January 2, 2019 – Day 2 – Genesis (5)6-9; Mark 2 (Day 277 – Micah 1-3; John 2)

[NOTE: For those who are continuing the 1-year Bible reading plan we started on April 1, 2018, just go to the end of this entry and you will find the Day 277-Micah 1-3; John 2 summary!]

As we open our Bibles today, Genesis 5 is the first chapter before us. The chapter is a genealogy of people from Adam through Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. To me, it is not exciting reading. To you, it may well be. Genealogies have never been overly exciting to me. To others they offer a door of understanding. When I come to them in the Bible, I typically skim through to see whether there are details about a particular person or family line that offers insight. Other than that, I move quickly through the lists of names in search of the next section of narrative.

That next section in Genesis starts in chapter six and continues through Genesis nine, with us being told humanity had degenerated in not too many generations from fallen to reprobate. what an incredibly rapid descent. God “repented” (in the old King James Version) of having made humanity. While God knew where humanity would go once sin entered the world, He created us anyway. Why? We can’t answer that question with absolute certainty, but it seems God’s love for us, and God’s desire for our love for Him to be genuine and without coercion, had to allow for our rejection of God. That rejection has been absolute in so many cases, and without skipping over the amazing account of that rejection leading to God’s destruction of all but eight human beings, let’s turn to our own rejection of Him.

You and I are descendants of Adam. If we could reconstruct the genealogy of our family trees all the way back to Adam we would find them connecting somewhere with the list in Genesis 5. We inherit Adam’s sin nature at birth. As the old saying goes, “We aren’t sinners, because we sin.  We sin because we’re sinners.” It’s our nature. Thank God we were born on this side of the flood! God has continuously reached out to humanity. He did it through Noah, through Abraham, through Moses, through the judges and kings of Israel, and ultimately through Jesus. While that’s getting way ahead of the story, the Bible’s connective thread is God’s ongoing effort to intercede in our behalf to overcome the sin we brought into the world. Preserving Noah and his family was a vital moment in that effort.

As we read through the Bible, we see God is always plotting to do us good. As  our reading from Mark 2 reminds us, Jesus’ ministry brought healing to the sick, welcome to the outcast, and victory over the rigid ways of legalism. Such amazing good would ultimately be rewarded with crucifixion, which shows us the depth of human sin and Satan’s desire to defeat God’s goodness. That crucifixion resulted in Jesus’ ultimate defeat of sin, death and Satan, which is one more example of how God is, indeed, always plotting to do us good!

Day 277 – Micah 1-3; John 2

Today we turn to Micah. Micah prophesied during the time when the northern Kingdom (Israel) fell, and when the southern Kingdom (Judah) was living in great prosperity. Micah spoke against the abuses of the wealthy against the poor. His writing is divided in three sections and alternates between pronouncements of judgment and the LORD’s restoration (as do most of the prophets). Micah also tells of a future deliverer who will be born in Bethlehem!

Micah 1 starts with pronouncements of judgment against Samaria (capital of the Northern Kingdom) and Jerusalem. The pronouncement is more severe for Samaria, as it will be crushed and brought low. Micah’s words also mention the surrounding nations as being involved in the judgment. In this chapter the judgment only comes to the gates of Jerusalem, but as we will see, Micah’s pronouncements include more against Judah as well.

Micah 2 offers a general judgment against the wealthy who oppress the poor, while Micah 3 condemns the leaders and prophets, primarily of Judah for their oppression of the poor, and their continual sin against the LORD. While the judgment includes Israel, in this chapter we’re told that Judah and Jerusalem will be crushed. Just as the pronouncement had been primarily directed against the northern Kingdom in Micah 1, we find it primarily against the southern Kingdom in chapter 3.

As we return to John 2, we recall Jesus’ first miracle: turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Jesus was reluctant to perform this miracle, because His “time” had not yet come, but He responded in obedience to His mother’s request for help in what was a most awkward social situation. While the miracle didn’t heal anyone, or remove a demon from anyone, it still demonstrated the Kingdom power of Jesus. We can say in God’s eternal Kingdom we will experience no lack, so Jesus’ miracle of provision foreshadows that. John records Jesus cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem as the next act of authority He carried out. While the cleansing of the Temple is found in the last week of Jesus’ life in the other three gospels, it is not at all unlikely Jesus did this on more than one occasion, because of the great offense against His father He found it to be. In any case, Jesus demonstrated His authority to act on His Father’s behalf in this situation and in so many more throughout His ministry. As we consider Jesus’ role in our lives, we must always remember He is our first and final authority. What He tells us to do, we must do in the power of His Spirits and what He calls us to avoid, we must avoid.

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