Here we go. Only just too late! So I've got a big weekend coming up and I'm going to do my best to get these up but they might be late or missing. Saturday I'm at a youth work conference and then at a Borders reunion, Sunday is church, Connect 1 and then Tim, my best chum, is coming up for a couple of days. Monday too will be tough as Tim'll be around all day but I will find an hour somewhere! But yeah, worse case scenario I'll catch up Tuesday and possibly do a vlog to make things quicker. Onto business then,
Today's readings
Exodus 15:1-16:36
Matthew 28:1-20
Psalm 21:8-13
So today's reading seems to show how God has to give us consequences and directions so that we can live for Him. First we see the Israelites praising and relishing God's power and saving them but then they seem to think that everything will be immediately brilliant and complain that they are going to die of thirst. God blesses them again but He then makes it clear that they need to make themselves ready for His blessings by being closer to His will rather than by moaning and crying out. I've been thinking about prayer a lot recently and this seems to me to be a clue in how to pray. If we are desperate for God's intervention then our prayer shouldn't be that He intervenes but that He draws us to Him so that we can see His will, whether that be our solution, His solution or Him using us as the solution.
Moses in verse 7 of chapter 16 makes it quite clear that when we complain to people acting out God's will, it is actually God we're having a pop at. God then instructs the Israelites about the Sabbath. Now what can we learn from this Jewish tradition? Most Christians will still cook and work on the seventh day certainly. But I think there is a really important message here about our Sundays. Verse 29 says that the sabbath has been given to us by God so that we can avoid having to scrabble about trying to survive for a day. Now for some this means washing their car and eating roast dinner but it should also mean that we take the time to really appreciate what we have and switch off from life a bit and onto God.
Into the New Testament we trundle and we're reading the last chapter of Matthew's gospel! I'll do a recap on the gospel tomorrow. Here we have the best bit of the gospel. Jesus' resurrection meaning He returns to God's presence and sends out his disciples to work for His will. Now there's a slight discrepancy as we'll see later on with the details here as Jesus is meeting His disciples on a hill, rather than in a house or on a road as other gospels say. To me, this is Matthew's way of finishing his gospel his way. Jesus was always meant to be a fulfillment of a great prophecy and Matthew chooses to have Him displayed for all to see on a high place so that His final words can have real impact. And what a call! Go and do things He says. Not sit on your faith or build your family. Go and tell others! We should always be excited at opportunities to stand up for Jesus and show His love in this world. And why? The final verse says it all. Jesus has promised He will never leave us, even when all other hope is lost. Hallelujiah!
And finishing off with the next part of our Psalm, and there's several fantastic parallels with today's story. First Jesus is radiant as the Psalmist describes, secondly He has beaten death and vanquished it. Third, David says that he is singing out the good news just as we ought to be. Declaring loudly and with conviction that Jesus loves us and every other person on this planet. That's a bloomin exciting thing to remember any time of the day!
And that's your lot. Yesterday's song is here. Questions, criticisms and comments welcome as always
Jon
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