references from last year and figured I would go down the list.  But what most often happens when I open up the Bible, is I get led other places (I'm also more knowledgeable than I was last year).  So our list this year will vary a bit from last year (I got most of the references last year from a book, can't remember the title).  I will list them as we do them, in case we veer off our course again.

Here is what we have so far - 

virgin birth - Isaiah 7:14

despised and rejected - Isaiah 53:2-3

stone of stumbling - Isaiah 8:14-15

born in Bethlehem - Micah 5:2 (At this point I decided to try to keep them in chronological order)

out of Egypt - Hosea 11:1 (This one was neat because I could show my son that many verses have more than one meaning.  This one refers back to Israel's exodus from Egypt, but also forward to Christ.)

betrayed - Psalm 41:9 (Again, this one refers to Ahithophel betraying David, but also Judas betraying Jesus.)

suffering - Psalm 22

beaten and killed - Isaiah 53:4-9

no bone to be broken - Psalm 34:20 & John 19:31-36

as a lamb without spot - Exodus 12:5, John 1:29-41, I Peter 1:19 and we talked about Matthew 4

rises from the dead - Psalm 16:10 & John 20:1-18

bring salvation to the whole world - Isaiah 49:6

returning one day - Acts 1:11  (This is where I'm glad I didn't list all the verses at the beginning because this verse didn't come to me until I opened up my Bible to read--I was going to read from I Thessalonians.)

fights enemies - Isaiah 63:1-6

reign on the throne of David forever - Luke 1:32-33

Well, this is our completed list.  I am much happier this year with the retention and interest level of my son.  This makes me want to do a similar study of the verses that give detail about the family of the Messiah, starting in Genesis 3:15 (some call this the scarlet thread).  I think that for now we will get back to our character study of God.

Armageddon

Well, we were studying the character qualities of God and one week I hadn't done any research on a new quality so I decided we would randomly pick some Psalms to read.  This was for our breakfast reading with my kids.  (I do reading at breakfast with my kids and my husband does reading at dinner for our whole family.)

I picked Psalm 2 to read, which appears to be a dialog between three voices.  This Psalm opens with a question, "Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a worthless thing?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Annointed, saying, 'Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.' "

I asked my son if it seemed at all weird that kings of the earth would want to fight against God.  He thought that sounded ludicrous, as did I.  

So after reading Psalm 2 we turned to Isaiah 63 and read the first 6 verses.  This passage describes Jesus trampling His enemies in fury, having his garments stained with their blood (symbol is of stomping grapes in a winepress).  

I asked my son if it seemed weird that Jesus was angry and had enemies?  He answered and said it must be the kings from Psalm 2.  I said, "You're right!"  (It's thrilling to see their minds understanding and processing God's Word!)

I told him about a battle that will take place called the battle of Armageddon.  Mention the word battle to a boy and you've got his undivided attention.  :)

So then we turned to Revelation to get the full picture.  Starting in chapter 19, verse 11 and reading through to the end of the chapter we see the image of Jesus riding on a white horse to make war.  This is an image not many of us think about when we think of Jesus, that's why I wanted to introduce it to my son.  It's very important to me that my children get the big picture of the Bible.

Jesus is clothed with a robe dipped in blood and again we see the symbolism (idiom) of a winepress.  I wanted to point that out to my son also, since idioms in the Bible are consistent.  Verse 19 tells us again of those kings that want to make war against Almighty God.  

But we already know the end--Jesus will defeat them with the sword that proceeds from His mouth!  This, of course, was exciting to my son--the good guys win!!!  And I ask my son, "what is the sword?"  God's Word, he tells me.  Right again!!

For you adults, this may be some new information.  You think of Jesus as gentle, kind, compassionate, and He is all those things.  He is our Redeemer, but He is also the Avenger of Blood.  He will come to judge those that rebel against Him.  

Read the Book of Ruth for a great picture of the Kinsman Redeemer (Christ is our Kinsman Redeemer, He became human to redeem humans), but read Numbers 35:9-34 to learn about the City of Refuge and the Avenger of Blood.  This is part of the Mosaic law, but it is a type and shadow of Christ.  He is our City of Refuge, the High Priest that died, AND the Avenger of Blood.  

I'm so glad He's my Redeemer and in the Battle of Armageddon I will be on the winning side!  This gives us not only a healthy fear of the Lord, but also hope that the evil in the world will one day be eradicated!  I don't know about you, but that is exciting to me!

I would love to hear from you if you have questions.  There is more detail I could go into, but didn't have time.

Character

I'm going to reach back a bit and fill in some gaps.  With my 3rd grade son this year I decided to study various character aspects of God.

What you think of God will have a big impact upon your life.  What does God's Word have to say about His character?

I sat down and listed all the character qualities I could think of and then researched each one.  We spent a few weeks on each one.

I had my son take certain notes so that it would help the information stick in his mind.  If kids are doing something with the information they are learning it will help them retain it better.  Now he has that notebook to refer back to, also, and refresh his memory.

For each character quality I had him copy the definition out of the dictionary (one day) and then copy down a theme verse (separate day).  Then each day I would read him a Bible story that illustrated that quality, he then kept a list of the stories on his notebook page.

Our first character aspect was faithful.  The theme verse was Hebrews 10:23 "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful."  I found various stories of God making a promise to someone and keeping that promise.  The ones we read were -  Noah (promised to preserve from the flood), Abraham (promised a son), Peter & John, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego; Paul (God promised him he would go to Rome, we read all the stories of how God kept him from harm so he could get to Rome, including a shipwreck).

Then I thought we would cover some of the promises in God's Word that He is faithful to perform (Jer. 1:12 & Is. 55:11).  I looked up various verses about - protection, provision, strength, healing, joy, wisdom, and peace.

I know there are many more that I didn't find.  Each day we covered a separate promise and I had my son list all the scripture references in his notebook so that he could use it as a reference whenever he needed.

Next we learned that God is our Healer.  Our theme verse was Ex. 15:26 "I am the Lord who heals you."  We went through all four gospels (and the beginning of Acts) and picked out every single story on healing that we found.  I had my son write down each reference each day so that he could have it as a reference.

Next was God our Deliverer.  Theme verses were Psalm 91:14-15 "Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.  He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him."  We read stories of deliverance - Gideon, Jacob & Esau, Moses in the basket, the Israelites from Egypt, Deborah the Judge, Rahab in Jericho, Israel from Balaam's curse, Samson, David from Goliath, David from Saul, Shadrach, Meshach & Abed-Nego, and Daniel in the lion's den.

Next was God our Provider.  Theme verse Philippians 4:19 "And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."  Story of creation (order of importance, man was created last so that everything he needed was already here), Elijah and the ravens, Elijah and the widow, manna, water from the rock, Book of Ruth, feeding the thousands (loaves and fishes), consider the sparrows and the lillies/do not worry passage, tax money from a fish, David provided with the showbread to eat, Goliath's sword for a weapon, and a hiding place for his family, when on the run from Saul; and Joseph and his family during famine.

This brings us up to date (we did character qualities from July through October).  We have taken a bit of a detour (because I was lazy and didn't research a new character quality) and read through some Psalms and Proverbs (month of November) and are now on a prophecy kick.  See later posts for details.

Welcome!

Welcome to my Bible study journal.  I will share what I am studying, interesting things I read, the things I am studying with my children, and the readings we are doing as a family.  I hope you find encouragement and enlightenment, but most of all inspiration to study these things on your own.