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Dec 18, 2023 06:00am

The Bible Recap: Days 274-280

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(The following are reflections from the writer’s personal journey through The Bible Recap by Tara-Leigh Cobble – a Bible reading plan to read the Bible chronologically in one year. To learn more about The Bible Recap, visit thebiblerecap.com. Find more posts from this series at lifeword.org/thebiblerecap.)

Day 274: Read Luke Chapter 1 & John Chapter 1

My Takeaways:

Oh, happy day! We have arrived!

Today, we start off out of the gates! God begins showing us nothing is impossible for Him when He answers perhaps a very old prayer of a barren woman named Elizabeth! (Can you imagine some of our older prayers still out there?!) Her prayer is answered, and she is having a special baby! Her husband, Zechariah, was so shocked at the news, the angel Gabriel made him mute until the baby was born! That showed me the power of our doubt. (It did make me smile thinking about how he signed to others how he saw the angel and Elizabeth would have a baby!)

And it’s this baby that will make way for the Messiah. He would live a special way to prepare him to do this special life mission. And, on the flip side, Elizabeth’s relative Mary was given news of having God’s Son. Upon this news, Mary didn’t question! She shows us what obedience looks like. That young girl could have objected and questioned the angel, but she doesn’t. Instead, she is humble and kind and accepts her assignment in life. It’s a game changer for sure but she doesn’t hesitate one bit. Oh friends, may we all have the heart of Mary!

By the end of John, Jesus is born, John has been baptizing, he baptized Jesus and a few of his followers are now with Jesus. (My guy Peter is one of them!)

And John tells us something very powerful:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning all things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and the life was the light of men the light that shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not over come it.”

Jesus has been with God since the beginning. He helped create the world as we know it. He is God and He will be God in flesh on earth. He is the light in the darkness that none will overcome.

Praise God for His light! Things are about to change and the people have no idea! (Well, the people listening to John might be expecting it!)

Day 275: Read Matthew Chapter 1 & Luke Chapter 2

My Takeaways:

The birth of Jesus!

Between Joesph’s obedience, the shepherd’s amazement, the angels’ worship, Simeon’s praise, and Anna’s testimony, this story has God’s fingerprints all over it! It all works together beautifully to the backdrop of a baby boy wrapped in swaddling clothes….much like a sacrificial lamb is wrapped in swaddling clothes to keep it perfect.

From the very beginning, we are given hints this baby has a specific mission in life, and from the age of 12, Jesus starts looking to God the Father more than His own parents by staying at the temple. It had to be hard for Mary…she may not know the exact details of her son’s life but she knows He is not hers entirely. He submits to His Heavenly Father and has a deeper mission.

To be Mary wasn’t easy but I had a feeling Jesus was also a mama’s boy. Maybe God was preparing her every step of the way when the text says she “treasured all these things up in her heart and meditated on them.” Can you imagine, mamas?

My God Shot was in these people with submitted hearts to a God who had been silent in general over the past 4 generations. You see, He may not have been speaking through prophets, but He was speaking to His people’s hearts—always after their hearts and their obedience. Because when He has those, miracles happen.

Day 276: Read Matthew Chapter 2

My Takeaways:

In today’s reading, we see that all those nativity scenes are wrong! The wise men were, in fact, not present at Jesus’ birth! In fact, it was toddler Jesus who greeted them after they made their long journey!

You know, this part gets me. These astrologers traveled hundreds of miles, perhaps over many months, to see the promised king of the Jews. Either they loved stars that much, they wanted to check out this event OR perhaps they had heard of a guy named Daniel who was protected by Yahweh from being eaten by lions. Perhaps they had heard of three young men who were thrown into a fire and walked out smelling fresh as a daisy. Or, perhaps they had heard tales of old about a time Yahweh parted the Red Sea for His people.

Either way, friends, I feel these men did something we struggle with: they walked by faith. And, when they saw Jesus, their faith became sight, and they worshipped Him. Oh, I hope these men are in heaven! What a story they have.

They challenge me…I can get so comfy in life and never venture outside my comfort zone…and here we have men living in a pagan world, perhaps pagans themselves, who seek a king and find what they are looking for.

My God Shot is this: God can speak to anyone who is will to seek. We know this, don’t we?

“You will seek me when you seek me with all your heart.” That sums up the heart of the Old Testament!

And my second God Shot is this: Four times the wise men and Joseph were warned in a dream. Each time they heeded that warning, they were saved. God speaks to us in a variety of ways and dreams are one of them! Ever since I can remember, that is one way God has spoken to me. One time, He gave me a vivid picture in a dream of an important moment in my life. It helped me make an important decision at that time and then, 15 years later, that exact scene played out.

Nothing is impossible for God. We just have to be willing to test Him on it.

Day 277: Read Matthew Chapter 3, Mark Chapter 1, & Luke Chapter 3

My Takeaways:

Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight.

I am struck by a few people in our reading: John the Baptist, Peter, and Andrew.

These men were ahead of their time. John the Baptist is telling everyone they aren’t good—they need to repent. He doesn’t mince words! He doesn’t make them feel good about themselves. He tells the tax collector to stop cheating people out of money and the soldiers to not take bribes. He tells them judgement is coming, and they need to repent! True repentance happens when you act upon the change in your heart. He wants people to FEEL it and then SHOW IT.

You guys, I bet no one was inviting JTB to the party. And yet, he knew this was his purpose in life and he lives it out faithfully. He was also given a little more insight into the spiritual realm.

And then you have my guy Peter and his brother Andrew. Here they are fishing and then Jesus shows up and calls them to follow him…AND THEY GO! No doubt they had heard JTB’s predictions there was another coming, but at this point, they didn’t know who that was. This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime decisions, you guys! Though it wasn’t easy, I bet Peter and Andrew never regretted it.

These guys walked by faith and lived by it. So many times, we can doubt and cling to comfort and yet they didn’t. I am struck how God was working on their hearts.

You know what? They didn’t have something special we don’t—we all have that conviction to sin. We all have that urge to follow God deeper than before. We just have to be willing to take that step forward and let God work in our hearts and lives in a deeper way.

Following Jesus is seldom easy (JTB caused a lot of ruckus and the brothers left their father!), but as they will show us, it was worth it.

Day 278: Read Matthew Chapter 4 & Luke Chapters 4-5

My Takeaways:

Oh, friends! Jesus is on the move and doing His thing today in our reading! I LOVE IT!

But first….He had to face something in between the baptism and the preaching and miracles. Something that strengthened Him in His ministry. Something that tested Him physically, mentally, and emotionally: He was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights.

And, He’s fasting throughout it all. WOWZA.

Can you imagine? He had to have been famished, lonely, cold (at night), and YET He stands firm.

Satan tempts Him in THREE ways: food, power, and God’s sovereignty. I mean, He’s Jesus. He can do anything. To have the power to get out of this desert had to have been real and alluring. And yet, He doesn’t. He KNOWS He has to learn restraint and follow God’s plan. And God’s plan will lead to the cross. Was it tempting to follow another plan that didn’t involve it? Was it tempting to want to turn a stone to bread? Was it tempting to have all the fame and power on earth?

Maybe not on Day 1. Maybe not on Day 10. But by day 40, it had to have taken all of His restraint, coupled with God’s Word to combat Satan’s bait.

He did something that we are all called to do as followers of Yahweh: STAND FIRM.

But, here’s the part that got me: after He stood firm in those 40 days, He returned to Galilee IN THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

You guys, standing firm in His faith and in God’s plans empowered Jesus to fulfill His purpose in life! He called sinners to follow Him, He healed people, He preached the good news to people who praised Him one minute and tried to kill Him the next minute, He drove out demons in the possessed, and He forgave sins.

Why was it important to face temptation in the hardest of circumstances? So that He can face how challenging His life would be and STAND FIRM in all the adversity that came His way. And, He had to show humility in any praise that came His way, too.

We are the same, friends. We, too, will have testing seasons. Seasons where we feel alone, depressed, hungry (not necessarily a physical hunger), rejected, dejected, and tempted to just give up….

And yet, if we are willing to STAND FIRM, we too get an extra dose of Holy Spirit power that can help us fulfill our purpose.

We are called to take up our armor, the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit, to not just survive life…but THRIVE in the life.

You are called to stand firm, friend, and experience God in a whole new way.

A miraculous sort of way.

Day 279: Read John Chapters 2-4

My Takeaways:

Thirsty.

She’s been thirsty all her life, never satisfied. The kind of thirst that had her looking in all the wrong places to satisfy it. And no matter where she looked to quench her thirst, she ended up thirsty again. Her thirst made her desperate and led her down desperate paths.

Until one day, she met a man who promised her His water would quench that insatiable thirst. His water was living water and would fill every crack in her heart. His water would last forever.

It sounded too good to be true.

And yet, it was exactly what she had been searching for her whole life—it was as if He read her mind and her heart. She reached for it and for the first time in her life, she was satisfied. She was whole. She was enough.

She was enough because He and His living water were enough.

This story in the Bible about the Samaritan woman never fails to GET M!! Because I have been her. I was that woman, in early years, looking for love in all the wrong places. I was thirsty and tried to quench my thirst with people and things.

Funny thing.

They were fallible and left me looking for more. You see, I was a “good Christian girl” who had never surrendered her heart to the only One would ever be able to quench her thirst.

I wasn’t enough…and because of that, I tried to be enough through other things and people. And every time they failed me, I went looking for more.

And after many years of this cycle, I was tired of being thirsty. Tired of the same old mistakes and pitfalls, I did something our desperate Samaritan woman did: I finally believed what God said about me. I surrendered all—come hell or high water, I would trust Him with my whole heart. I laid my fears on the line and said, “Even if ______ happens, I will still trust in you.” This was equal parts scary and gutsy. Stories like Job and three young men—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—encouraged me that God would meet me there.

And, He did.

It wasn’t easy shifting my mindset that had established a faulty pattern, but small decisions to trust God at His word each day made a big impact in my life.

And it did for our Samaritan woman as well. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t thirsty anymore. She was whole and satisfied because Jesus was enough.

Funny thing, friends. You live life differently when you know you’re enough. You live as a courageously confident woman who walks in the light of her Savior.

Because walking in the light is exactly where we’re purposed to be. It’s when miracles and the impossible happen.

Day 280: Read Matthew Chapter 8 & Mark Chapter 2

My Takeaways:

Desperate.

None of us like feeling desperate. Like, it’s opposite of how we WANT to feel.

And yet, being desperate is the exact place where people in the Bible experienced Jesus.

Friends of a paralyzed man bring him to Jesus in the most creative, yet desperate way: through the roof. Jesus, seeing their hearts, heals and forgives the paralyzed man.

Levi (aka Matthew) desperate for a new way of living, left his tax collecting booth and follows Jesus in a matter of seconds.

A man with leprosy dared to approach Jesus saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” This desperate man’s faith compelled Jesus to heal him.

A Roman Centurion’s servant was suffering and he, out of his desperation, came to a Jew named Jesus with a statement of faith that amazed even Jesus: “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”

The disciples were desperate when a storm blew up in the middle of the night and threatened to take down their boat. They awakened Jesus and begged Him to save them. Though Jesus calms the storm, He rebuked their lack of faith.

You see, being desperate isn’t a bad thing…it opens the door to miracles. But through the moments, we are called to look less like the scared disciples, who gave way to fear, and live more like the leprous man and the Roman centurion—confident faith that Jesus can.

And though Jesus may not always answer our requests like we feel He should, make no doubt that He will meet us there in our desperation. Because, like Tara-Leigh said, “Jesus seems to have a great affection for those who are desperate.”

I agree, friends. At my most desperate in life, Jesus met me there amid my pain. He met me there, when I was scared and full of fear much like the disciples.

It put me, and us, in a position to say, “Lord, if you are willing, I KNOW YOU CAN.”

And, it’s there He grows me and my faith.

Being desperate isn’t bad, friends. It puts us in a posture to experience God. It gets our hearts surrendered and submitted to Him. It’s where miracles happen.