The Bemenderfers

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Personal Devotions

Snow Bible

Notes from Mark's personal Bible reading and meditation

With a goal to apply one truth from each day's reading to my life that day
Mar 11, 2023, 6:48 AM
Passage Read: Job 37-40 Meditation Verse: 37:13 Thought Elihu, and then God, both indicate that God uses bad weather to discipline or bless men. So God's intent should be considered when bad weather happens. Good weather obviously is the result of His mercy and grace, since few of us merit His favor. But bad weather is a warning and a call to repentance, or the end of a window of grace.
Mar 10, 2023, 6:49 AM
Passage Read: Job 33-36 Meditation Verse: 36:13 Thought Elihu is rougher on Job than any of Job's friends. He is brutal in his assessment of Job. Because of that he is far off the mark of understanding what Job is suffering and what God is doing. But this statement, that the godless harbor resentment, so that even when they are undergoing punishment, they will not call to God for help, this is insightful. Resentment against God, whether acknowledged or pinned to others, keeps a sinner from humbling himself before God and crying out for help.
Mar 9, 2023, 6:50 AM
Passage Read: Job 29-32 Meditation Verses: 31:13-15 Thought Job understood that though he had servants, yet he was no different from them. He understood that he too was a servant of God and would be judged by how he treated others, even his slaves. He owed them justice even as he desired justice from his Master. But he owed God unquestioning obedience even as his slaves owed him unquestioning obedience. He had rights over them as his servants, even as God had rights over him.
Mar 8, 2023, 6:52 AM
Passage Read: Job 25-28 Meditation Verses: 28:3-4 Thought Man goes through great and terrible effort to obtain precious gems and metals, but nowhere near the same effort to gain wisdom. Wisdom is not so difficult to find, but few seek it, because wisdom requires fearing the Lord and turning away from evil. What a shame that nothing can stop man in his pursuit of earthly treasure, but wisdom holds no value to him. So he turns mountains upside-down to gain trinkets but has little interest in saving his own soul.
Mar 7, 2023, 6:53 AM
Passage Read: Job 21-24 Meditation Verse: 24:1 Thought Job is frustrated that wicked men seem to get along just fine and judgment doesn't come soon enough. He lists here all kinds of ways they get away with their evil, how they plot and carry out their schemes, how they get away with their evil desires. But he recognizes that death catches up with everyone. That's not his complaint; his complaint is that judgment doesn't catch up with them sooner, that they're able to get away with such evil for so long before they finally come into judgment.
Mar 6, 2023, 6:54 AM
Passage Read: Job 17-20 Meditation Verses: 19:2-5 Thought If Job's friends truly care about him, then they are driven by compassion to bring him to repentance, so that the Lord will forgive him and restore His favor to him. Surely they're not gloating over him! But because they lack understanding, of God and of Job, they cannot believe God would allow such tragedy to come upon Job unless he had greatly sinned. So they can't hear or believe anything Job says in his own defense, which is a sad thing to say about friends.
Mar 5, 2023, 6:55 AM
Passage Read: Job 13-16 Meditation Verses: 15:14-16 Thought Wow! This is what we teach and believe today! There is no hope for man, he is utterly hopeless in his wickedness! But this isn't what Job says, these are the words of Eliphaz, who got God wrong! In fact, the whole point of this book rebukes this idea! Job was declared righteous in God's eyes by God Himself. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus! Without the the Holy Spirit living in him! God was bragging on Job to Satan!
Mar 4, 2023, 6:56 AM
Passage Read: Job 9-12 Meditation Verses: 10:12-17 Thought This is oppressive, to live under such a concept, that God is good to you until you mess up, then He pounces and pours out all kinds of trouble on you. There is a faithful discipline that He gives to put the fear of Him into our hearts, that we would trust and obey Him. But this is beyond that, this is the idea that God is just waiting to hammer me for my sin. That God has no grace, that He is quick to punish wrong, in fact more quick to punish wrong than He is quick to reward good.
Mar 3, 2023, 6:57 AM
Passage Read: Job 5-8 Meditation Verse: 8:4 Thought Wow, that is brutal! To tell someone in such distress straight out that their children obviously sinned and God killed them in an instant for it, that is merciless. And where is God's mercy? Doesn't Bildad recognize the grace of God to endure sinners that they might repent? No one talks about the children; they're like props in this story, but they were people! And they were crushed when their brother's house collapsed on them.
Mar 2, 2023, 6:59 AM
Passage Read: Job 1-4 Meditation Verses: 4:5-6 Thought Wow! The first words in response to Job's expressed grief are, "Trouble comes to you and you are discouraged; it strikes you and you are dismayed." Does Eliphaz not understand what had happened to Job? Does he not realize he lost his children, all his servants and all his herds and flocks on one day, and now he is covered head to toe with painful sores? This is not the usual trouble that comes on most of us.