Day 29 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day twenty-nine of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 29 Readings: 1 Chronicles 1:1-9:44

Today's reading is about the post-exilic people tracing ancestry back through the captivity to family lines with tasks and heritages. Since we don't connect to these family lines this reading is laborious and not so edifying. It is kind of like reading a recipe book in a language you can sound out but not understand. The text has deep meaning and significance but you have to be able to truly enter into it in order to get the intended results. I think for many of us the ability to profoundly move and speak to us had faded from this text

There is embedded in today's reading the so-called "Prayer of Jabez":

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

1 Chronicles 4:10, NIV

Some have used this verse to proclaim that God wants to bless us all with real estate, wealth, pain-free living, etc., etc. Jesus said to take up our crosses and follow after him. Crosses have nothing to do with wealth. The only connection between crosses and real estate is you might be able to see the real estate of others that you will never have a little better from your elevated perspective. Crosses are about pain-filled dying. To conflate a "prosperity gospel" with the work and ministry of Jesus is not easy to do. This was a cryptic prayer of an obscure person in the Old Testament. Why we would take this prayer and not, instead, take on the prophet's ability to stop and start rain is beyond me. Truth is we don't get to pick and choose in that fashion what we like and what we will import into our lives. If the emphasis is on us and what we get rather than on others as well and what glory God gets we should be deeply suspect.


God, give us hearts to thank and bless you for the abundant blessings we already have. Stir us to share and help others enjoy blessings as well. Amen.