Grow in the Word of the Lord

THE THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Every person has free will, but the outcome goes to the Lord

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.”

Proverbs 16:9 (KJV)

Matthew 28

Disciples, who are disciples?

Matthew 28:16 (KJV), “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.”

Thayer’s Greek Lexicon (STRONGS NT 3101: μαθητής) – are all those who confess Jesus as the Messiah, Christians.

The great commission that Jesus gave to all of His disciples

Matthew 28:18-20 (KJV), “¹⁸ And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.  ¹⁹ Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

Hosea 10

Words that put Israel, and anyone of us, behind the eight ball with God

Hosea 10:3-4 (KJV), “³ For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us?  ⁴ They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.”

What Israel must do

Hosea 10:12 (KJV), “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”

Jeremiah 44

Jeremiah is giving the people the word of the Lord which God has spoken to him. He reminds the people that their disobedience and idolatry has caused the Lord to be very angry with them and to punish them with calamity

Jeremiah 44:11-12 (KJV), “¹¹ Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah.  ¹² And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt; they shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine: they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine: and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.”

They reply that they have no intentions of giving up their worship of idols

The queen of heaven

Jeremiah 44:16-18 (KJV), “¹⁶ As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee.  ¹⁷ But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.  ¹⁸ But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”

This title referred to Ishtar, an Assyrian and Babylonian goddess also called Ashtoreth and Astarte by various other groups. She was thought to be the wife of the false god Baal, also known as Molech. The motivation of women to worship Ashtoreth stemmed from her reputation as a fertility goddess, and, as the bearing of children was greatly desired among women of that era, worship of this “queen of heaven” was rampant among pagan civilizations. Sadly, it became popular among the Israelites as well.

The women told Jeremiah that it was not all their fault

Jeremiah 44:19 (NKJV), “The women also said, “And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ permission?””

Proverbs 16

We are not to just read the Word but study the Word asking God to give us His wisdom to understand

Proverbs 16:20 (NKJV), “He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.”

Ezekiel 42

In a vision God gave to Ezekiel, he saw the New Jerusalem – explained in detail from Ezekiel 40 – 47

The Chambers for the Priests