This year’s devotional guide (see left) presses me to fuller study, making it more difficult to use devotionally. I want to write a book instead of a devotional post. However, I will try to share the main point of what God is saying to me so that others might be edified. My hope is to see the connections between the OT and the NT, and to better understand how human ego and vanity ruin my life while humility is not thinking less of me, but thinking of me less, and more of others.
The readings are from the OT, the books of wisdom, and the
NT. I’ve no problem seeing connections between the readings. First the OT tells
how God created man . . .
“This is the book of the generations of Adam.
When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he
created them, and he blessed them . . . . When Adam had lived 130 years, he
fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image . . . .” (Genesis 5:1–3)
In the beginning, the first human beings were made in the
image of God, but after sin entered the world, that changed. The next
generation was made in the image of the first two people, which was a marred
reflection. Pondering that, it seems to me that with each successive generation
looking like the one before it, humanity slid into increasing deterioration.
Even in my life time, I can see the changes. Fifty years ago, people knew much
more about God than they do now. Today, the average person has lost that sense
of spirituality that my parents had, and the average five-year-old blasphemes God
as if that were a normal way to talk.
By the 10th Century BC, Solomon observed this
also. He noted, “I have seen everything
that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after
wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be
counted. I said in my heart, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who
were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom
and knowledge.’ And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and
folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much
wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:14–18)
He writes more about the vanity of life and how he feels
as if nothing really matters very much. The world is a sinful place, but even
the good that anyone does has no lasting value. Unless Ecclesiastes is read to
the end and this wise man’s conclusions are accepted, it is a utterly depressing
book.
Yet the NT brings hope. Jesus comes. He calls for a return
to righteousness, a change of heart. But before that can happen, people need to
realize that this change is vital. He tells them (and me) that “Unless your righteousness exceeds
that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 5:20)
I’m in a somber mood. Millions of people have never heard this
bad news that precedes the good news, and even if they know it and have heard
the Gospel, both bad and good news have been maligned so much that it no longer
sounds profitable to their ears.
But both are good news. The first Adam did disobey God and
the entire human race became separated from Him, but the Last Adam, Jesus
Christ, fully obeyed God so that the entire human race could be redeemed. The
Gospel declares that sinners can be united to Him and restored to His image
through a new birth and a fresh start. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come.”
“All this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled me to himself and gave me the ministry of reconciliation; that is,
in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses
against us, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
“Therefore, I am an ambassador for Christ, God
making his appeal through me. I implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled
to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God.”
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