Our verses for today are from the period of about 586 BC to 538 BC, about 50 years.  During this time Israel is under the rule of the Babylonians, and the people are suffering greatly. 

 Their leaders have been largely executed, publicly executed.  Their children have been forced into slave labor, they are being abused sexually, and are being starved, starved to the point that they resorted to cannibalism.

For many years they were warned that God would judge them for their disobedience. but they ignored the many warnings.  Like a child with a loving father who does not want to punish his child, they mistook God's continued patience to mean that they would never be punished.  God gave them many warnings over many years but at a certain point, the time for patience ended, and the time for punishment began.

How did the Israelites react to being punished?  How do we react when God punishes us?  How should we?

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Today, we the church have found ourselves in a place we never thought we would be in.  At least not in the United States of America.  In 2019, we were able to freely gather together as Christians and worship God in peace and happiness.  I felt, even then, that we were a little complacent in this and were taking it for granted.  After all, there are many places in the world where Christians are persecuted and even murdered for practicing or even voicing their faith.  We have been aware of it but untouched by it.  Even during slavery and Jim Crow, African Americans were able to freely attend church.

But somewhere along the way, complacency began to slowly turn into a slight fear.  Churches began to be targeted for theft, attacks, and even murder.  As churches started to turn their shoulders toward God and their faces toward the world, the world stopped respecting the church and stopped fearing God.

And now we have Covid-19.  Many churches are unable to hold services, whether directly because of Covid-19 or because of government restrictions.  Funerals are even affected.  A member of my church family just died and was unable to have a proper funeral service.  This was almost unimaginable just two years ago.

But there is good news.  As the false churches fall away and the false Christians bow to the soft pressure of excuses, the real church and the true Christians are highlighted.  As many sit down, the few who remain standing are more easily seen.

So we are in a situation.  But we have the power of who we are in Christ and in who our Father is.  What should we do?  Well ... let's get right to it!

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Most of us are familiar with the Passover story.  The story of Jesus Christ's prayer in the garden, His betrayal. His torture and execution and His triumph over death when He rose from the grave on that Sunday. 

We generally refer to this celebratory time as Easter.  And we celebrate it each year, which is fine but we generally end our celebration there.  Did Jesus step out of His grave, say hello to His friends and then go home to wait for us all to catch up with Him?  If you took our celebrations for an indication you might think so. 

But Jesus was quite busy after His resurrection.  So what did He do?

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The verses for today are: instructive.

I ran into a friend of mine the other day, her name is Jerri.  She is a member of Bethel United Methodist Church.  We talked a bit and she started telling me about the eight words they are discussing in her church group.  The words to look out for are Envy, Covetousness, Pride, and Anger.  She told me that they were chosen because envy leads to covetousness.  Covetousness leads to pride and pride leads to anger.  And of course anger leads to all kinds of bad things.  I like the way she laid that out because it helps you to stop moving in the direction of anger, and other bad things, before you get too close to them.

She also had a list of good words.  They were humility, patience, meekness and surrender.  All good words and good words to meditate on.

Our talk got me thinking though, what are the words that Jesus would have us meditate on?  I did find some but were they the same as the words Jerri gave me?  There's only one way to find out.  Let's get right to it!

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Our verses for today are also some of the most horrifying verses in the Bible.  Especially as a parent, it is difficult for me to put myself in Abraham's place of being obedient when God has commanded him to sacrifice, also known as murder, his only son.

We can admire Abraham in that he was obedient to God and we can take hope from his experience in that God did not actually want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God was giving us an example of true faith and obedience.  God was giving us an example of how He will provide what we need if we put our faith and trust in Him.

But what about that ram, where did it come from?  How did it get in that bush?  Today, let's look at the ram and the bush and see what we can learn from them.

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Our verses today are said to have been written by Jeremiah who is often referred to as the weeping prophet.  And he does cry quite a bit in our scriptures today.  He seems to have lost all hope in his life ever getting better or improving in any way.  He even says that he has forgotten prosperity.  Have you felt this way in your life?  Many people feel this way today as we are going through a worldwide pandemic and our lives have been upended and forever changed in ways we could not have imagined.

What should we do when we find ourselves in such a bad, hopeless situation.  What did Jeremiah do?

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In this new year; I have decided to update my podcast.

This podcast was born out of a desire to help my church continue to study their Sunday School lessons despite not being able to attend Sunday School.  Over the months since that time, my church, and many others, have adapted to this pandemic and are now having regular Sunday School services and even Wednesday night Bible Study.  I know of a number of people who are now studying the Word of God and hearing the Word of God more than they had been prior to the pandemic. 

God has a way of making any situation work out for the good for those who love Him and seek Him.  ( Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. )

So let’s talk about that for a few minutes.  How is the church doing in all this?  What is God doing?  And what will our response be? 

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In our scriptures for today, we see Jesus going about the Galilee area doing good.  Now when we discuss Jesus going about and doing good, what image comes to mind?  Are you visualizing a sandal wearing Jesus in a brown robe followed by 12 men wearing a similar outfit?  That’s what most of us think of.  The problem with this is that that is an incomplete picture.  Jesus traveled with his 12 disciples, yes, that’s true.  But they were only His “core” group.  He also traveled with other people.  And in that group of “other people” were women.  Many of whom we know nothing about but we do have a little information about some of these ladies.

Our scriptures for today involve several of them.

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In our scriptures today we see an unknown woman who has chosen to get a bucket of water from the local well at a time when she can expect that no one will be there, about six in the morning.  She is a Samaritan, a known adulteress and somewhat of an outcast in her own group.  As a Samaritan she was viewed as better than a Gentile but not at all on the same level as the Jews.  Because of this, the Samaritans and the Jews had a deep dislike for each other and rarely interacted.

Despite this we see Jesus, who is a Jew at this time, approach the woman and speak with her.  Jesus the Jew and Jesus the man broke protocol when he did this and, by so doing, showed us all the Jesus, our risen savior, can use anyone to bring people to Him.

Today we see this in very clear, understandable terms that we can all understand.  This is one of the things I like and enjoy about the Bible.  The Bible is consistent, it proves itself and it’s not very complicated.  It is extremely deep but not very complicated.

So what did this unnamed woman at the well do?

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In today’s scriptures we see five women of God at different ends of life.

Ana, a great woman of God, a prophetess and a widow who lived in the temple, serving God through weekly fasting and daily praying.

And the four daughters of Philip, an evangelist.  His daughters were virgins and had the spiritual gift of prophesy.

Sandwiched in between these two, in today’s scriptures, we see a quote from the prophet Joel that in the last days the Lord would pour out His spirit upon all flesh, young and old, male and female.

What does this mean to us today though?  We see that five faithful women were doing God’s work in the first century church.  That’s really good but what is it saying to us today?

2 timothy 3:16 tells us that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”.
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