Living Biographies of Christ - Day 169 Through the Bible

Daylilies around the cabin - spent blossoms, new blossoms and buds  - Isaiah 40:8 "The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever."

My Lessons and Applications from Today's Readings

The Genealogies and Lineages - 1 Chronicles 1 and 2 - My Lessons and Applications - Time to pause and remember, to look back before we go forward.  These are the people with whom God has had a covenantal relationship, His Chosen People.  They all matter to Him.  We recall the stories...the lives...the triumphs and tragedies as we read these names, knowing in that recollection that in many respects they mirror our own physical and spiritual journeys with God on this earth.  There is a hard lump to swallow as I read of Adam's family, knowing that his sin is still in me...still in all the world.  I remember...Noah standing against the world as he listened to God (remembering also his sin of drunkenness and his uncovering by son, Ham); Abram/Abraham in his faithfulness and failings, the changed name reflecting the changed life; Esau and Jacob/Israel and the generational/eternal importance of seemingly inconsequential words and decisions; the 12 sons of Israel who become the 12 tribes of Israel under covenant with God as they often war with each other; noting with special interest the tribe of Judah...remembering Judah's deceit and broken promise to daughter-in-law Tamar, his lying with her thinking she was a prostitute...the child resulting from the union - Perez - becoming part of the lineage of the promised Messiah.  Judah's sin is exposed, confessed, repented...and blessing is restored; This son, a type of Christ, in offering to die in place of Benjamin (when before Joseph in Egypt) signals hope for me in my failings; then to David, the 7th son and shepherd of Jesse who becomes the great king and sweet psalmist of Israel - a foreshadowing of the Christ to come - but still falling into the depths of adultery and murder.  I recall their heights as children of God and their lows as sons of Adam...and I see myself.

Changed and Empowered Lives - Acts 4 - Much like their forefathers mentioned above, the 12 disciples who walked with Christ also cast aspersions on their Master and His teachings.  They were uneducated, untrained...doubters, liars, deniers, dimwits in misunderstanding clear teachings, traitors, and even murderers.  But there is a change now...they are new men...the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).  They are now bold - not only not denying Jesus but accusing the religious leaders to their faces that they had murdered the promised Messiah, the very Son of God.  The men who could not cast out a demon because of lack of faith, who could not understand lessons taught over and over, now are used to heal the lame, to preach Jesus boldly and clearly...resulting in the conversion of 3000 in one sermon, growing to about 5000 after the second sermon. What happened?  From where did this power and change emanate?  Acts 4:8 "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them...and Acts 4:13 "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men they marveled.  And they realized that they had been with Jesus."

My Lessons/Applications/Contemplations - I, like the disciples, can do nothing for the kingdom of God without the power of the Holy Spirit.  We have learned this from Jesus in the book of Acts and through the gospels.  It is not the words of men, but the power of God's Spirit that changes lives for Christ.  We are His messengers; He is the message.  But His life in us and lived through us is also how others will know Him.  When people are around me, when they listen to me, do they perceive that I have been with Jesus?  Have I...daily...moment by moment?

"The best life of Christ is His living biography written in the words and actions of His people." 

Charles H. Spurgeon: Morning and Evening