For a description of the (Y2) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Mark 14
Why did Jesus institute the Lord’s Supper? Why is it important to you? Get some elements and share the Lord’s Supper with someone today. Jesus is the fulfillment of everything God established concerning the Jews in the Old Testament. He said Himself that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. When Jesus established The Lord’s Supper, He declared Himself the fulfillment of the Passover. He also demonstrated that, in fulfilling the old thing, He established something new. Pretty cool stuff.
2 Sam. 11-12
Analyze the progression of David’s disobedience. What different choices could David have made that would have changed this story? How does God interpret David’s actions (v. 9-10, 14)? How did David respond to judgment? I have to think that David and Bathsheba already knew each other before this incident. A Godly person doesn’t just up and do all this stuff on a whim. No, this kind of thing happens over time. Something catches our attention and our focus slowly starts to shift toward that something (or someone) as we find gratification in it. That’s why, when David made the first misstep of sleeping with Bathsheba (who didn’t exactly put up a resistance, by the way), he didn’t immediately repent but instead fell further into sin’s trap. His focus was no longer on God.
We know from all of his Psalms that David was aware that nothing is hidden from God. Yet he still tried to cover up his sin. It wasn’t that he thought God didn’t see what he had done. It was that he wasn’t thinking of God at all. I think this is why God said that David had despised and shown utter contempt for the LORD. And this is all why I believe David got to this point over time.
This story should scare us. If David, whom God described as “a man after [My] own heart” (Acts 13:22), can lose his focus on God and fall off the right path to this degree, we have to know it can happen to us as well. We can get to the point of disregarding what we know to be true about God and following after our own desires anyway. So once again, I am impressed with the importance of intentional living. If we are not consciously making the decision every hour of every day to keep our focus on God, our eyes will find something else to see.
Ps. 60
Have you ever felt rejected or abandoned by God? Pray this prayer. “Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless.” (Ps. 60:11). God brings us help in human form all the time. But it is critical that we realize the human is merely an instrument of God, willing or otherwise. Placing trust in any human is pointless. It is God alone who never fails.
This concept also runs in reverse. That is to say that I, as a human cannot truly help anybody. At least not on my own. As somebody who enjoys being helpful to others, this is often a difficult thing for me to acknowledge. Especially when it comes to those who are very close to me. But just as I shouldn’t put any other human in the position of God in my life, I shouldn’t desire to put myself in that position in anybody else’s life either. I need to trust them to God as well. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t desire or try to help others. What it does mean, though, is that when we are able to be of help to somebody we should be grateful that God chose to use us as His instrument in their life.