Bert's Musings

  Jan 21, 2025 - This morning I was re-reading the 1st chapter of Ephesions before going to a Tuesday morning guys Bible Study. I was reading the New Living Translation. Ephesians 1:3 (NLT) How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. [4] Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. [5] His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. Paul was excited about his relationship with God, as I should be. I remember when I was young and the feeling I got when I was an early pick to be on someone's team. How excited would I be if Patrick Mahones called me today and asked me to show up in Kansas City to be involved with the Chiefs preparation for next weeks game? Being “picked” to live eternally in the pres...

  18  So commit yourselves completely to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead.  19  Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again.  20  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,  21  so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors. To get to where the Lord would have me be requires near constant immersion of my mind/body/soul in Him and His word. If I spent more of my time focusing on Him, His love for me & His promises to me my life would better reflect Him.

There are numerous OT Biblical accounts of God empowering the Israelite military and leading them to victory. As I have read these accounts I have often wondered how many Israelite soldiers died in these battles. Part of today's reading was Numbers chapter 31. God told Moses to send 12,000 soldiers to wipe out the Midianites. Only 32,000 girls, girls who had never had sex were spared. The plunder included 675,000 sheep, 72,000 cattle and 61,000 donkeys.  In Numbers 31:48-49 the leaders of the battle report to Moses that not one of the 12,000 soldiers is missing. They report this because they want to give a special offering to God  Interesting.

 This morning as I was reading in Mark 15 I wondered how the omnipotent, omniscient & omnipresent Creator of all we perceive could stand silently while we , His creation, heaped scorn and abuse on him it occurred to me, thank you Holy Spirit; if my head and heart could truly grasp that these abusers were going to spend eternity in Hell, it might help me better understand Jesus' response. Luke 23:34, and Stephen in Acts 7:60

  Numbers 5:5   Then the LORD said to Moses,  6  “Give these instructions to the people of Israel: If any of the people—men or women—betray the LORD by doing wrong to another person, they are guilty.  7  They must confess their sin and make full restitution for what they have done, adding a penalty of 20 percent and returning it to the person who was wronged.  8  But if the person who was wronged is dead, and there are no near relatives to whom restitution can be made, it belongs to the LORD and must be given to the priest, along with a ram for atonement.  9  All the sacred gifts that the Israelites bring to a priest will belong to him.  10  Each priest may keep the sacred donations that he receives.” Given man's inherent sinful nature it seems that this system was set up to entice corruption by "finding" sinful behavior. "Godly" priests may have resisted the temptation but during the 1,500 years between Moses & Jesus there...

 As I read through Luke 8 the term “situational awareness” came to my mind. What is my level of Christian situational awareness? How often do I allow my joy, as a Christian, to get choked by the thorns of the world (verse 14)? Which “seed” am I in Luke 8:4-15? I like the NET Bibles version of verse 8:8b, “As he (Jesus) said this, he called out, “The one who has ears to hear had better listen!”” I/we are blessed to live in the greatest nation this world has ever known. I am blessed to know a God who diligently kept after me, mostly via preparation by the Holy Spirit until we moved next to a guy whose Christian joy could not be hidden. God has provided me with a blueprint (via Scripture, inspiration from the Holy Spirit, guidance from Christian brothers and sisters, etc.) for living a life of contentment (Phil 4:11-13); part of following His blueprint means that I need to be aware that I might be the only light/lighthouse that others might see (Lk 8:16-18). “Freshwater Church...