When we read aloud our bible, faith comes from hearing the word of God.
When we accept God’s word as truth and read it with the expectancy of meeting Jesus in it, we are ready to hear the word near us in our mouths and our hearts. But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart.” Romans 10:8
Note about bible versions: Read what brings simple clarity. For your first time in the Old Testament, I would recommend either the New International Version or the Living Version, because they give understanding through simplicity. They are great for the New Testament too.
We begin this week again in Romans, as we finish today in Revelation. We will finish Matthew and begin in Mark. Today, we begin Deuteronomy (The book of remembrance). Moses gives farewell addresses recounting the journey of Israel and the law given to Israel. This is the last book of the five books of Moses, called the Torah in Hebrew. We continue in Psalms and will finish Jeremiah on Friday and begin his book of Lamentations.
Matthew 17 – 23
We begin with the Mountain of Transfiguration into who is the greatest, and unforgiveness in seventeen and eighteen. Marriage and divorce and riches and the kingdom and leads to the eleventh-hour workers and the evil eye, which leads to the greatest in serving. Chapter twenty-one is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Psalm Sunday.
Then in Chapters Twenty-two and three, the gloves are off and the Pharisees, Sadducees, Lawyers, and Jesus have it out. Jesus calls the woes to the Scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy.
Revelation 22
The glorious throne, the saints before Him, the Lord is coming quickly, and His reward is with Him. “The Spirit and the Bride say “Come!”’
Romans 1 – 7
In these seven Chapters, the gospel of God is stated over, and over, and over again, as Paul brings the glorious gospel forward and the impossibility of the law, ever being salvation. I read these and let the truths that come forward gain my attention and meditation. I am not reading to figure it all out, I simply receive what the Spirit is saying in the scriptures.
Deuteronomy 1 – 8
I love Deuteronomy. Moses is not entering into the Promise land, and giving a remembrance of all that Israel has experienced, failed in, and what the Lord has done. Chapter four is a call to obedience and to be careful not to fall into idolatry (The work of our hands). The Ten Commandments are reviewed as well as the greatest commandment. A chosen people are Israel, and the continued call to listen to the voice of the Lord their God.
Chapter eight is a review of the purpose that God had for their being led in the wilderness for forty years. It was to humble them, see what’s in their heart (Always for us to see what is in our hearts), and make them know that they live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
Psalms 76 – 81
Psalms of Asaph (David’s chief worshipper) are songs of honesty, prayer, and promise. They bring us close to the heart of God and Asaph, who would spend hours ministering to the Lord in the Tabernacle of David.
Jeremiah 48 – 52
Chapters forty-eight through fifty-one are the Lord’s judgments to all the nations involved with Israel.
Jeremiah had been given the “wine cup of the Lord’s fury” in chapter 25 and prophetically to make the nations drink. Now we have a record of what they drank and how and why it would be this way. Babylon is the last nation to be judged.
Chapter fifty-two is a recount of the fall of Jerusalem, the temple plundered, then destroyed, and the record of the exiles taken to Babylon.
Lamentations 1
This is Jeremiah’s lament of the destruction of Jerusalem. The Lord is righteous, and Jeremiah is in great sorrow. It was a sad day; it didn’t have to be this way. Jerusalem can be heard in remorse for her fate.
