Devotional Guide For the week of April 20, 2008
GETTING THROUGH
About being poor
To read the Bible in one year, today read Psalms 70-72
To Know:
³Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.²
(Lk. 6:20)
Ours is a poor planet -- not because we circle a second-rate sun; nor
because our natural resources are finite and running out; nor because we
know so little of our ancient history and must reconstruct the past from
fragments found in archeological digs. Most im****tantly, it is not because
the earth is populated by us mere human beings. The fact is that we who
live
on this obscure little orb at the outer edge of the Milky Way bear the
image
of God. This is a poor planet because we who were made in the image of God
have forgotten who and why we are.
Wise is the adage, ³History teaches us that history teaches us nothing.²
Generations come and generations go; yet each repeats the sins of the
fathers. Every generation fabricates gods out of their own imaginations.
For
two centuries, Americans have been taught to believe that the universe is
self-created. Is any idea more preposterous, yet more widely believed by
university professors and students alike? The theory self-creation
demonstrates the length to which the human mind will go in an effort to
escape from the God of the Bible. Why do educated people willingly believe
that life on earth began by a random lightning strike in primeval slime?
The
only believable explanation is the one given in the Bible. ŒThis is the
verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of
light because their deeds were evil.² (Jn. 3:19) The theory that one day
nothing created something protects against the biblical claim that one day
God will judge evil by Jesus Christ.
To Do:
Jesus began the greatest sermon ever preached by announcing, ³Blessed are
the poor in spirit.² The poor are blessed precisely because they have come
to know that they are poor. There are none so blind as those who will not
see. Paradoxically, those who recognize their spiritual blindness are
blessed indeed. When we see that we are blind, then we will ask God for
light, which is life. ³In him was life, and that life was the light of
men.²
(Jn. 1:4)
04248$-04248
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