Deaf to the Truth

Readings:
I Chronicles 12
Acts 7:23-8:1

Focus:
Actss 7:51a:"How stubborn you are, heathen still at heart and deaf to the truth!"

When I read about Stephen saying this to the religious authorities who had arrested him, it's easy for me to think of the people he was addressing. They were continuing in the line of both secular and religious Israelite authorities who had murdered so many of the prophets after ignoring their messages.

It is also easy for me to think of various kinds of contemporary people who seem to be heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. There are those who ignore God altogether and live for their own pleasure or profit. There are those who say they follow God but distort his message in all kinds of different ways, using it to twist his teachings or to do wrong. These are the people, I think, to whom Stephen would be speaking today.

But I always need to remember that I could so easily be heathen at heart and deaf to the truth myself. I must never become complacent and think I know everything about what God has said and what he wants. It's one reason for regularly reading the Bible and thinking about it anew. It's also a reason for habitually praying, and by that I mean not making requests of God, but opening myself to hear what he has to say.

Living in close relationship with God, constantly asking him to show us what he wants us to do, is how we can be sure not to be heathen at heart and deaf to the truth.

Having Life by His Name

Readings:
II Kings 19
John 20:19-31

Focus:
John 20:31:"Those written here have been recorded in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this faith you may have life by his name."

In this verse John writes down the main purpose of the Bible. God wants us to have life. He inspired the various writers of the Bible to put into words what he wants to communicate to us: that he loves us, that we are to obey him, and that when we fail, he will take the punishment for us--but that it won't end there; he will overcome death. All of this is so that, when we acknowledge that we have failed, and acknowledge what he has done for us by taking this punishment, and turn our lives over to him, then we can live life to the full and have eternity with him.

It is freedom to give our lives to him. It is happiness and peace. It is what I would want for everyone that I know.