Day 8

Genesis 18:20-19:38, Matthew 6:25-7:14, Psalm 8, Proverbs 2:6-15

I love Psalm 8.  When you look at all the wonders of God's creation. How big He has created this universe to be. Who am I that I would even be a blip on His radar?  In comparison to everything else, I seem so insignificant and yet, He knows me.  He thinks about me. He has given me dominion over HIS creation. 

I love how Proverbs paints the picture of what allowing wisdom and knowledge into our lives can do for us. Why do we fight God?  Why do we fight just listening to Him and allowing Him to lead us and guide us?  Look at what comes from wisdom and knowledge. Verses 10-15 describes what it means to have God's shield around us. It is an all-encompassing protection. 

Again in Matthew 6 we get a picture of what leaning on God will do. Why do you worry, God wants to care for you. I mean I can go into the detail of describing each of these verses but really, God is just asking us; "why do you worry?"  It's so simple, yet we struggle with getting it through our minds. We have a God who cares for us more than we could possibly imagine and He knows what we need more than we could even begin to imagine.
Chapter 7 - "hypocrite" = stage actor
In other words, quit acting like you're so much better than everyone else. You'd better be honest about who you are and what you are doing.  Quit wasting so much time looking at everyone else's life and begin to let God search your heart to help you become who you need to be. 
There is really so much packed into these verses it's hard to know where to start and stop.
"Ask", "Seek", "Knock"   Again we see that God is there waiting to provide, waiting to lead, waiting to take care, waiting love, waiting for us to come to Him.  These are all words that denote that all that is required of us is to come to Him.  We sit back and wait for God to show up in our lives but in reality He is waiting on us to come to where He is.  Is it just me or do you notice a really common theme throughout everything we are reading?  God has been calling man since the beginning of time.  I'm feeling really loved and am noticing an extremely large light bulb coming on.

Genesis 18:27-32 - I've always found this passage of scripture fascinating. Abraham continues to question God and basically negotiating the terms of God's judgment.  I've often wondered why he stopped at 10.  Why not one. Let's fact it, he was trying to save Lot so why stop at 10 and leave it to chance?  I guess he figured he'd pushed far enough.  Amazingly, we see in chapter 19 that indeed there was not even 10 righteous in the entire city.
I think we find in Sodom the very first "Sin City." The men of the city hear that there are strangers in town and their first reaction is to surround Lot's house and demand he let them out so they can have homosexual sex with them. As a side note, this is where we get the term "sodomy" from. 
Some people look to the OT and can't understand how God can be loving and destroy an entire city. But notice the extent these angels of God go through to rescue Lot and his family.  There doesn't seem to be any rush to leave on the part of Lot or his family but the angels remain persistent to get them away before they enact God's judgement.  Finally Lot, his wife and daughters leave but even his sons-in-law are still blind to the danger.  His wife looks back and is killed.  Then even after they are lead to safety and spared, his daughters commit the unbelievable act of getting their father drunk and then having sex with him so they can become pregnant. Notice the bible says twice that he didn't know. God is emphasizing the fact that Lot is innocent in this act.
All of this tells shows me something. The danger of putting yourself in a place surrounded in sin.  Remember when Lot chose to live in Sodom because it looked good. By doing so, he placed himself and his family in the center of ungodly influences and now just a few chapters later I think we see the results. We need to protect our families, our children and that begins with the environment they live in.