Bible Challenge Week 2

Our Diocese began the Bible Challenge on Pentecost Sunday.  We are currently in week two.  I am intrigued.  The thing I keep hearing the most from people is how much they are enjoying it and how they never noticed the relevance between the Old and New Testaments before.  The bible is my favorite book.  An amazing love story of a relentless God searching and calling out to His people to be in relationship with Him and these same people falling in and out of love with God; one minute running from Him the next running to Him.  Some people think this book is 2,000 years old and has nothing to do with their lives.  I think the Bible Challenge will "challenge" that thought!  It is relevant, the story - HIS story - is still speaking to us today, it is the Living Word of God.

The readings today are:
Reading: Genesis 28-30; Psalm 10; Matthew 10

and you can find the Meditation here.

The question before us today that intrigues me the most:

How might God be working through you – in spite of yourself?

I have blogged before on the Genesis readings - there is so much there to talk about, the love triangle of Jacob, Rachel and Leah; beloved sisters caught in love and ill used against one another; the lies men weave to gain an upper hand in power and money.  Today though the Matthew readings are sitting with me.  Again too much to unpack in one blog post but here is what caught my eye to meditate on:

The Mission of the Twelve

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”^*8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,^* cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.⁹Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts,¹⁰no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food.¹¹Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave.¹²As you enter the house, greet it.¹³If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.¹⁴If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.¹⁵Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.

and we come back to the question:

How might God be working through you – in spite of yourself?

This portion of the Matthew 10 reading can be seen as our job description.  Go!  Go in peace to love and serve the Lord with whomever you meet on the path God has set you on.  Wherever in the world you find yourself today Proclaim the Good News!  Take nothing so that nothing can distract your attention from your holy work.  hmmm now that is where people often stop.  I wonder if this could be the piece that answers "in spite of yourself?"  What might be garnering more of our attention today than God?  What might be drawing our time, energy, money, heart and taking us further from proclaiming the Good News? 

How might God still be working through you - in spite of that challenge? 

Where is God still able to shine your Light?

Sign up here to take the Bible Challenge.