Everyone who has professed their personal faith in God and claimed His Son for their savior for a year of more should have read their Bible from Genesis through Revelation at least one time. That is only my opinion of course, but I hope I can find accord among the body of Christ if not humanity in general. I would venture to say that knowing what the Bible has to say about any given subject is more critical to your overall well being than even double vaccinating and triple masking.
I am a firm believer in Bible reading. I think everyone should read it. I get it that for some people it is a monumental undertaking.
It’s a big book (or collection of books if you will). I totally understand how it can seem an overwhelming task, because I am somewhat attention deficit myself. I needed to find a workaround, and I did. I found that if I divide the Bible into bite sized chunks, I could swallow a few every day until they were all gone.
I put a bookmark in Genesis chapter 1, one in Psalms chapter 1 and a third in Matthew chapter 1, and every day I would read one chapter in each and move the bookmark to the next chapter. This accomplished two very positive things.
First, I was able to read the entire scripture without getting weighed down by the holiness and judgement of the Jehovah of the Old Testament or getting swept up in the liberty and unmerited grace of the New Testament Jesus. I was able to get a better understanding of God in His fulness. Second, I was able to read the entire New Testament two and a half times, and the Old Testament and Psalms once in that year, and it was almost painless.
A couple of days ago it happened, as it occasionally does, that two of the three passages in my reading not only built on each other but seemed threaded into current world affairs. The first passage was Isaiah 1:23,31. It is referring specifically to the princes of Israel, but it describes equally well a mindset found in many world leaders today. It says
Your leaders are rebels and friends of thieves; they are always accepting gifts and bribes. They never defend orphans in court or listen when widows present their case.
Just as straw is set on fire by a spark, so powerful people will be destroyed by their own evil deeds, and no one will be able to stop the destruction.
The second passage is out of Revelation9:20,21 describing the days of the Great Tribulation and says
The rest of the human race, all those who had not been killed by these plagues, did not turn away from what they themselves had made. They did not stop worshiping demons, nor the idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic, their sexual immorality, or their stealing.
I apologize if this seems a little dark, but I can only give you what God gives me. What we see here is one side of a two-sided coin. Both sides are shown to us in Galatians 519-23 (EEB)
"Everyone knows the kinds of bad things that weak people want to do. They have sex with people that they are not married to. They do things that are bad and dirty. They worship idols. They make drugs to hurt people. They become enemies and they fight one another. They are jealous of other people. They become very angry. They want to please themselves and to be important. They cause trouble. They make people belong to different groups. They want things that belong to other people. They are drunks. They have wild parties. And they like to do many other bad things like those. So I warn you again, as I have already warned you before. People who continue to do any of those bad things will not receive good things from God. God has prepared those good things for the people who belong to his kingdom."
"But God's Spirit causes us to live in a different way. We love other people. We are happy and we have peace in our minds. We are patient, kind and good. People can trust us to do what is right. We respect other people and we rule ourselves properly. God's Spirit helps us to live in that way. There is no law that says these things are wrong."
As I said, two sides of the same coin, both human behavior, one side led by our fleshly instincts, and the other being led by the Spirit. I will let you decide for yourself which is heads or tails. I was extremely disturbed to see that those who choose the dark side seem to hold on to their beliefs even in the face of certain defeat and condemnation. It makes no sense, yet it is what it is. Which means it makes even less sense for those who choose the light to think they can persuade others to change their minds. If it is to ever happen, it will be God Himself who makes it happen.
For the rest of us, all that is left to do is to pray and to choose. What will your choice be? Heads or tails?
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