One Year Bible, April 21

JOSHUA 22:21-23:16                                                                                          
Just think! The other believers were going to go to battle with the 2-1/2 tribes east of the Jordan over the issue of an alternative altar! A civil war. They were establishing the Truth of ONE WAY TO GOD - and it has to be HIS way. We can't determine the terms of our covenant with God. We can only take it or leave it. And if we leave it, we are separated from God.

EIGHT YEARS LATER: JOSHUA'S DYING WORDS:   Do not mingle with unbelievers. Be IN the world, without becoming a PART OF the world.  You impact them, but don't allow them to impact you.  Don't marry them.  Don't get intimate with them.  Don't live like they do.  Don't share priorities with them.  Don't "cave" on your standards or beliefs.  Always "watch yourselves" that you keep GOD FIRST.   "Know with a certainty" that just as God gave you all the good things, He will also bring the evil things until you are totally destroyed and driven off the Land IF you break covenant with Him.

RESPONSE:   Whatever bits of flesh (self) that you tolerate in you and don't drive out, will be "snares", "traps", "scourges in your sides", "thorns in your eyes".  In other words, you tolerate it at your own peril.  You will continually get trapped, or prodded until you get sick of it and kill it.  How?   By submitting to God in obedience.   We "walk" out of those traps - obeying the Holy Spirit.   Habits are not broken, they are replaced. (Rom 12:21)  Displace all those "tribes" in there before one of them pokes your eye out!

LUKE 20:27-47                                                                                                     
BEWARD OF THE SCRIBES AND SADDUCCEES: "Free-thinkers" and "false thinkers" but "dead thinkers."   In the next age, there is no death, so marriage isn't necessary for procreation (which is really what they were asking).  That's the real issue!  God doesn't reign over a bunch of dead bodies!  Abraham is still alive.   Isaac is still living.   Jacob is still alive and breathing.   David is living too!

RESPONSE:   My husband's mother is alive.  My dad is living.  Oral Roberts is still alive.  Billy Sunday still lives. Talk about over-populated!  I'm sure that Heaven can expand - always room for more!  Let's fill heaven up.

PSALM 89:14-37                                                                                                
V.14 "Righteousness and justice" are righteous judgment and its application and they form the foundation of God's rulership.   It is manifested as "mercy and Truth".   His covenant is unchangeable, unalterable, and everlasting. He is faithful!

THE "JOYFUL SOUND":  This is the sound of freedom, because we have found favor with our all-powerful God, Who is our strength, our defense and our promiser.

SPANKED: IF we forsake God, then like a father, God will apply the rod.

LAW, JUDGMENTS, STATUTES, COMMANDMENTS: Their purpose is to teach us the will and the ways of God.

PROVERBS 13:17-19                                                                                        
Fools won't "depart from evil", so they never know the "sweetness to the soul" of doing the right thing. And they won't take instruction, so they just keep repeating their stupidity!

RESPONSE:   When we know and do the will of God, He "beats down our foes before us" (our flesh). The sun and the moon are witnesses to the faithfulness of God. The Psalm calls them "a faithful witness".  Next time you see a beautiful moon, just think, that is a testimony to the fact that God keeps all His promises.   When we walk in God's Presence, we are "blessed" - empowered to walk "in glory and strength".  Interestingly enough, the Hebrew word for "strength" here is "owz" which is unyielding and impenetrable hardness; one who does not turn away from his enemies.   It is the prevailing strength by which dominion is obtained.  God called His ARK "the Ark of my owz." (Psa 132:8).   It's not that we are strutting our stuff, or forcing anyone to do something.   It is that we stand up to our flesh and say "no".  That we obey God even if it is embarrassing or uncomfortable.  We do the right thing even if it is inconvenient or disgusting.  We take dominion over our own flesh!