Author: Jon Harris

I’m going through a short period of solitude while my wife and kids are away for several days. Some of the plans in anticipation of this period were that I’d get some “me time” and catch up on work. To avoid boredom I’d fill up my schedule until I’m so tired that I’ll just crash at the end of each day. While there was much good intent, these plans had several errors and omissions.

Numbers 29; Psalm 73; Isaiah 21; 2 Peter 2

While digging into the scripture readings for today I learned, prayed, and reflected. As usual, I came to the place where I admit to God that these posts are nothing without Holy Spirit guidance, wisdom, and truth. I sat and stared at the screen, hoping for some divine intervention, and truthfully was hoping the intervention would hurry up because I needed to get to work. Then this verse hit me:

But for me it is good to be near God;
 I have made the Lord God my refuge,
 that I may tell of all your works. (Psalm 73:28)

At the time I didn’t feel near God, and I didn’t feel like I made the Lord God my refuge. It felt like I was on my mission, not his. It was time to step away from the distraction of the computer and the agenda, and worship him. It was time to make him my refuge so that I may tell of all of his works.

Two of the ways that I worship are:

1. Getting outside and looking at the beauty of nature, thanking him for each thing I see, and acknowledging him and thanking him as the one who thought of it, created it, and sustains it. This act sets me back in line with who God is, and who I am (and who I am not) in his sight. He thought of me, created me, and sustains me. Everything I am, everything I have, and everything I will become is because he allows it.
2. Listening to praise and worship music. The music makes my soul dance. Since I cannot sing nor play an instrument, I feel that there is something inside of me that appreciates music even more because it is a gift very far from my understanding. Others have created music so well, and when some of my favorite artists pour it all out for Jesus with their gifts and talents, it is like house cleaning for my soul, and sets me back on the right path. Sometimes it convicts, sometimes it educates, sometimes it just gives me joy to worship along with the music acknowledging God’s many perfect attributes.

These acts of worship restored my soul in a supernatural way that only God can deliver. I was lonely because I was seeking after the thing of this world; food, fun, escapism, and mindless entertainment.

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. (2 Peter 2:19)

When I turned back to him, the way he wants us to turn to him, the loneliness subsided and joy filled its place.

Those are just two of the many ways we can worship… Would any of our readers like to share your favorite worship activities? How do you “fill up” on God?

But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. (James 5:12)

Numbers 22; Psalms 62–63; Isaiah 11–12; James 5

James 5:12 has a long history in my life. It was perhaps the first verse of the Bible that my mom shared with me in my adult years during a time I was willing to listen.

With James being the half brother of Jesus, he must have heard Jesus preaching the word over and over, observed Jesus perfection and closeness to God the Father, and witnessed Jesus perform numerous miracles. Growing up in a Godly home, observing the Sabbath, obeying the laws of Moses, and having Jesus Christ as a sibling would surely equate to immediate conversion to becoming a Christ follower right? Nope.

For not even his brothers believed in him. (John 7:5)

As Jillian mentioned in an earlier post, James became an ambassador for Christ only after the resurrection. All signs pointed to Jesus as the Christ through the entire life of James but his eyes weren’t opened and his heart just didn’t believe right away.

I compare this to those of us who grew up in a home where there was christian teaching and regular church attendance, but we don’t come to a true faith in Jesus until later in life. This post isn’t about all of the reasons why it took me so long; it is about the fact that there were many seeds planted over the years by someone who cared, and at least not all of those seeds were lost. I’m so thankful that while I may not have fully believed, I knew there was some deep down truth to be sought.

Thanks mom for never giving up on me, and more importantly for being a christian leader, teacher, and humble servant. This post was written on Mother’s Day 2016 and is dedicated to you.

My mom taught me many valuable life lessons, some that she probably doesn’t realize she taught me and some that I don’t realize came from her.

Here are just a few of the things that stand out that I learned from my mom. Of course this is not a comprehensive list, nor are they written in any order of importance, but just the first main themes that came to mind:

1. She’d remind me, “tell the truth Jon…” More important than this being a rule to be obeyed, she taught me why it is so important. That when lying, it is nearly impossible to regain someone’s trust. Fortunately my loving, caring mom taught me this at a young age so that I didn’t have to learn it the hard way.
2. She was relentless in teaching me the proper usage of “to, too, and two” and “their, they’re, there”, etc. Please don’t blame her for any of my grammatical mistakes or shortcomings; those are all on me. You might say, “seriously, number two on the list is spelling and grammar?” Well, the most important lesson learned wasn’t actually the subject matter. The most valuable lesson in this was that she instilled in me a desire for precision and accuracy. Much of the success in my ability to generate income for my family goes back to this. I’ve made a living over the last twenty years assessing the preciseness and accuracy of computer software systems, seeking to identify small nuances and patterns that can result in major problems.
3. She has been a visible example of a Christ follower and prayer warrior for most of her life. Having this influence in the home where I grew up set the foundation for my life in eternity with our creator. For any moms out there reading this wondering if your children will ever turn it around and follow Jesus, I have two things to say. Don’t stop praying, and don’t give up.
4. My mom didn’t teach me how to cook as much as she taught me something more important. She taught me why I should cook, and she taught me the art of cooking rather than the science. Why cook? To serve others, to create something new, to collaborate with someone, and to talk and bond in the process. As for the art: My mom has this amazing ability to throw a bunch of seemingly random ingredients together and make a meal taste amazing. She taught me to experiment with food, and while I possess a giant stack of cookbooks and subscribe to cooking related magazines, I rarely follow the recipes. My wife loves it when I play “test kitchen” in our home, and I love it too.
5. Love one another. When my sisters and I didn’t get along, my mom didn’t go the punishment route. She insisted that we treat each other with love and kindness; she rightfully mandated that we “get along”. In other words, “figure it out”, there is a solution, but you have to work together. It means compromise, compassion, patience, and love. This mandate has greatly shaped my parenting skills. Our boys realize that human relationships can be hard, but we that they cannot give up on each other. I pray that this is a principle that transforms their own marriages and children for generations to come.

Thanks mom!

Leviticus 19; Psalms 23–24; Ecclesiastes 2; 1 Timothy 4

Last Wednesday around 3:30 AM I was lying in bed wide awake. The alarm was set for 4:30 AM and I wanted to go back to sleep, but thoughts of the new day were creeping in. The thoughts started with my excitement for that day’s workout; first a spin class (indoor cycling as part of a classroom format) then Tabata (high intensity interval training), then finish with 10-15 minutes of deep, intensive stretching. While this for some might sound like pure torture, for me it has become exhilarating and extremely rewarding to push my body to its limits – I love it! I hadn’t had an intense workout in four days and was really missing it; my body was rested and ready to go.

Except it wasn’t time to go yet, so I started praying. Since I was thinking about exercise, I started by thanking God for making the human body with purpose. I was thanking him for giving me the strength to exercise, for the joy that it brings to me, for what the human body is capable of, and for the health benefits that come with exercise.

My medical understanding of exercise is that it benefits us in many ways such as controlling blood pressure, helps keep cholesterol at proper levels, strengthens the heart, and helps us maintain a healthy weight (and much more). From my own experience, when I think of exercise I enjoy “sweating out my problems”, where I’ll go for a long run and really process a situation; it helps me think positive and oftentimes brings clarity through the fog. I also love the after-effects of exercise; increased energy, the feeling of accomplishment, and the post-workout shower is a great reward.

There is a problem though. Exercise involves physically training a human body, and human bodies are not built to last forever. Physical training is a temporary investment in something that will eventually fail and die. Just like Ecclesiastes 2 where we read about the futility or vanity of pleasure, work, or even living wisely; while enjoyment of these things is a blessing from God, they all will fade in this life.

There is a solution to this problem. It is called Godly training. Godly training is a spiritual investment in something that will last for an eternity.

⁷ Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; ⁸ for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:7-8)

Godliness is of value in every way. What a great promise! I’m reflecting on the post God Speaking to Us where David LaFrance mentioned that Godly training has strengthened his soul and state of mind. He also uses words like revived and restored, and shared that God’s word breathes “new life” into him.

Training in Godliness trains us how we should live so that we can live abundantly. Today’s scripture reading has numerous, valuable training instructions as an explanation of the ten commandments including:

• Revere (honor) your mother and father and observe God’s Sabbaths (days of rest). Leviticus 19:3
• Do not turn to idols; Leviticus 19:3.
• Give to the poor; Leviticus 19:10
• Don’t steal, don’t lie; Leviticus 19:11
• Don’t swear falsely using God’s name. Leviticus 19:12
• Don’t oppress or rob your neighbor. Leviticus 19:13
• Treat people with disabilities fairly. Leviticus 19:14
• Judge in righteousness; not out of partiality. Leviticus 19:15
• Don’t gossip. Stick up for your neighbor. Leviticus 19:16
• Don’t hate. Leviticus 19:17
• Love your neighbor. Leviticus 19:18

Spending time thinking through that list reminds me of much room for improvement and some necessary repentance. How about you?

God, thank you for the instruction you give through your word as it guides us, corrects us, and points us toward you. Thank you for allowing us to experience pleasure and joy here on Earth. May we experience these gifts in a way that honors you. Please show us where we may be idolizing earthly pleasures and experiences so that we may put you in the rightful place in our lives as our first and foremost. We recognize this life on Earth is temporary, but your kingdom is forever; thank you for the grace and mercy that we receive through your son Jesus Christ. Amen.

The word detest (or detestable) is used eleven times in Leviticus 11. This word was used in describing the animals and insects that the Jewish people were to abstain from touching or eating.

Leviticus 11–12; Psalms 13–14; Proverbs 26; 1 Thessalonians 5

God was conveying that these detestable things would make them unclean, defiled, and the people would become detestable themselves should they break God’s commands within this realm. I see this as another example of what I like to refer to as “binary”; it is one thing or the other, and nothing in between. God is holy (set apart) and therefore he expects us to be holy because he is holy. We can be either holy or unholy, clean or unclean.

For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44-45)

One of the unclean animals was the pig and reading this reminded me of a verse from the Sermon on the Mount that had previously been confusing to me:

Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. (Matthew 7:6)

Dogs and Pigs

In the east, dogs are much more viscous; they are considered dirty and detestable, similar to how the pig was detestable. Picture yourself passing by a fence, and a big nasty looking dog comes running, snarling, growling, barking, and jumping at the fence with the intent to attack you. This actually happened to me just the other day and it scared the heck out of me!

Holy and Pearls

Things that are holy to us, or our “pearls” are God’s word and his precious truth. We need to treat God’s word as sacred and use it with the special intent that it was given. Tying this all together, the verse is saying that we should not be attempting to give God’s precious truth to those who have the intent to twist or abuse the truth or to use it to attack us. It might seem odd to suggest not sharing Biblical truth with those who may need it most, but I believe there is a time and situation for everything. For example…

A Biblical contradiction?

⁴ Answer not a fool according to his folly,
    lest you be like him yourself.
⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly,
    lest he be wise in his own eyes. (Proverbs 26:4-5)

First it says not to answer a fool, then it says to answer a fool. What are we supposed to do about that?

Verse 4 is talking about arguing with a fool; it becomes pointless when someone clearly doesn’t want to listen to you, or if they are twisting your words and trying to use them against you. Verse 5 is saying that if someone says something unwise, hurtful, or perhaps the opposite of sound spiritual doctrine, we need to respond at some point. We shouldn’t for example, argue with someone who is a drunken rage. They won’t listen, they would be much like the pig or dog who turns to attack us. We should however, wait for an appropriate time, when the person has sobered up or calmed down.

As I consider today’s readings there were a lot of negative, depressing words like detest, fool, sluggard, wicked, and hatred; the list goes on and on. These words remind me of the light overcoming the darkness that Mike Somers and BJ Armstrong have recently posted on. Alas, let us be reminded that we need not live in the darkness, and God has destined us for salvation through Jesus.

⁵ For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:5, 9-11)

I want to close today with saying thank you to our readers and to my Bible Journal team, to build you up as you have built me up. Thank you for all of the encouragement and feedback, and for some of the stories people have shared personally regarding the impact that Bible Journal has made on their spiritual journey already. These posts are extremely challenging to write, from a mental, spiritual, and time perspective but I cannot imagine my life had I declined to be part of this. The overall experience is so far beyond rewarding, words cannot explain, so all I can say is thank you all, and give God all the glory for He has great things in mind for ALL of us!

Our culture loves to gossip about the sexual affairs of others. We buy magazines and pay close attention to the television news stories regarding the latest scandal, or we gossip within our circle of friends as to the rumors of the cheating husband or wife (or sometimes both). One of the reasons I believe we are so intrigued by these scandals is that we immediately judge someone as the guilty party and in doing so, we think ourselves as better than the so-called “cheater”.

Today’s reading link: Exodus 29; John 8; Proverbs 5; Galatians 4

John 8:1-11 contains the story of a woman caught in the act of adultery. She’s brought to Jesus in the temple in front of a crowd. As with every Bible Journal post, I read through the scriptures several times looking for patterns, asking questions, and considering various perspectives in search of a topic to write about. The thing that brought me to today’s focus was that the adulteress had only three words to say “no one Lord”, so I started thinking about her perspective in the situation and went from there.

• Where was her partner in crime? She must have felt betrayed in some sense by her lover since she was the sole guilty culprit brought to the temple to face punishment.
• She didn’t deny the charges. We assume she was guilty. Was she sorry for the sin or more sorry she was caught?
• The woman had to have been afraid for her life. The custom of stoning a person to death was surely no surprise. She was basically on trial for her life, believed by the crowd to be guilty, so the likely outcome was going to be death.
• The woman was probably in shock when Jesus demonstrated such wisdom in his response. Perhaps she assumed that Jesus was going to condemn her to death or tell the Pharisees to leave her alone. What he did was a beautiful act of love, mercy, and wisdom which can only come from his connection with the Father. In doing so, Jesus once again does not fall into the trap.
• It wouldn’t have been typical for the scribes and Pharisees to bring the guilty party to Jesus. When Jesus asks her “Has no one condemned you?”, her three word response… “No one Lord”. I’m envisioning a very embarrassed, tearful, honest and soft tone as she speaks these words.
• I was wondering if the woman was remorseful for what she had done. Sure, we’re all seemingly remorseful when we’re caught, but did she truly feel badly? I’m going to assume that based on her sin, she knew deep down she was living a lie. Perhaps she was married, perhaps she was having an affair with a married man, or both. Regardless, she was living in some sort of darkness, afraid of getting caught.
• The woman humbled herself to address Jesus as Lord. Remember, the Pharisees were the ones who were in the power seats with much authority. Jesus was a poor man from Nazareth, so for her to address him as Lord suggests she knew who Jesus was and perhaps even had reverence for him.
• Did anyone else wonder what Jesus might have been writing in the dirt? Since writing supplies were limited, I assume it was a common practice to write in the dirt. He had something perfect to share, but unfortunately he was bothered by greedy accusers trying to trap him. I’ll chalk this up on my list of questions to ask Jesus.
• How about those who intended to throw the stones? Upon being called out by Jesus, did they repent? Dropping the stones and walking away was their own confession that they too were sinners.
• Jesus didn’t condemn the woman, instead he granted mercy and acknowledged the wrongdoing and commanded: Sin no more.

Did anyone else have a renewed feeling after reading this story? I love how this story is a story not just of one person’s sin, but truly a reflection of the sins of us all, God’s judgement, and the mercy given only through Jesus Christ.

1. We have a sinner caught in the act, which could be any of us with any of our sins. God’s penalty for sin is death; no matter how big or small the sin, it still separates us from Him.
2. Jesus, the light of the world exposes the darkness around the sinner in that those who were portraying righteousness were sinners as well.
3. The enemy is not the adulteress woman. The enemy is Satan who wants us to remain in the dark and trapped in our sin. He is the father of lies who wants us to believe we cannot be forgiven. He wants us to think that we are the worst, that no one would understand, that we are all alone in our sin, and that the sinful choice is somehow better than the righteous path. He wants us to die in our sin.
4. The penalty for sin is death, but Jesus intervened and gave the option for her to repent and sin no more. No one else can do this. We all have the choice to either go back to the bondage of sin, or allow Jesus to take over, and to trust that his way is the way that leads to life restored.

While part of me wishes we knew more about what happened to the woman and her accusers, I also enjoy the mystery as well as focus on what we can learn from what is shared with us. In the end, we can fully trust that there is nothing missing from the Bible; had God wanted us to know what happened, he’d have allowed those details to be provided.

God we thank you for revealing your character and your numerous perfect attributes through your words in the Bible. Thank you for giving us the resources to learn more about you and your ways and your will for our lives. Thank you for revealing our sins to us, reminding us of the penalty, and for your perfect plan in sending your son Jesus Christ to die as the substitute for the penalty that we deserve. Amen.