Pastor's Note from May 11, 2014

Happy Mother's Day to all of our mom's, including our spiritual mothers in the Body of Christ.

Our Bible reading plan continues through 1 Chronicles and Romans this week.  As always, we’ll be reading about some amazing things this week.

In our OT reading we come across 1 Chronicles 13 and the account of David having the Ark of the Covenant moved.  While traveling with the Ark, Uzza reached out and grabbed it to keep it from falling off the cart.  Uzza died immediately as no one was to ever touch the Ark; that was the command and the Ark was holy. David was angry about Uzza’s death, but did he have a right to be?  Certainly not!  They were doing the wrong thing, and not moving the Ark in the way God had instructed it to be moved.  It was to be carried by a family of Levites only, not transported on a cart.  We too easily forget that God has set certain rules about things.  We don’t like rules and so we start labeling all such rules as “legalistic.”  Yet, God has given us a body of instructions in the Bible (even in the NT!) as we are to be holy and thus need to live a certain way in order to maintain our fellowship with Him, for He is holy and can have no fellowship with sin.  Disobedience is sin, even if we think we’re doing something good.

This is a perfect lead in for our NT reading as we head into Romans 6.  It starts by asking a question, based on the discussion of the grace and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ.  It asks, “What then, shall we continue to sin that grace may abound?”  The answer is given immediately, “Certainly not!  How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”  Several verses later, Paul through the Holy Spirit writes, “consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.”  Is that legalistic?  No, it is a command from God that we should forsake sin and instead “present our bodies as instruments of righteousness to God.”

Bible reading:

5/12	Monday	1 Chronicles 13-14	Romans 4
5/13	Tuesday	1 Chronicles 15-16	Romans 5
5/14	Wednesday	1 Chronicles 17-18	Romans 6
5/15	Thursday	1 Chronicles 19-20	Romans 7
5/16	Friday	1 Chronicles 21-22	Romans 8
5/17	Saturday	1 Chronicles 23-26	None
5/18	Sunday	1 Chronicles 27-29	None

Bible memory verse: Romans 5:12

"Therefore, just as through one man (Adam) sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned..."