Reading Ecclesiates

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I think Ecclesiastes is perhaps the most relatable book in the Bible. No matter if you are a Christian or not, you can find something within this book that directly applies to your life.

It is believed that King Solomon wrote this wisdom book, and with him being one of the smartest people on Earth, clearly something important is included here. I believe that the key message of the book is something important that everyone will come to realize at some point in their life. Simply put, that is; everything is meaningless without God in the picture.

King Solomon, with all of his wealth, all of his wisdom, all of the freedom laid out before him, he found it all pointless. That begs the question why? Especially in a society today, when we are driven by getting more and more possessions, travelling farther and farther, monopolizing everything we can, we have to ask why? Why do we feel and act in such a way, especially if in the pinnacle of it all, we'll only wake up and find that everything is pointless.

Some people may disagree, but I think everyone sets their lives up in a certain way. They try to dull their senses, dull the nagging feeling within themselves that there is indeed something more to life in general, by surrounding themselves with emotions, and possessions. Everyone at some point in their life enters a critical stage, a stage of realization. They realize that there has to be something else to this life. They realize that they are missing something; the classically termed "hole in the heart".

And no matter what you have bought into, whatever the world invents to try to satisfy that questioning, it won't be enough. Solomon at the point where he could not get anymore of everything, he realized that his whole life had been a waste. Ultimately, when it is all said and done, everything that the world has to offer ends up coming close, but not close enough, falling short of its supposed result. Possessions can easily be broken or lost, power stripped away, everything levelled to the ground. The only thing that will constantly remain is God, and His amazing, patient, almighty, perfect love.

Start your moment of realization now. Begin your journey for answers. Is everything meaningless in your life? Or are you actually living for something worthwhile?

Reading Proverbs

Sarah Elizabeth Writes

Proverbs is a book all about wisdom. Written by many wise men of history, the book is a collection of knowledge that can easily be applied to anyone's life. Drawing from the wisdom of Solomon (the smartest man in history), Agur (unknown historically), Lemuel (unknown historically), and a few other authors labelled as "the wise", these proverbs, or quotes of useful information, apply to past, present and future.

In my opinion you can never achieve enough wisdom. The search for more and more knowledge never ends. However, much like our faith, we can have as much as knowledge as we want, but without action, that knowledge is meaningless. In the same way as our relationship with Christ, we can know all about Him, know all that He has done, and will do, but without acting on that knowledge, without putting that information to use, it just wastes away! Ultimately, the smartest person in the world isn't the person who knows the most, its the person who with the greatest efficiency puts their knowledge to use.

Reading Psalms

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Psalms is definitely one of my favourite books of the Bible, mainly because of its focus on worshipping God. Over and over again, through the use of multiple authors, the poems and songs included in the book remind us that there are multiple ways to worship God, and multiple reasons as to why we should worship God.

It is true that Psalms is composed of mainly songs, but there are multiple poems also in the book that focus on worship. The poems and songs themselves also reference ways to worship God. The main one would be through song, or music, with Psalms alluding to tambourines, using voices, lyres, and other instruments to make joyful noises for the Lord. A huge aspect of our Sunday morning services is this form of worship, yet the music presented can also be used for personal worship time. That's one of the joys of the expanding worship industry, with artists such as Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, and many more providing instant worship through the terms of music.

Worship can also come in other forms. The multitude of poems shows that spoken and written word is on the same level as music. In fact, any form of art can be an amazing way to worship God. Whether it be painting, poetry, photography, drawing, or music, anything that is used to glorify God can be classified as worship.

Expanding this even farther, worship doesn't have to be about art. Worship is a way of living your life, a certain perspective, a way of defining each action. Every decision you make, every step you take, when you make it for God, that's worship! Psalms is filled with words, beautiful words, about almost every situation in life possible, and it always ends with coming back to worship.

Worship is the willful choice to put your hope IN & fix your eyes ON Jesus - Chris Tomlin
Worship isn't a chore or a duty; it's the natural response of a devoted heart. - Chris Tomlin
Worship isn't a feeling you wait for, it's a choice you make. - Chris Tomlin

Reading Job

This book is perhaps the most puzzling for me. In fact, I find all the prophecy books hard to get through, or hard to understand. The reason is you can't pick up the meaning of the book simply by reading it; you have to really research the content as well. Without that research, gleaning a complete understanding of the book is nearly impossible.

The biggest area that I focused my research on this time around was what each friend of Job was trying to say, or what the purposes of their speeches were. Bad things do happen to people, even to the best of people, and I think it is interesting to read what reasons these three gave for Job's situation. When bad things do happen, we do tend to search for answers. These three provide some common answers, but as we see from a fourth bystander and the Lord Himself, they are false.

The first friend Eliphaz states that Job brought this upon himself. He believes that Job knowingly committed some evil. Eliphaz states that Job's sin equals instant punishment. Essentially God gets mad with the person's sin and right away acts.

The second friend Bildad backs that theory up. He also states that Job must be punished because of his sin. Bildad assumes that everything bad that happens is a direct result of sin. The difference with Bildad is that he doesn't claim Job had to intentionally commit evil.

The third friend Zophar correctly states that people can repent, and they need to repent. However, he makes a mistake in assuming that Job needed to repent. He denies that Job could possibly be innocent.

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What the three friends should have done is mourn with Job. We are to mourn with those that mourn, be sad with those who are sad, and be merry with those who are merry. As friends, these three should have recognized what Job needed most in that situation, which was support and not criticism. Job needed love, understanding, and teaching, not rebuking, questioning, and harsh words.