August 14 - Jeremiah 26-29

Below are my thoughts from the daily Bible reading of the West Side Church of Christ. Today’s reading comes from Jeremiah 26-29. Before reading I invite you to pray and asked God to speak to you as you read his word. Also above in the tabs is a link to the Bible reading plan. 

Photo Credit: Jeanette's Ozpix

Ok, so you have to admit the imagery of Jeremiah is pretty awesome. Jeremiah is like a modern day preacher, pulling out all sort of props and doing cool visual illustrations. I have tried a few of these myself; pulling rocks out of bag to represent the burdens we carry, having people place stones with sins on them before a cross, lighting felt on fire, and a few other little gimmicks. However, I have never gone to the extremes that Jeremiah went to. I did not live my life with an ox’s yoke around my neck. Could you just imagine the Hollywood cartoonary that would illustrate this story? Jeremiah trudging around Jerusalem, slouched over, sweat is glistening across his brow, as he carried this yoke on his shoulders?

Then could you imagine the epic scene in the Temple where Hananiah (This must be a different Hananiah than was taken into captivity with Daniel) pronounces God’s deliverance from the oppression of Babylon? Could you imagine how Hananiah would have gone about destroying the yoke around Jeremiah’s neck? I think this sort of imagery is what I love about the Bible.

The Bible is the greatest romance novel ever written. It tells an awesome story of how God has relentlessly perused a relationship with you and me. But it is also an action adventure story. How many battle scenes have we seen play out through the words on the pages? In the midst of that it is also a drama. Today’s story highlights that aspect of it as well.

On a side note, have you put a yoke around your neck that you are trudging through life with? Is it weighing you down? Is it holding you back? Do you need to let go? Here’s the cool thing, while it was not time for God to remove the yoke of oppression of the Babylonians, in Jesus, God wants to remove any yoke you may be carrying now. Really he may not completely remove it, but he will join with you and help you carry your yoke. That is what a yoke was designed for. It lightened the load, spread it out over two animals or more, to help pull whatever it was they were pulling. Here is an awesome promise from Jesus … “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV)

April 15 – Psalms 7, 27, 31, 34, & 52

Below are my thoughts from the daily Bible reading of the West Side Church of Christ. Today’s reading comes from Psalms 7, 27, 31, 34, & 52. Before reading I invite you to pray and asked God to speak to you as you read his word. Also above in the tabs is a link to the Bible reading plan.

One of the challenges in doing a chronological reading of the Bible is how much jumping around the Bible you actually do. That happens because the Bible is not organized in chronological order but in various groupings. So far we have been able to go in chronological order as we have journeyed through the first six books. But remember back in January after Genesis 1-11 we read all of Job. In a few places we even picked up a Psalm or two. Now that we are in 1 Samuel the chronological mix up is going to get into hyper drive. You will notice in the reading plan we may read a chapter from 1 or 2 Samuel as well as a Psalm or two. In a few weeks we might be reading from 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, and Psalms. A few weeks after that we might read from 1 or 2 Kings, 1 or 2 Chronicles, a Psalm, and even from one of the Prophets. This can get pretty confusing. To help you with that I have attached the Bible reading plan in a tab at the top of my blog right under the pictures. You can easily open it and download it from there.

 

Photo Credit: First Baptist Church Covington

To make following the reading plan a little easier let me share with you how I do it each day. I use You Version, which is the Bible app available in both the Apple Store and the Google Play store. The great thing with this program is its free and it syncs through a free account on all of your Android devices, Apple devices, and your PC or Mac. Once you log on you can subscribe to a reading plan and there are multiple to choose from. The one we are doing is the Chronological plan. This tool has made the Bible reading incredibly easy as I sit down with my iPad, droid phone, or even my computer to complete each days reading.

Today is going to be all about advice in making your Bible study and prayer time with God a little more meaningful. Let’s continue that theme as we look at our reading today. David is currently on the run. Saul is after his life. He is fearful that David will remove him from the throne and end up killing him and his family. David has now resorted to living in the wilderness, hiding out in dark caves, and changing his location often. Today we read from David himself in the book of Psalm’s. David can be attributed with a vast majority of the Psalms we find there.

What I love as I read the words of David is we are getting a glimpse of his prayer life. When things go wrong and when things go right David writes about it. I like to view many of the Psalm’s as David’s prayer journal. That’s something I have recently started to do. I have heard about it a lot, I have read about from others, and finally I decided it was time to start prayer journaling. Now let me tell you my words I write are no where near the poetic beauty of David’s. Also my written words are not as praise worthy of God as we find in David’s. But, the few short months I have been prayer journaling have been amazing. Let me explain why.

Photo Credit: Moleskin App Page

When I prayer journal, which does not happen every day, I am forced to slow down in my thoughts as I write them out … yes I write with a pen, not on paper, but on the Moleskine app for my iPad. I find this slows my thoughts down, because my writing is much slower than my typing. Now everything I am thinking does not end up written down. But let me tell you, when I am finished, I typically have been taken to a whole new place. I tend to feel peace and calm. I can just imagine David coming to this same place when finished, especially during the time when he is on the run. So friends, let me encourage you to start prayer journaling. It may not be for you right now, but give it a shot and see if it helps you in any way.

At West Side we believe highly in prayer. We are asking people to join with us in praying daily for West Side. If you would like to join us please click here and subscribe to receive daily emails containing a short prayer request for West Side. We appreciate your partnership.