Skip to main content

Acts 1:21-26 Replacing Judas Iscariot - Day 1

 Good morning friends,

Welcome to the first month of the challenge that started on 9/1/20.  We didn't have the blog up and running then, but I thought it was appropriate to have the whole year's devotions available for anyone who wants to use the M'Cheyne plan in the future.

A word on the format I started with.  I had given a sermon on the Lord's Prayer and had read Luther's "A simple way to pray".  He gave the 4 strands model.  

Instructional or text book - what does God expect from me. 

Thanksgiving or hymnal - what does passage teach me about God

Confessional - where do I fall short of God's expectations.  

 Prayer book - using the passage as a guide to prayer in the 6 petitions of Lord's Prayer

So I tried to use this model in devotionals and found it to be very helpful.

Blessings,

Jeff

Two equally qualified men for 1 position. In a world guided by scripture,only one can be selected. Today, we would probably say take them both and either ignore or reinterpret the limitation. And if no one could be found, just get along with what we have. 

Instruction - Scripture always applies. When it is inconvenient or somewhat obscure, it still applies.  For Peter to use these two Psalms is surprising. Maybe hanging around Jesus and seeing His knowledge of psalms, or being a good Jewish boy, or it was the Holy Spirit.  It is one thing to know the psalms, but seeing application of a couple of lines in rather long psalms to the apostles is something else. 

When God inspired David to write these two psalms during difficult times, he was thinking about enemies he knew. But God had something else in mind. Judas' betrayal was part of the plan. 

Thanksgiving - reality of all things for Your glory and my good. The objective truth of these events.   Footnoting the choice of Matthias with detail based in psalms. 

Confession - expecting faith to be sight at all times. But who hopes for what he sees?  Harboring discontent about the way things are. Practical denial of contentment with godliness is great gain. 

Prayer

Hallowed - the group of readers would give glory to You as the Word does its work in them

Kingdom - in the details of children's ministry. As Peter lead to a prayerful decision, so would I. 

Daily - supply all the needs of saints according to Your riches in glory. You are not a stingy kill joy. 

Forgive -  not taking sin seriously. Sin really is deceitful. Old man (Adamic nature) is dead. The flesh is not. 

Deliver - willful ignorance and/or disregard. Pragmatic is not reason to violate scripture.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more