The Better Part, week #44

 

Two weeks worth of FB posts:

The Better Part, Day #215:

 

Gen 6:14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 

 

The neat thing about the Bible, you can always learn something new! The word used literally for "pitch" is also used figuratively for atonement. So just as the Ark was protected inside and out with pitch, Jesus's sacrifice- which the ark was a "type" of (think "foreshadowing")- atones for our sin- inside AND out.

 

 

The Better Part, Day #216:

 

If you doubt prayer works, then try asking God to take away the no-reason anger you had all day, and watch Satan interrupt by stuffing fabric in the gears of your machine... no reason to interrupt if no one was listening!

 

 

The Better Part, day # 217:

 

Reading my science today e-mail, I realized scientists- though they may be oblivious to the fact- have discovered yet another "goldilocks zone" that proves that God designed this one world, this earth, specifically for life. The study is trying to decipher what kinds of rocks are on other planets by analyzing the debris that fell into the atmospheres of white dwarf stars after their evolutionary expansion. Skipping the mechanics, here's a piece of what they found:

 

"While some exoplanets that once orbited polluted white dwarfs appear similar to Earth, most have rock types that are exotic to our Solar System," said Xu. "They have no direct counterparts in the Solar System."

 

"Putirka describes what these new rock types might mean for the rocky worlds they belong to. "Some of the rock types that we see from the white dwarf data would dissolve more water than rocks on Earth and might impact how oceans are developed," he explained. "Some rock types might melt at much lower temperatures and produce thicker crust than Earth rocks, and some rock types might be weaker, which might facilitate the development of plate tectonics." "

 

Our world could never have been as right for life as it is, without God being the hand that crafted it.

 

 

 

The Better Part, Day #218:

 

 

In studying for my last post on Judges, I saw that the last story features 3 distinct cycles, each one beginning with "listening to someone/thing I shouldn't have". Applying to myself, I see them very clear. The first involved listening to someone out for pleasure and heedless of consequences. The second involved a lie used to get a reaction that wouldn't have necessarily come up otherwise. And the final one was using man's wisdom instead of God's to get out of an impossible situation. Do they sound familiar to you, too?

 

 

 

The Better Part, Day #219:

 

 

I don't know how to explain the actual mechanics of what happened, but today The Lord showed me that He is willing to explain things to the extent we can understand, if we are willing to listen to the extent we can understand.

 

 

The Better part, Day #220:

 

 

Today David Jeremiah quoted from another pastor's message, about how waiting for heaven is like being on a camping trip, that by the fourth day, you're just ready to go home. And closed his message by noting that it's okay if we struggle a bit here on earth- "because, we're still camping."

 

 

 

The Better Part, Day #221:

 

Joh 2:6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

Joh 2:7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.

Joh 2:8 And he said to them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So they took it. 

 

 

Tony Evans on Focus on the Family, said, "They had to do according to their faith- they had to bring the water- before Christ could make the wine. Before He brings the miracle to your life, He asks you to do according to your faith..."