 |
Home | Mission Statement | Video Gallery | Audio Gallery | Photo Gallery | Daily Manna | Testimonies | | Links | Contact us |
 |
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
 |
| 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, August 28, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:Tobias Travels Home BibleVerse:Tobit 10:8-13, 11 (DP Bible) "Raguel did not want Tobias and Sara to leave and offered to send word to Tobit that they were well, but Tobias knew he must return. And so they departed after the feast; and Raguel blessed them, and sent with them servants, and half his cattle and sheep. After they had traveled eleven days, about half the journey, Raphael said to Tobias, “Brother, you know how you left your father. We should ride on ahead, to reach him quickly; and your wife and servants and animals can follow us at their own pace.” When Tobias agreed with this, Raphael added, “Take the gall bladder of the fish we caught with you; it will be medicine for your father’s eyes.” Now Anna, Tobias’ mother, sat every day on a hill to watch for him. And one day, she saw Tobias’ dog, who ran towards the house, wagging his tail. And together they informed Tobit. Tobias’ blind father was so excited that he stumbled to his feet and tried to run; with a servant helping him, he went out to meet them. And when Tobias came soon after, they fell upon his neck in tears, Anna saying, “Seeing you safe, I am content to die.” After giving thanks to the Lord, Tobias took out the gall from his pack and rubbed it on his father’s eyes. Tobit’s eyes burned, and as he rubbed them, the whiteness began to pill at the corners of his eyes. And Tobias pulled the white from Tobit’s eyes like the membrane of an egg, and Tobit’s sight was restored. Again they wept and praised the Lord. And soon after, when Sarah and the party arrived at the gates of Nineveh, Tobit was able to meet them, and was glad because he could see his daughter-in-law. And he blessed her, saying, “Be welcome, daughter: God be blessed, who has brought you to us, and blessed be your father and thy mother.”" Message:
With this rather heartwarming scene, we begin to see the full impact of Tobit. It was designed, really, to keep up the faith and hope of desperate Hebrews in the difficult period following the conquest of Israel by first Assyria and later, Babylonia. One can only imagine the degree of despair and depression suffered by the Hebrews, in their continuous downhill slide, from a great and thriving empire to return, more or less, to the condition in which they had started at the beginning of Exodus: a tribe of slaves serving a foreign, pagan king.
This would have been doubly painful for the faithful, the minority who had continued to follow the Law of Moses after the death of Solomon. Just as God chose the Hebrews as a people, He punished them as a people. The righteous were caught up in the judgment on Israel, because of the idolatry and general moral laxity of their kings and nation. But, as we see in both Tobit and certain psalms, God has not abandoned the righteous, even through their temporary suffering.
Guardian angel by Murillo
Psalm 124 at the top of the page is a good example. This one of a group of 15 psalms (120-134) called “Psalms of Ascents.” The original meaning of the rubric was probably that they were intended to be sung by Pilgrims, as they walked to Jerusalem for one of the three pilgrimage festivals each year. (At Passover, the Festival of Tabernacles, and Pentecost, the Hebrews were obligated to make every effort to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate them.) Later in Jewish history, these served a somewhat different function; to keep the morale and faith of displaced Hebrews high, to remind them that God’s righteousness would ultimately prevail.
The psalm and the book of Tobit thus had much the same function in the time between the exiles and the coming of Christ. They have the same message told in two very different genres. The Lord is on Tobit’s side; and when he has suffered to the point that he prays to God for death, God sends Raphael, who sees his son Tobias through the dangers of physical attack and demonic possession, and guides the righteous Tobit and Tobias into redemption, both spiritually and physically.
Tobit and Psalm 124 are told in a completely different fashion, but have the same point and same purpose; God’s continued promise and faithfulness to those who have been caught in the net of conquest, through no fault of their own.
Meditation : Prayer : God of love, Father of all, the darkness that covered the earth has given way to the bright dawn of your Word made flesh. Make me and all who confess your holy name people of this light. Make me faithful to your Word that I may bring your life to the waiting world. Grant this through Christ our Lord Amen |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
