Get Up With God
highly caffeinated daily bible doses to help start your morning off right

GOD,

You are my God.
I search for you.
I thirst for you
like someone in a dry, empty land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in the Temple
and have seen your strength and glory.
Because your love is better than life,
I will praise you.
I will praise you as long as I live.
I will lift up my hands in prayer to your name.
I will be content as If I had eaten the best foods.
My lips will sing, and my mouth will praise you.
I remember you while I’m lying in bed;
I think about you through the night.
You are my help.
Because of your protection, I sing.
I stay close to you;
you support me with your right hand.

AMEN

(Psalm 63:1-8 NCV)

It’s OLD TESTAMENT WEEK here on GUWG.

If you don’t read the Old Testament regularly, you’re missing out on a lot of vital information. Like, for instance, God’s phone number.

Just dial up J 33:3:

Call to me
and I will answer you
and tell you great and unsearchable things
you do not know.
(Jeremiah 33:3)

Want God? Call out to him. He’s available 24/7. No busy signal. No voicemail. No access fees. No hidden charges. You’ll get mind-blowing answers you won’t find anywhere else.

CALL NOW

It’s OLD TESTAMENT WEEK here on GUWG.

Some interesting OT facts . . .

The center chapter of the Bible is Psalm 118.

The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 117.

The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119.

There are 594 chapters before and 594 chapters after Psalm 118.

Add those two together and you get 1188.

The exact center verse of the Bible is Psalm 118:8.

So, what does Psalm 118:8 say? 

It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man.

The very heart of God’s word reminds us to take shelter in Him and to trust Him rather than ourselves or anyone else. Ask yourself one simple question today:

IS GOD THE CENTER OF MY LIFE?

It’s OLD TESTAMENT WEEK here on GUWG.

Here’s a beautiful blessing from the book of Numbers:

The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.
(Numbers 6:24-26)

This blessing fits nicely into Old Testament Week. It’s the oldest blessing in the entire Bible. Not only that, it’s the oldest known biblical text found by archaeologists. An amulet bearing this blessing was found dating all the way back to before 586 B.C. when the first temple was destroyed.

It’s been used as a blessing in Jewish services for centuries. It’s often recited in Christian services as well. It’s even permeated pop culture. It’s the first line in the Bob Dylan song Forever Young. In the movie Deep Impact, Morgan Freeman (playing the President) quotes it just as a comet is about to smash into Earth. It’s also the inspiration behind Star Trek’s “live long and prosper” greeting and the Vulcan Hand Salute made famous by Leonard Nimoy as Dr. Spock. Nimoy grew up in a Jewish home and based the salute on a similar “V” gesture priests make while giving the blessing.

Here’s a translation from the Ancient Hebrew Research Center that illuminates a few more details:

Yahweh (he who exists)
will kneel before you presenting gifts,
and will guard you with a hedge of protection,
Yahweh (he who exists) will illuminate
the wholeness of his being toward you bringing order
and he will provide you with love, sustenance and friendship,
Yahweh (he who exists) will lift up his wholeness of being
and look upon you and he will set in place
all you need to be whole and complete.

MAY THE LORD BLESS YOU
AND KEEP YOU TODAY

Yesterday, we kicked off OLD TESTAMENT WEEK here on GUWG.

Here’s a SparkNotes (or CliffsNotes for those of you who may be a bit old school like me) version of the OT . . .

Act 1: Creation
God creates Adam and Eve. They hang out in the Garden. All is good.

Act 2: The Fall
Adam and Eve decide to go their own way. Not good.

Act 3: The Plan
God puts in motion his plan to save mankind. All will be good again.

So, what’s the plan? God gives his people lots of clues in the form of prophecies uttered by guys with cool Bible names like Ezekiel, Isaiah, Elijah and many more. In fact, the OT contains dozens and dozens of prophecies about God’s plan.

So, what exactly is the plan? Here it is in one word:

JESUS

Mathematicians have calculated the odds that Jesus beat when he fulfilled all the detailed OT prophecies:

1

in

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Or, to put it another way, let’s say someone covered my entire home state of Wisconsin twelve feet deep with cheese balls and marked just one with an “X.” The odds that you could wander the state blindfolded and pick just the right cheeseball in one try are less than the odds Jesus overcame when he fulfilled all the messianic prophecies.

What were some of those OT prophecies? Here’s a mere sampling:

• He would be born in tiny little Bethlehem.
• He would be born to a virgin.
• He would be betrayed for thirty silver coins that would be scattered on the temple floor and later used to buy a potter’s field.
• His hands and feet would be pierced (predicted 800 years before the Romans even started practicing crucifixion).
• His killers would gamble for his clothes.
• He would come back to life after death.

COINCIDENCE? ACCIDENT? MYTH?
YOU DECIDE.

It’s OLD TESTAMENT WEEK here on GUWG.

Poetry. History. Truth. Beauty. Good. Evil. Love. Hate. Kindness. Murder. Joy. Despair. Peace. War. Blessing. Destruction. You’ll find all of this and more in the Old Testament. And that’s just in the first 100 pages.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend nearly enough time in the hallowed pages of the Old Testament. I usually start my Bible reading off each year in Genesis, charge through Exodus, begin to wander a bit in Leviticus and then by the time I get to Numbers I find myself reaching for the TV remote.

Don’t let that happen to you. You just might miss some of God’s greatest truths.

In an effort to help those who suffer from OT-deficit disorder like me, all week long we’ll be spotlighting some of the “greatest hits” of the first 39 books of the Bible. Today, we’ll start in a rather logical place . . .

In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth.
(Genesis 1:1)

This is where it all starts. We didn’t get here by accident. There is a creator.

Knowing that God himself created this world and all that is in it — including you and me — gives us all dignity, meaning, hope and a purpose. So, here’s today’s question:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH
YOUR GOD-CREATED LIFE?

It’s JESUS WEEK here on GUWG, where all week we’ll be examining the most influential sermon ever preached: the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus started his sermon with the Beatitudes – eight essential aspects of Christian character. Then he explained how Christians should appear to the world — salt and light.

In today’s selection, Jesus tackles another highly controversial subject: What about all that Old Testament law stuff? Here’s what Jesus said . . .

Do not think that I have come to abolish
the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them
but to fulfill them.
I tell you the truth,
until heaven and earth disappear,
not the smallest letter,
not the least stroke of a pen,
will by any means disappear from the Law
until everything is accomplished.

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do the same
will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,
but whoever practices and teaches these commands
will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I tell you that unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law,
you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

(Matthew 5:17-20)

No one other than Jesus can perfectly obey God’s law. The penalty for our sin is death. But through his sinless life and sacrificial death, Jesus perfectly fulfilled each and every requirement of the Old Testament law. He paid 100% of our penalty; his righteousness is credited to our spiritually bankrupt accounts.

But does this mean we can say, “WOOHOO — now we can do whatever we want!”? Hardly.

As Jesus makes clear throughout his entire sermon, we are expected to live righteous lives. He tells us clearly to “practice and teach” God’s commands and the dire consequences if we don’t. He also tells us that our righteousness must exceed that of the superficial, self-seeking Pharisees and teachers of the law. In other words, God is after our hearts — he wants us to love his word and to live it out.

But how in the world can us sinful people possibly live up to these holy standards? It’s simple: we can’t. God gives us himself — in the person of the Holy Spirit living inside us — to empower us to live like Jesus. Without him, we’re dead. But if we allow him to fill us, we can become meek and merciful people who hunger and thirst for righteousness and light up this dark world with God’s love, joy and peace.