December 4 – Managing Thirst

“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?”  - Psalm 42:1-2  (NASB)

Most days we find promises from God's Word in one or two verses. When the books of the Bible were originally written there were no such things as chapters or verses. *Each book was written without any breaks from the beginning to the end. We are looking at a few passages in Psalm 42 to find what promises there are from God.  We have a promise of sorts in today's selection although it may be vague to a degree.  We all know how an animal behaves when it is thirsty.  Their tongues hang out of their mouth and their breathing changes.  If they smell water nearby they get pretty focused on finding it to satisfy their need for water.  The psalmist who wrote this song compared himself to a thirsty deer.  When a deer is thirsty it pants and begins to be focused on finding a water supply, a spring or pond or stream.  When our souls are thirsty for God and for His Word, our soul has a driving desire to find Him because we trust His promise that He will satisfy our thirst and we strongly desire interaction with our God. 

* How Chapters and Verses came to be part of the Bible. 

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June 18 – Leading the Way

“For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;” Hebrews 9:24 (NASB)

What Jesus Christ did for us in dying on the cross was of real spiritual significance.  The record in the Bible is very clear.  It says that when Jesus actually died while nailed to the cross, the curtain in the temple in Jerusalem split from top to bottom. It was a manifestation that the way into the presence of God had been opened for all who choose to believe and enter.  But Jerusalem's temple and Holy of Hollies was not the physical location that Jesus entered into God's presence. What he did was even more significant than that.  When his ministry on earth was finished, He returned into the actual presence of God the Father in heaven.  He was leading the way where we too can be in Him.  That is where Jesus is now and He is there in God's presence appearing for our sake.  What a great promise that we have Jesus, our Lord and Savior speaking on our behalf and praying to His Father God for our needs.  Today, trust this promise and believe in the good work Jesus does for us every day.

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March 13 – The Appointed Return

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”   Hebrews 9:27-28 (ESV)

We approach our look at God's promises a little differently today.  The book of Hebrews takes a few chapters to lay out how the sacrifice and priesthood of Jesus Christ on our behalf is superior to all our previous and subsequent efforts to offer sacrifices in an effort to appease God.  Sin requires sacrifice and sacrifices require an intercessor presenting the sacrifice on our behalf before God.  We call these who intercede priests.  When Jesus offered Himself to the Father as a perfect sacrifice, He was without sin - He was and is perfect.  There was no need on Christ's part for forgiveness for Himself.  No, but there was and is great need on our part.  Jesus became for us our complete sacrifice before God and the only Priest we ever need.  He was our sacrifice and is our Permanent High Priest as we have read previously (February 28).  When Jesus was crucified and died on the cross He did so carrying the sins of all who will believe and receive Him as Savior.  Our promise today is that Jesus will appear again but this time to received those who are saved by faith believing in Him.   

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