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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Thursday, February 22, 2024
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Authority of God Bible Verse:John 7:17-24 (ESV) "If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”" Message:
Once again, we have Jesus talking at cross-purposes with the crowd. This often makes for difficulty in following the events of John. In this case, Jesus is actually addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees, as well as less clearly demarked special-interest groups like the “Herodians” (whose alliance was to Herod rather than a particular religious sect).
Thence the confusion in the passage. There are many levels to Jesus’ argument. At the most basic level, he is addressing a crowd of people who simply can’t understand what he’s talking about. So when he asks “why are you seeking to kill me” the response is, in modern terminology, “are you nuts? Nobody’s trying to kill you.”
Jesus teaching
But of course, there are people who are trying to kill him; but they are not in the crowd. If they were, they would have him arrested, and he has already said that the time for that has not arrived. So he gives the absent religious/political establishment arguments showing that their plot against him is evil and unlawful. (The reference to healing on the Sabbath refers back to an event in John 5, an event some of the crowd may not even know about.) Christ will prove His innocence by showing that He, and not the Jewish power establishment, correctly follows the Law of Moses.
At another level, Jesus intends that His words be remembered; for the crowd will learn that there are in fact those who will seek to kill Him, and succeed.
And at the highest level, Christ delivers an eternal teaching for all of us: those whose aim is to do God’s will are going to accept Jesus. Once we understand this, the sometimes vicious attacks on Christianity and the angry repudiation of God’s word are more understandable. To grasp Christ, one must be “poor in Spirit.” One must first seek to do God’s will, to learn what God wants for us, and to try to find it. Only then does Jesus make sense.
One must look up at the sky. As difficult as it is to take our eyes off the addictive chaotic flood of earthly life, we must look away from it to find the truth. Meditation and prayer, with an attitude of humility and knowledge of our ignorance, is the first step to knowing Christ.
Meditation : Prayer : |
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