Stars play an important role in our lives. Without our nearest star, the Sun, life on Earth would be impossible. While stars are very large balls of hydrogen, fusing their atoms together for heat, light and creating heavier elements, stars also play an important role in the life of a believer in Christ. God’s promise to Abraham, applicable to Christian believers, involves the innumerable stars of the night sky. Churches in the Middle Ages featured paintings of stars in a night sky on the ceilings of those churches.
Stars can act like time machines. They are so distant. We see them as they looked decades, centuries, millennia or even millions of years ago. For the follower of Christ, the stars act also as reminders of our future.
The Christian faith has several basics that define it as being Christian. One of those basics has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. In both Christian belief and in Christian practice, Christ is the Center. He not a way to gain something better than Him Nothing is better than Him. He is the one who is better than anything we might seek from Him.
Two British ministers of the 1800s provide for us examples of Christ-centered thinking. One from one of the greatest preachers of his time. The other, from a devout, dying little girl who knew her treasure very well.
There are times in which we can be discouraged in our pilgrimage from God. Hard times; Seemingly unanswered prayer; The (seeming) lack of troubles of unbelievers. All of these can contribute to making us cynical toward God.
This happened to the people of God during the time of the prophet Malachi (about 400 years before the birth of Christ). In Malachi chapter 3, we read of the cynicism and also the way out of that cynicism, namely, a remembrance of what God has done for us. His track record in the past should comfort us to know that, despite difficult times, He has not abandoned us.
Promoting biblical literacy is a good thing to do among Christ’s people. It can take the form of a wide-ranging approach (systematic reading of the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation).
There is also the approach of slowing down your reading/intake of Scripture. A recent adjustment to my approach has been slowing down my bible reading to a chapter or two per day. I am also looking to stay “camped out” on a passage which I know will take more than one day to read and ponder over. Like the Israelites in the wilderness at the time of Moses, their encampments, on the journey to the Promised Land, kept them camped out, at times, for over a year.
Like them, I have no fixed timeline to break camp and move on. As the Lord directed them, I trust He will direct me to know when to move on. This approach may be useful in your growth in Christ as well.
In this episode, two kinds of biblical meditation/reflection are discussed…contrasting and cross-referencing. Contrasting reflection looks the opposite of another text. Cross-referencing reflection brings in other passages related to the topic on which you are reflecting.
We reflect on the topics of rest and burden, as found in Exodus 5:4-9 (the Egyptian Pharaoh who commands the Israelites to return to their burdens) and in Matthew 11:28-30 (Christ, who offers to the exhausted and those unable to carry a heavy load, His true rest for our souls). We also briefly examine, whether knowingly or not, in both the past and present, those whose mindset about burdens and rest, is more like Pharaoh than Christ.
Exploring the themes of Christ and light as found in the Bible
