First blog, here goes nothing...or everything.

Alright  women and masculine type figures that may have found their way here, this is my first blog and I have no idea what to expect.  The goal so far is to do this once a day before bed or whenever but we'll see how well I do.  I may use this as a way to vent to/celebrate with/inform you about my life but the main idea is to read a bit o' scripture every day and see what God wants to tell me about it.  I'm terrible at public speaking (and public means 3+) so hopefully this will make it easier for me to share my faith and what I'm learning with those "around" me.  So without further ado...

Today's random scripture comes from Matthew 2 and 3.  So far the plan is to cleverly pick a random page within the Gospels and read whatever whole sections are on that page and then do my best to listen to God's whisper.  Today, we have: "The Flight to Egypt" (2:13-15), "Herod Kills the Children" (2:16-18), "The Return to Nazareth" (2:19-23), and "John the Baptist Prepares the Way" (3:1-12).  Depending on the sections' content, I may group them all together and discuss and central theme or split them up into individual groups and discuss the themes within each.  Like I said before, the idea is to tell you what I'm hopefully hearing from God so we'll see what He wants to do each day.  Now, let us read...

Ok, so here's what I got:

Looks like we got two main ideas here which makes sense since the parts in chapter 2 are from Jesus' days as a youngin' while Chapter 3 skips 30 years or so.  So we'll do the logical thing and start with the sections in chapter 2:

Jesus' escape to Egypt served one main purpose.  First: save Jesus from being killed by the ruthless King Herod.  This made me realize that God does what's necessary to keep the key components of plan safe.  But Aaron, so many good people doing God's will die every year!   True dat.  But that doesn't mean that they have not fulfilled the plan God had set out for them to follow.  God wants to keep some people around for a long time and touch many people's lives.   Others, He only needs for the touching of a few...or maybe even just one.  Death shouldn't be viewed as a punishment.  Heck, if you did what you were supposed to do, why stick around this miserable place anyway?  When God's good and ready, he takes his children back to be with him in eternal glory.  Sounds better than rent and bills to me.  But what about the kids Aaron?!  Who's to say they didn't fulfill their purpose?  And those that are lost to abortions, maybe God had no other purpose for them other than a fast track ticket be with Him.  Who knows?  (psst, God does)  It's a touchy subject for sure and we'll never know the answers until we get our chance for Q&A in heaven...if we even care at that point.  I imagine heaven will so amazing we have to replace our worries and cares with awe, amazement, and thanksgiving.  But basically, to summarize, if you're reading this, you're alive and it's because God has a plan so hop to it!

But anyway, so God led Jesus and Mary and Joseph out of a hostile Bethlehem and into Egypt for an unclear amount of time.  Once the metaphorical coast was clear, Joseph had a dream and in it, he was told by an angel that all was well so they set off (I'm assuming back to Bethlehem) until Joseph had another dream (dude seems to sleep quite a bit) where the angel came back and said "JK, not so safe, turns out the next guy is even worse than the last so...go somewhere else".  Joseph head north up to the region of Galilee and there they proceeded to settle down and Jesus spent the next x amount of years growing up.  Matthew goes on to say that yet another prophecy was fulfilled in that "He will be called a Nazarene" (2:23).  Don't go trying to find that prophecy though, because according to my study Bible, those exact words are not found in the Old Testament.  Because of that it is thought to fulfill the prophecy that He would be despised and at that time, "'Nazarene' was virtually a synonym for 'despised'.

So now that we got the background covered, I really feel like this shows that God really does have the ultimate control over what's going here and, if we let him, in our own lives.  God led people to make certain predictions about the Savior and he made sure that they came true knowing that we would need all the help we could get in having faith that this guy that was born in a manger is the Son of God.  Though it's something we all struggle with, myself the greatest of all, I believe that if we give our lives up to God and His will, He will lead us the way we need to go so that His will will be accomplished.   We just need to find that way to helps us stay focused.  That's why I'm doing this blog.  I've spent a couple weekends up at camp so far this summer and every year I go up there, I get my faith recharged and get excited about God's word but as soon as I leave, it dies and I slip right back into my bad habits.  This year I found myself thinking, "I can't let this die down."  I felt guilty that I had to surround myself with a Christian environment to get excited about the Lord.  It should be like that ALL the time!  Hopefully doing this on a consistent basis will keep me on that straight and narrow better.  With that said, we all need help from time to time so if you don't hear from me for a couple days, let me have it.  We all need each other to keep ourselves up and going strong.

Moving on to the second half/Chapter 3...

Here in Chapter 3, we've skipped several years and though I didn't get to a section where we officially meet adult Jesus, we do meet adult John the Baptist and since they were born around the same time...yeah 1+1 people.  Anyway, we get introduced to John and what he's doing with his life which...ta da!...God's will and preparing the way for Jesus (only difference is he's doing it for the first coming, we're in charge of the second coming).  Now we all know that Jesus was prophesied about in the OT but what I just found out was that John was prophesied about too.  Isaiah said in 40:3 "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'"  And John most certainly did that.  Back in those days, when a king would travel, people went ahead of him and made necessary improvements to the road (Phoenix must be expecting a bunch of kings then) and John did the same both spiritually and emotionally for the people of Israel.  He preached to them about repentance and their need for a savior and saying "this guy's coming so get your poop in a pile and shape up or ship out" (ok, so maybe that's a loose quotation).  And for those who were ready to repent and recognize that "hey, I need some help," John baptized with water.  Pharisees and Sadducees would come to hear just what this guy was talking about but John refused to baptize them.  He called them a "brood of vipers" because they didn't realize their imperfections and sins against God.  They seemed to think that because of their social/political/religious status, that they were better than the common man.  On the contrary, John told them, "And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,'"  basically saying that just because of their genealogy and what they do for living doesn't mean they have a free ticket to the pearly gates.  Admission to heaven is based on their faith in God and though he was baptizing with water, there was another who was coming who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit.

And how does that make you feel?

This section really made me think  "oh crap, I've royally failed" because it talks so much about how we need to prepare ourselves for Christ.  Granted John was talking about the first coming, but we really need to be doing for the second coming just the same.  God expects his children to bear fruit and there's some pressure because as John said, "The ax is already at the root of trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire".  Judgment day is a-coming.  Do you have good fruit?  I think a common misinterpretation of this verse is "good fruit=converted sinners" making people think that it's all about how many people that can bring to Christ.  Yes, God wants us to "go and make disciples" but He doesn't put any emphasis on the quantity, just the quality of effort.  I'm certain God's going to find more favor in the guy that put all he had into converting his best friend than the guy who brags about the 30 strangers he converted over the past years.  What's better, one big ripe juicy piece of fruit or a bunch of small weak fruit?

Something that made me wonder in this passage was the talk of fire.  If you can help me out, please do.  I may just be over thinking it too but have you ever noticed that the fire comparisons go both ways?  Not to say that God doesn't know what He's talking about, but in a matter of few verses the Bible talks about how the bad trees and chaff (chaff is anything unwanted when harvesting grain such as the husks, etc.) would be burned in an "unquenchable" fire...yet Jesus was going to baptize his believers with fire.  We also talk about how those who have strong faith have that "fire" burning inside.  So with that, I'll end with a question, what's the significance of fire being both good AND bad??


Ok, now that I've completed my first blog and realized just how much I could actually being saying every time, I think it's fair to say that this is not going to be a daily thing.  I'll start with a goal of three times a week and see how that goes.  Hope I got you thinking!