My Daily Pause

Jesus spent a lot of time breaking down how to live a life pleasing to God to its simplest term. If we love God with everything our heart can give, keeping His commandments will be the easy part. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is just an extension of loving God and with practice becomes a joyful lifestyle. (Luke 10:25-42)

God promised Abram that his offspring would have the lands described in Genesis 15, but even ten years later, he and Sarai still didn’t have children.

In Genesis 16, rather than wait for God to do His work, they tried to engineer their own solution. That unsanctioned act created hurt feelings and stole the stability of the family.

The lesson here is to not try to force God to keep His promises. We wait for him act according to his timetable.

Luke 9:26 records Jesus saying that he is ashamed of anyone that is ashamed of him. That could happen to us when we have the opportunity to talk about him. The temptation is often overwhelming to pass on it so we don’t create any sort of debate.

If this describes you, your challenge is to mention God, talk about Jesus dying for your sins, or mention that you are a daily Bible reader just one time this week.

…but be prepared for your spirit to grow!

Knowing what you know about Jesus, would you have been scared to be in the boat with him? His disciples had seen many miracles by Jesus yet they panicked when the storm came up. To be a follower of the Savior, you can rest in the comfort knowing He is there for you. Why not make a conscious effort to give your challenges to him?

Uzzah laid his hands on the Ark of the Covenant and was struck down. (1 Chronicles 13) He was trying to save it from falling, but God had commanded that only a person from the tribe of Levi could touch the ark. (Numbers 1:51, Numbers 4:15) Even though he was angry at first, David realized that God is a righteous judge.

It is an error to think that God will not keep his word when our judgment is due.

David made a mistake we don’t have to make. He forgot to make sure he knew how to obey God’s word.  Even though he had the best of intentions, he paid for it through the loss of a good man.

In addition to daily Bible reading, do you set aside time to really get to know the word?