2 Kings

2 Kings (letter 12, Larry Crabb's 66 Love Letters)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer) said the line between good and evil does not run between us and them; it runs through each one of us.

Don’t make it your main goal to change bad times to good (though of course we may pray that things will improve) but seek to know God better and to represent Him well in all circumstances, no matter how we feel.

Even in the church we talk more about wounds and the promise of therapy.

1 Kings

1 Kings (letter 11, Larry Crabb's 66 Love Letters)

We are cautioned to not allow our desire for effectiveness to be greater than our desire to be holy.
If you challenge merely effective leaders by the standards of holiness, you won't be well received.
Value spiritual formation above successful management; it might get you killed.

1 Kings - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: The decline of Israel during and after the days of Solomon warns us of the dangers of complacency, but also teaches us to practice the boldness of Elijah.

Key Verse: "Keep the charge of the Lord your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn." 1st Kings 2:3

Key Action: We must be as cautious in times of prosperity as in times of peril, lest we relax our guard as Solomon did and allow our spiritual passion to grow lukewarm.

Contentment

Passage I Read Today as a result of sharing time with a younger couple who are learning to struggle well, primarily with difficult health issues:
Philippians 4:11‭-‬12 NIV:
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Her initial thought:
If we are Christian, we can expect to automatically be and do as Paul did in the New Testament.

After struggling from some time with life’s circumstances, she came to realize:
Contentment is a learned  process.

My thought:
I have not yet learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, it's a journey; Lord help me.

2 Samuel

2 Samuel - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: We must follow God's guidance rather than our own passions, at every step.

Key Verse: "You are God, and Your words are true, and You have promised this goodness to Your servant. Now therefore, let it please You to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue before You forever." 2 Samuel 7:28-29

Key Action: Acknowledge God's kingship in every area of life.

1 Samuel

1 Samuel (Larry Crabb’s 9th Love Letter)

We hope God would tell us how we can move through whatever messes show up in our lives in ways that lead us to better times so that we can see the sunrise.

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy; also, only tears from the heart release laughter from the belly.

When things go wrong in our lives, we’re more apt to think what will work to make things better rather than what is holy in this situation that will please the Lord.

It takes a long time to understand that God is not here for us, but we are here for Him; it takes even longer to enjoy that arrangement.

Leaders have a tendency to value efficiency and effectiveness over love and humility as they build their churches.

We will understand the central message of this letter when we understand the tragedy of asking for a king other than God.

1 Samuel: ?? - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

1 Samuel - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: The stories of Samuel, Saul, and David remind us that popularity and image will fade away; but those after God's own heart will leave a legacy of leadership.

Key Verse: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams." 1 Samuel 15:22

Key Action: Don't judge by first impressions, for God doesn't look at people as we do; we look at the external appearance, but God looks at the heart (see 1 Samuel 16:7).

Ruth

Ruth - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: In Boaz, God provided Ruth a kinsman-redeemer who exchanged her bitterness for blessing and foreshadowed the redemptive work of the coming Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Christ.


Key Verse: "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God." Ruth 1:6


Key Action: Trust in the God who redeems the hardships of our past, blesses us now, and provides for our future.

Ruth: The Romance of Redemption - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

As Ruth did with Boaz, if we would begin to walk out upon this mighty transforming truth that God has given us here in the book of Ruth – that we are now married to him who is risen from the dead, married to the man of strength and of wealth, who has given to us all that he is and all that he has – we would see the incredible folly of our gleaning for insignificant scraps. If we saw what we were doing by that, our lives would be transformed.

Ruth (Larry Crabb's 8th love letter)

No matter what happens in your life, I can reach into your heart with the power values. “But You do that slowly, right? I mean really slowly, after long seasons of trouble that make it.

Consider Ruth . She faced overwhelming disadvantages. Poverty. Racism. (Israel hated Moab. Ruth was a Moabitess.) No job prospects. Widowed. But she valued relationships over advantages.

Finally Boaz , the star of the story, is a picture of God's Son.

No matter how dark the world around you, no matter how difficult the world inside you, God's plan overcomes all obstacles to holiness.

I worry more about things going bad than about me going bad. Personal holiness really isn’t at the top of my priority list. I wish it were. Or maybe I don’t.

Judges

Judges (Larry Crabb's 7th love letter)

They continued to come back or appear to repent, not because they wanted God but because they wanted what He would/could provide, the blessings of the good life.

It was a repeated cycle. Some came to know the truth and looked to God for contentment in life. But many kept on looking for things to fulfill themselves.

Judges: The Pattern of Defeat - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

Judges 21:25In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. They were given over to the folly of consecrated blundering. They were consecrated, dedicated blunderers – meaning to do right but ending up all wrong.

The great lesson of this book, then, is that we must take God seriously about the enemy. Jesus Christ has come to save us from our sins – not to allow us to settle down to live all our lives with them. He has come to drive them out from us, and to separate us from them. If we do not take God seriously about these things that we call trivial we will experience an inevitable sequence, taking us step by step away from the intervening grace of God, onward to a course that brings us at last to moral collapse.

Judges - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: When generations arise without a knowledge of God and His commands, they fall into a downward spiral of sin, defeat, judgment and despair.

Key Verse: "Nevertheless, the LORD raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them." Judges 2:16

Key Action: We must break the cycle of apathy, sin, ruin, defeat, and despair with the power of lasting repentance and revival.

Joshua

Joshua (Larry Crabb's sixth love letter)

It's a call to fight.

Loving God and becoming holy requires being aware that there's an enemy within us who will cause more trouble than all of the enemies outside of us, than even the devil.

God's best plan requires hating everything inside us that opposes God.

Never mistake Canaan, the promised Land, for heaven.

Our inclination is to use God to make our lives work rather than trusting God to accomplish His plan through blessings and hardships.

Invite Christians to live for blessings and they will all come forward; churches that never deal with the real fight grow large but mostly with small Christians.

JOSHUA: Guidebook to Victory - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

What the people of Israel went through in their actual historical experiences become patterns, or metaphors, that we can apply to the spiritual battles in the spiritual pilgrimage in which we are engaged.

Chapters 1 through 4 - out of the wilderness and into Canaan.

Chapters 5 through 21 - Israel's conquest of the land.

Chapters 22 through 24 - perils and dangers we must guard against.

The land of Canaan is a picture of the Spirit-filled life – the life that God intended for every Christian to live.
The land is given to the people of Israel, just as the life in Christ is made available to you absolutely without effort on your part. In the third verse you will notice that although the land has been given, it still needs to be possessed: Title to it is the gift of God; possession of it is the result of an obedient walk.
One of the first things we learn in coming into this place of walking in the Spirit is that although it is a place of conflict, every conflict can be a victory.
It is going to take courage. There can be no drifting aimlessly along with the crowd. You are going to have to walk against the current.
The written word must be our constant, prescribed meditation and study so we may “know the truth and the truth shall set us free,” (cf, John 8:32).
This greatest lesson of the spiritual life is that you have no strength in yourself to stand, no matter how long you have walked before God. You can never have a moment of strength to stand by yourself. Your strength comes out of weakness and your sense of dependence. Your sense of your
constant need of God’s strength is the only thing that will keep you.

Joshua - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: Yahweh is a promise-keeping God who leads His children through warfare to victory, just as He gave the Israelites the land promised to Abraham and his descendants..

Key Verse: Joshua 1:7 "Be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go."

Key Action: "As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:13

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy (Letter 5, Larry Crabb's 66 Love Letters)

Deuteronomy - Sacrifice don't be selfish.

He is the only true God. There is none other. There is no plan B.
You were locked in the prison of self-centeredness, just as Israel was in painful bondage to Egypt, where all they could think about was themselves - how can we get a better life, not how can we love God. Love has no meaning unless it remains alive when the one you claim to love seems distant and unresponsive.

DEUTERONOMY: The Law that Delivers - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

The first division is a review God’s love and care of Israel in the wilderness. 

The second division is a great resume of the Law. It is essential to understand that the land

into which these people were coming was inhabited by people who were utterly given over

to lewd and obscene practices. It is a mighty revelation that God expected his people to live among people who were completely committed to the most vile practices. I think this is encouraging to us who are being asked to live in just such a society today. And yet God expected his people to keep themselves completely from these things and to be a holy people.

The third division of the book is a mighty revelation of the future, both in terms of blessings and of curses upon Israel.
The key to this book is in its name: Deuteronomy means “the second law.” The first giving of the Law was in the book of Exodus, where you have the Ten Commandments. Why was it necessary for the Holy Spirit to give the Law twice?
If you ask the man on the street what was the purpose of the Ten Commandments, he would probably say, “It is to keep us from doing wrong.” But this is not the reason the Law was given.
It was given to man to reveal the sinfulness of his acts. (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - Romans 3:23)

The first great theme is of man’s utter weakness and inability, even though he is cleansed, to do anything in himself to please God.
Accompanying this theme is that of God’s abiding presence as the strength of the believer.

Deuteronomy - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: Every new generation needs to learn the lessons of the Lord and develop a heritage of faith and obedience.

Key Verse: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."

Key Action: Share the truth of God with your children, with your grandchildren, and with the generation to come (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Numbers

Numbers (Letter 4, Larry Crabb's 66 Love Letters)

Numbers - Making You Holy is Hard Work for Both of Us.
You will experience terrible failure and crushing conflict on the road that leads to where I'm taking you, but it is the right road even when it feels like it's killing you.

You will begin every new adventure in life with naive hope and excitement. Disappointment in this life will lead you to wonder if you've missed the right road, if perhaps there is a better, more satisfying, less bumpy road through your life. There isn't, not one that leads to real joy.

But God, that's not what I'm hearing from some pastors of really successful churches.

C.S.Lewis said: I'm not safe, but I am good.

Numbers begins a trip that would have taken eleven days instead of forty years had they concerned themselves more with holiness than comfort.

Everything in you that's bad I destroy in order to release everything in you that's good.

NUMBERS: The Incomplete Christian Life - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

In Numbers we have dramatically set forth what is perhaps the hardest lesson a Christian has to learn – to trust God instead of his own reason.

The first division is a picture of God’s provision for guidance and warfare.

The second division is a description of the murmuring and rebelling of the people.

All of it is simply saying to us, in the most vivid language God can find, that though we are disobedient, though we are rebellious, though we turn and refuse to go into blessing, though we wander in a wilderness of defeat and despair and barrenness year after year after year – nevertheless, the Holy Spirit will never leave us

Numbers - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: There's nothing worse than taking a wrong turn into the land of unbelief, for God wants to lead us forward by faith.

Key Verse: Numbers 6:24-26 "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace."

Key Action: Trust God's Word even when challenges loom, for His promises are as secure as His power.

Leviticus

Leviticus, Deuteronomy (Letters 3 & 5, Larry Crabb's 66 Love Letters)

Leviticus - God's main plan is to make us holy, instead of being used as a tool to solve our problems.

Leviticus: The Way to Wholeness - From Ray Steadman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)

Leviticus 20:26 - You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.

And if you read wholeness in place of holiness everywhere you find it in the Bible, you will be much closer to what the writers meant. We all know what wholeness is. It is to have together all the parts which were intended to be there, and to have them functioning as they were intended to function.

And He looks at us in our brokenness and says to us, “You too, shall be whole.” Don’t you want to be what God made you to be, with all the ingredients of your personality expressed in balance? That is what the book of Leviticus is all about. In fact, so is the whole Bible.

T. S. Eliot says,
All our knowledge brings us only closer to our ignorance,
And our ignorance brings us closer to death.
But closeness to death does not bring us closer to God.
And then he asks this question:
Where is the life we have lost in living?

First comes God’s provision, and then the performance which results from that provision.

But notice the order! God never mentions performance to us until he has fully discussed provision.

In closing, we should return to our key verse:
“You shall be whole because I am whole, and therefore I am separating you from the peoples in order that you should be mine.” That, finally, is what God is aiming at. He wants us to be his.

Leviticus - David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: God expects His people to reflect His holiness, not just in rituals but in reality.

Key Verse: Leviticus 11:44 New King James Version (NKJV)
For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy

Key Action: Whenever sin occurs in life, we should confess it promptly, consecrate ourselves anew, and remain committed to personal holiness.