Action.

Action Jesus’s healing of the paralytic is total: body, soul and spirit. Hence Jesus asked the healed to take action instead of being a passive receiver. In the scripture, isn’t Jesus saying: Rise up from your comfort zone, pick up your mess, go to the root of your problems and sort them out? Prayer: Lord, forgive me the times that I clung on to my indolent way. Thank you that when I am in You, I am not powerless and ineffective. Because of Your forgiveness, healing and guidance, I can now be an active agent of the solution instead of passively waiting for others to serve me and sort me out.

Day 12

WHY ALL THE BLOODSHED?

[Scheduled Reading: Joshua 22-24; Judges 1-15]

Often reading through the Old Testament feels like an endless list of casualty records—like reading about America’s Civil War, only much worse.

Lot’s of killing. Big battles. Non-stop bloodshed.

What’s the reason for all this death? Why was God so set on helping the Israelites to wipe out their enemies? And why, all of the sudden, does the killing campaign end as we enter the New Testament? Why the shift in strategy from destruction of enemies to “turning the other cheek”?

It’s all about The Seed

Again, for 4,000 years God is working The Seed through history. Preserving the path for The Seed involves survival—keeping the lineage of Israel alive. And this means destroying enemies that stand in the way.

Time and time again, God’s supernatural intervention leads to massive death and destruction of humans. It’s hard for us to relate to this today. But it’s a testament to how God has preserved The Seed over the course of history.

As The Seed gets closer to the New Testament, the killing campaigns end. God even allows Israel to be exiled. But He keeps The Seed alive.

Once Jesus Christ finally appears on the scene, the campaign of destruction is replaced with a campaign of deliverance. Instead of destroying enemies that stand in the way, these enemies have the opportunity to be delivered from the wrath of sin.