Posts with the tag “the-law”

Today's Reading: Hebrews 9:1-28Today's reading wraps up this section of our reading plan.Under the Old Covenant sins were atoned for (covered) by the blood from the animal sacrifices made by the priests. But that system fell short because those sacrifices had to be made continually year after year. That is why that it was a only a shadow that pointed ahead to Jesus who would die once for all to at...  Read More

Today's Reading: Galatians 5:1-26Paul is writing here to address some false teachers who were proclaiming that it was necessary to be circumcised and become a Jew before becoming a disciple of Jesus. His main idea in this chapter is that doing so would put people in bondage to the law rather than giving them the freedom that is available in Christ.Today, few would hold to that idea that was preval...  Read More

Today's Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:1-18Here Paul refers back to the giving of the law, and in particular to how Moses had to put a veil over his face after meeting with God on the mountain. Paul calls the law the "ministry of death and condemnation" because the law had no power to provide salvation to man, who is incapable of keeping it fully. When Jesus came and died on the cross and rose from the ...  Read More

Today's Reading: Romans 10:1-21Paul makes it very clear here that the only way any man can be righteous before God is not by obeying the law, but rather through faith in Jesus alone. That is true for Jews and Gentiles alike. Throughout their history, Israel demonstrated just how impossible it is for man to completely obey the Law. Knowing that from before He created man, God had always planned to ...  Read More

Catch up on your reading if you need to. Otherwise spend some more time in Psalm 119 today....  Read More

If you're running a bit behind this week due to the length of Psalm 119 use today and tomorrow to get caught up. If not, go ahead and reread that Psalm again this weekend....  Read More

Today's Reading: Mark 10:1-52We're going to focus on the parts of this chapter where Jesus reaffirms the Law. Although many claim that Jesus never addresses the issue of homosexuality, in verses 1-11, He clearly affirms the Biblical model for marriage: one man married to one woman for a lifetime.Then in the account of the rich young ruler in verses 17-31, Jesus commends the young man for following...  Read More

Today's reading: Matthew 5:1-48Most of you are probably familiar with this chapter, which is the beginning of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount". While some, even some Christians, have used God's grace as an excuse to violate God's Law, we see here that Jesus certainly did not intend for that to happen. In fact, Jesus actually holds His followers to a higher standard: anger is just as bad as murder; lus...  Read More

Today's reading: Psalm 119:1-176Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible with 176 verses. It has a similar length to some of the Bible's shorter books like Philippians, James, or Ruth!  So for this week, I'd suggest that you don't sweat it if it takes two or three days to read this chapter and you need to use the weekend to catch up on the rest of this week's readings.The structure of Psalm 1...  Read More

Today's reading: Deuteronomy 30:1-20Here we see that God will never force His people to do what He has commanded. He lays out for us the choice of obedience, which leads to life, or disobedience, which leads to death. That means that we can never blame God for our sin - that is always our choice.We also see here that God delights in forgiveness and restoration when we humbly come before Him and ac...  Read More

Today's reading: Deuteronomy 29:1-29The primary warning in this chapter is against going after other gods. Most of us are unlikely to worship gods of wood or stone, but we do have a tendency to serve other gods without even recognizing it. Anything that has a higher priority in our lives than our relationship with God is essentially another god. In our culture today, that could be our jobs, our ma...  Read More

Take some time today to go back over the devotions from this week and answer these two questions:What did I learn about God this week?Is there anything I need to do in my life in response? Confess? Repent? Make changes in my life?...  Read More

If you're all caught up with your reading take some time today to reflect on how you view God's commands. Do you think of them as God's best for you so you seek to obey them the best you can. Or do you view them as some kind of restriction that you try to skirt around?If you need to, use today to catch up if you've fallen behind in your reading....  Read More

Today's reading: Deuteronomy 28:1-68Here God lays out the blessings that will come to His people for obeying the Law and the curses that will come upon them when they disobey it. I find it interesting that the section that describes the curses is nearly four times as long as the section that describes the blessings. Perhaps that is because God already knows that the people are going to rebel again...  Read More

Today's Reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-25I want to focus today on two important truths in this chapter.First, God warns the people that when they get into the land He is going to give them and they get to enjoy the fruits of the labor of others, they are going to be tempted to forget God and ignore His Law. I think that is still a danger for us today. When things are going well, it's easy to ignore God ...  Read More

Today's reading: Deuteronomy 5:1-33As the people of Israel get ready to enter the Promised Land, they gather and Moses reminds them of the commands that God had given them 40 years earlier. You will note some differences between the wording here and that in Exodus 20. However, none of those differences change in any way the main idea of any of the commandments. Where Exodus 20 seems to be the exac...  Read More

Today's reading: Leviticus 16:1-34The very fact that the Day of Atonement (also known as Yom Kippur) existed is proof that man was incapable of fully carrying out God's Law. Therefore their sin had to be atoned for. The verb "atone" comes from a Hebrew word that means "to cover". In the Old Testament it describes the process by which sin was covered in order to reconcile sinful man to a holy God a...  Read More

Today's reading: Exodus 40:1-38Although God's presence is certainly not limited to any building or structure, from the time the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt until they settled in the Promised Land and eventually built a permanent Temple, He chose to manifest His presence in the tabernacle. Since the tabernacle was portable, it could always be set up in the midst of the Israeli...  Read More

Take some time today to read back over the devotionals for this week and consider what God has been revealing about Himself. Is there anything you need to do in your life to respond to that revelation?...  Read More

Hopefully you've been keeping up with your reading, but if not use today and tomorrow to catch up....  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 34:1-35In obedience to God's command, Moses cuts two new tablets and heads back up Mount Sinai. There God does what He had promised to do for Moses before: He reveals HIs name and He allows Moses to see HIs goodness.Verses 6-7 comprise the most often quoted description of God's character in the Bible. In just two verses God tells Moses that in His goodness, He is both graci...  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 24:1-18Moses reads the laws that God has given to him to all the people. And the people all agree that they will obey those commandments. But as we're going to see, it won't take long until they violate the first two commandments while Moses is still up on the mountain.It is easy for us to criticize the Israelites for their disobedience, but because of our sin nature we're ...  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 20:1-26God gives Moses the Ten Commandments for His people. These laws were intended to distinguish God's people from the surrounding nations.  The first four commandments deal with how we are to love God and the last six deal with how we are to love others.Much of the world views these commandments as "restrictive" and believe God gave these laws to keep us from enjoying o...  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 19:1-25Today we begin a new section in our reading plan. Having redeemed his people, God gives the Law that declares his righteous standards as well as a sacrificial system (based on substitutionary atonement) that provides a means to deal with sin. When God calls Moses to come up on Mount Sinai to receive the Law, He demonstrates His holiness by forbidding the rest of the ...  Read More