We are wrapping up our trek through the New Testament this week. Never fear, there is more to learn and more comfort to receive out of God’s word. We’ll be starting again on January 4. 

Please tell your friends about our reading together and invite them to join us as we are comforted, encouraged, challenged by God’s word every day. 

Feel free to purchase the book that goes along with this reading. It will definitely be a benefit to you to take your own notes and keep them all in one place for the whole journey.

Enjoy this final week and pass the word about our new journey beginning on Monday, January 4.

***Question: Who are you going to invite to join us in the New Year?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

I’m so excited. Beginning this Monday, July 6, we have the opportunity at Give Attention to Reading to go through the entire New Testament again. I can’t wait to see what we’ll find this time.

Let me encourage you to tell your friends about this opportunity. 

I’m going to make one major change. I’m going to try each day to end with a question to get feedback from you about the day’s reading. Feel free to talk about whatever the passage meant to you, but also, let everyone involved in this discussion know your answer to whatever questions may come up.

Let’s see if we can’t get a record number of people reading their Bibles with us.

Please, hit the “Share” button at the bottom of this post or e-mail if you are subscribed by e-mail and let others know about this great opportunity.

Keep the faith and keep reading.

ELC

***Question: What helps you keep up your habit of Bible reading?

To those who have read through the New Testament with me for the past six months, I want to say thank you. I hope this journey has been helpful to you as it has been to me. If you joined us in the middle, that’s great. I hope you have been edified by all we have studied together.

We’re going to take a break this week and start again on January 5. As is always the case, the more we read the more we learn. The New Testament is not something to read once and then put down. It is something read over and over again. I look forward to making this journey with you again throughout 2009.

By the way, I am actively working on a “Give Attention to Reading” schedule and book for the Old Testament, my goal is to have it ready so that when we finish this trek through the New Testament we can go through the Old. I’m excited about it and hope you are as well.

I’ll see you next Monday, January 5 as we start reading Luke and begin our new journey through the New Testament.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

First, I want to thank you for following my giveattentiontoreading.com blog. I know your time is valuable and the fact that you spend some of it keeping up with our study here means a lot to me.

Second, If I may be allowed just a small amount of marketing on this blog. You are probably aware that the schedule for posting on giveattentiontoreading.com is based on my book by the same name. 

Christmas is coming and so is the New Year. I’m sure many of your friends, like you and me, will be firing up their resolutions to improve their Bible reading and study. Why not provide them with the perfect Christmas gift that will help them keep that resolution this year? Give them their very own guide through the New Testament that allows them to study at their own depth and provides opportunity to discuss the Bible with others. Give Attention to Reading only costs $9.97. However, if you respond to me directly via e-mail (edwincrozier@streamsidesupplies.com) and purchase five or more, I’ll give you 15% off (that’s $8.50 per book).

Then tell them about giveattentiontoreading.com. On the first week in January, we’ll start reading our way through the New Testament all over again. It will be a great opportunity to learn from each other about God’s Word for our lives.

Let’s help our friends keep those resolutions this year.

Check out Give Attention to Reading today.

Thanks!

The story of Ananias and Sapphira surprises me. I mean, these guys sold some property and gave half the proceeds to the brethren to help out with folks in need. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone to do quite so much for Christ’s church on a monetary level. 

I mean, I know they lied and all. I know they were filled with pride. I know they were trying to boost their own reputation and not glorify God. But, can’t we just look the other way for those who are bankrolling the church?

Apparently not.

Sadly, many churches and elderships today do look the other way when those who are bankrolling the church don’t live as Christians. They can lie, mistreat their wives, forsake the assemblies, use foul language, disrupt classes, cause dissension, but elders look away because they are afraid if they say anything to them the person will leave and take his checkbook with them. 

Peter didn’t have this problem. He was more concerned about the spirituality of the brethren. He was more concerned that they learn to be honest, humble and to honor God. He refused to look the other way. More importantly, God refused to look the other way.

We need to recognize this, we can look the other way when brethren sin, but God won’t. He may not strike them dead immediately, but He will judge them when they die. If we have just looked the other way when they lived in sin instead of gently working to restore them (cf. Galatians 6:1), their blood will be on our hands. 

Whatever it is that is causing us to look the other way, let’s put it behind us and help our brethren turn from their ungodly ways. Only then will we both be saved (cf. Ezekiel 3:16-27).

ELC

Why were Peter and John able to take such abysmal treatment from their Jewish opponents? How were they able to take threats and beatings but then keep on teaching? 

Obviously, they had amazing faith in Jesus. However, I want to comment on another benefit they had going for them. We can read it in Acts 4:23.

“When they were released, the went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them” (ESV).

When Peter and John faced their enemies, they had friends upon whom they could rely. They could go back to others who would encourage them, praise them and lift them up. Sadly, all too often, the reason we back off from boldly proclaiming the Gospel is because the friends we most rely on for support are the very ones we are afraid will abandon us if we teach the Gospel.

Obviously, we have to make friends with those who aren’t Christians, salt does no good if it never comes in contact with the unsalted. However, the friends on whom we rely the most had better be friends that will encourage us in what is right when the times are tough. Otherwise, we might end up caving along with our friends. We must choose our best friends carefully. Our souls will depend on it.

ELC

No, I don’t mean evangelizing like Pentecostals. I mean evangelism like the apostles did on the day of Pentecost. 

Have you ever stopped to think what caused folks to listen to the Apostles in Acts 2? Why did the people come rushing to the spot where the 12 were gathered? Was it because they liked the 12? Was it because the 12 offered money? Was it because the 12 offered entertainment? Did they advertise a musical? Did they promise comedy?

No. The people came rushing because of the work of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:2, the Holy Spirit made a humongous sound like that of a rushing mighty wind. People from all over Jerusalem showed up. But then they stayed and continued to listen because of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit granted the apostles the ability to speak in other languages and everybody could tell these men were just Galileans, yet all could here their native tongues.

When we start thinking about evangelism, we need to do exactly what the apostles did. We need to rely on the work of the Holy Spirit. Granted, I Corinthians 12 teaches that the miraculous working of the Spirit through personal gifts such as speaking in tongues would cease when the Word was fully revealed. Therefore, we can no longer wait for the Holy Spirit to make a rushing mighty wind sound. We can no longer rely on the Spirit to give us utterance in foreign tongues. But we can let the Spirit attract attention by walking in His fruit.

Galatians 5:22-25 says we should let the Spirit lead us. When we do, we will have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let me ask you. Do you think if a whole bunch of us actually started living with these virtues that the world might stand up and take notice? 

Let’s quit relying on our gimmicks. Who needs the power lift team? Who needs comedians? Who needs rock bands? We have the Holy Spirit. The apostles relied on Him to attract the attention of the world. Let’s do the same today.

ELC

The Bible contains amazing stories and illustrations of faith. But perhaps the greatest comes from today’s reading. Just consider this picture. 

Jesus is on the cross. His closest disciples and students have fled or followed “at a distance.” The crowds were mocking, having accepted the release of a hardened criminal and rebel in place of Jesus. His mother was in the crowd at his feet, crying. Only John was there with her.

At that time, who in their right mind would believe that this man, broken, battered, bruised, bleeding, gasping for breath with His last bit of strength was going to establish a kingdom. Of course, Jesus believed. But there was one more. There was one who just moments earlier had been hurling insults. However, something changed. I don’t know what caused the change. Perhaps the dying man had heard Jesus teach at some time. Who know, but perhaps he had even been baptized by one of the apostles when Jesus was teaching and all the people were going out to Him. But maybe he merely knew Jesus’ reputation. Maybe he simply saw how Jesus faced this execution. Maybe he was moved by Jesus’ statement, “Father, forgive them…” 

Who knows what did it. But at that moment two people believed Jesus was going to establish His kingdom. Jesus and the thief on the cross. In the face of the longest odds, the thief believed. I hope we can all develop this kind of faith.

ELC

Obviously there is so much to comment on in these final chapters of Luke. However, four verses jumped out at me today.

He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. (Luke 22:10-13)

I have always been amazed by the miracle of knowledge Jesus displayed, knowing about the man with the water jar and the house that would have an available guest room. However, it struck me differently today. I thought about the master of the house. Then I thought it would be like if someone came to my house saying, “The Teacher wants one of your rooms…” My response would probably be, “The Teacher? What Teacher?” This man, apparently having some knowledge of the Teacher didn’t even question. He just handed over the keys.

Jesus wants to take residence in me. Am I like this unnamed master of the house? Will Jesus’ wish be my command? Or will I try to hang on to my own rights, wants and desires? Today, I pray that we can all be like the unnamed master of the house. Whatever Jesus asks for, let’s give it to Him.

ELC

In Luke 17:11-19, Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one returned to thank Him. The question of the ages is where were the nine? Having studied all the historical records in the Syriac, Coptic and even Cryptic manuscripts in their original languages, I am able to tell you what the nine said instead of actually thanking Jesus.

• The first said, “Jesus knows I’m thankful, I don’t have to say it.”
• The second said, “I think I was getting better on my own anyway.”
• The third said, “I was the one who went, Jesus didn’t do anything.”
• The fourth said, “No one else said thank you.”
• The fifth said, “The Samaritan gave thanks for us.”
• The sixth said, “If I don’t have leprosy now, I must have never had it.”
• The seventh said, “The priest must have healed me.”
• The eighth said, “I’m going to wait and see if this healing will last.”
• The ninth said, “I’ll thank Jesus later.”

I hope you could see through my earlier sarcasm and realize I actually just made all that up. However, give thought to the above statements. How often have we refrained from giving thanks to God (or others) using a form of one of the above excuses.

We need to remember, God wants and deserves thanksgiving, not just some kind of ethereal attitude of gratitude. For what do you have to be thankful today? Don’t just be thankful, actually give thanks.

ELC