Bible Studies

Running Out Of Gas and Switching to Reserve

by Terry Barlow
01/07/13
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How many times those(we) who are well-intentioned have begun to read through the entire Bible in a year or two but proceeded to stall out in Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronymy( incidentally the same book Jesus quoted exclusively in combating the Devil's temptations in the wilderness at the outset of his ministry, as if he was "doing his devotions" in that book at the time ) Hence there are other plans for reading through that involve progressing through samplings of the different types of biblical literature before tackling the entirety of some of those more difficult books. It occurs to me that the Holy Spirit could have superintended a different ordering and sequence of the books of the Bible but for some reason he did not, the version we have is the version we have. Is it a test to see how serious we really are about knowing its contents? Today I thought that there is an actual parallel to be gleaned from the believer's pilgrimage in life. It starts in a dramatic manner as does Genesis and the creation of the universe. We see some dramatic signs of the presence of God especially early in our pilgrimages with Him and to Him. But eventually the journey has a way of leveling out into a kind of desert or wilderness like the one the children of Israel experienced and were tempted to return to Egypt. Most of them in fact died in the wilderness and many had given up the challenge of the journey long before those deaths. The reality is that there is a fair share of Leviticus-Numbers-Deuteronomy in life and we might as well adapt ourselves to those areas. How mich more welcome though the wells and oases are when at last they appear if we haven't given up the challenge! I've heard it said there's as much food in the desert as in the ocean if we know where to look, if we'll let Jesus TEACH us where to look.