BibleTrekToday.com

Year: 2017

  • 2018 BibleTrekToday.com Theme: Prayer and walking with God!

    The Trek:  Reading both Old Testament and New Testament from January 1st, 2018- December 31st, 2018

    The goal:  Read about 3 chapters of Old Testament and 1 chapter of the New Testament each day for five days each week–Monday through Friday.  The challenge is to read the Scripture and the notes as well if you have a study Bible.  I will be using the English Standard Version (ESV) in the Fire Bible Global Study Edition.  I purchase a new Bible each year and try a different version or different study notes.  This year, I will be focusing on prayer and a daily walk.   Prayer is a neglected practice of many Christians and is a spiritual discipline we can all grow in, myself included.

    I will write a short devotion from a passage in the reading relating to prayer each day and conclude it with a short prayer.  My prayer is to see God develop my capacity to walk with Him, hear His voice and become intimate with His heart and desires.  Our prayer life will bless our families, ministries, workplaces and the nation and world.  We can truly become “world-changers” through listening and obeying and asking and knocking!  Through prayer, God will release His power and Spirit to bring revival and transformation.   God bless you as you join in this journey!

    In His Love,  Pastor John Morse

  • Thankful for a Great Year of Rejoicing!

    December 30, 2017

    Dear fellow Bible readers,

    Thank you for joining me during this past years journey through the entire Bible.  We read on a 5 day per week rotation of about 4 chapters each day.  In each reading, I wrote a short devotion on verses from that day’s reading that brought to mind something to rejoice about or be thankful for.  I tied each verse in the Old Testament with a counter-part in the New and vice-versa.   I never ran out!  This helped me to stay positive and keep a thankful heart in a world saturated with negativity and fear.  I pray that you were encouraged with the overflow!

    In 2018, we will begin another journey (my tenth year of writing) through the entire Bible with an emphasis on prayer and walking with God.  Jesus encouraged His followers to “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.”  (Matthew 7:7-8)  Paul taught , “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  (Philippians 4:6)   Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”  (John 16:24)    We will embark on this Bible Trek beginning Monday, January 1st reading 5 days each week with 3-4 Old Testament chapters and one chapter from the New Testament each day.  My goal is to inspire prayer and faith that we might walk closely with our Lord each day.      In His Love,  Pastor John Morse

  • Rejoicing in our Reward!

    Scripture reading for December 29th:  Revelation 18-22

    Key Scriptures:  Revelation 22:12-15  “Behold, I am coming soon!  My reward is with Me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.  Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of Life and may go through the gates into the city.  Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”  

    The last words of Jesus Christ recorded by John, the beloved disciple are “I am coming soon!”  Jesus promises that His reward is with him.  He will justly reward all who are His through the washing of their robes in His blood.  Those who overcome will have access to the Tree of Life and freely go in and out of the New Jerusalem.  Those who will be shut out are those who have not repented of sins and have garments stained by them!

    Rejoicing in our Reward: “See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and His Arm rules for Him.  See, His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him.  He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young.”  (Isaiah 40:10-11)

    Amen!

  • Thankful for escape!

    Scripture reading for December 28th:  Revelation 13-18

    Key Scriptures:  Revelation 18:2, 4-5 “With a mighty voice he shouted:  “Fallen!  Fallen is Babylon the great!  She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.  For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries.  The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”  Then I heard another voice from heaven say:  “Come out of her, My people so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.” 

    Babylon, in Scripture, represents godless and humanistic government.  This is a world system dominated by Satan and his fallen angels, the demons.  After being cast out of heaven, the world system is completely taken over in the last part of the tribulation.  God calls His people of every generation out of this system and promises to judge it, repaying all who have persecuted His people!

    God calls His people out:  “Flee from Babylon!  Run for your lives!  Do not be destroyed because of her sins.  It is time for the Lord’s vengeance; He will pay her what she deserves.  Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord’s hand; she made the whole earth drunk.  The nations drank her wine; therefore they have now gone mad.  Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken.”  (Jeremiah 51:6-8)

  • Let the heavens rejoice!

    Scripture reading for December 27th:  Revelation 8-12

    Key Scriptures:  Revelation 12:10-12  “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:  “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ.  For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.  They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink back from death.  Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them!  But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you!  He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short.” 

    As a result of a war in heaven, Satan and his rebellious angels will be cast out during the final great tribulation.  They are cast down to earth and Satan can no longer accuse the believers before God’s throne.  He is filled with wrath and fury because his time is short before being cast into the place of punishment God has prepared for him and his fallen angels.  The heavens rejoice but there is woe on the earth for the lost!

    Rejoicing in Christ’s victory:  “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant and every thing in them.  Then all the trees of the forest will sin for joy; they will sing before the Lord for He comes, He comes to judge the earth.  He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His truth.”   (Psalm 96:11-13)

  • Rejoicing in Holy! Holy! Holy!

    Scripture reading for December 26th:  Revelation 3-7

    Key Scriptures:  Revelation 4:2-3, 8  “At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.  And the One who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian.  A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne. . .Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings.  Day and night they never stopped saying: “Holy, holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come.””

    John was worshiping the Lord and saw a door open in heaven and the voice of the Lord inviting him to come up!  Immediately he was transported through the door and beheld the throne of heaven and the Majesty seated there.  He also saw the creatures around the throne and listened to their worship!  They were saying the same thing that Isaiah beheld over 700 years earlier!  HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!

    Isaiah’s vision:  “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple.  Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings:  With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another:  “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.”  (Isaiah 6:1-3)

  • Thankful for Christ’s Return!

    Scripture reading for December 25th:  3rd John, Jude, Revelation 1-2

    Key Scriptures:  Jude 20-21; “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith, and pray in the Holy Spirit.  Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.”  

    Revelation 1:7  “Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him.  So shall it be!  Amen.”

    Both Jude and John, author of the Revelation, encouraged the church to watch and be ready for the return of the Lord Jesus.  For those who believed on Jesus Christ and were cleansed by His blood, Christ’s return would bring eternal life and the riches of God’s presence forever!  For the world and the unsaved of the earth, Christ’s return with the clouds of believers would be a cause for mourning as they would know the judgment of God was at hand!

    Visions of Christ’s return:  “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.”  (Daniel 7:13)  “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.  They will look on Me, the One they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”  (Zechariah 12:10)

  • Thankful for love in action!

    Scripture reading for December 22nd:  1st John 2-5, 2nd John

    Key Scriptures:  1st John 3:16-18  “This is how we know what love is;  Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and set our hearts at rest in His presence, . . “

    John, the Apostle whom Jesus loved, taught the church what love looked like in daily application.  He used his background in the Old Testament to define love towards others as Jesus taught and demonstrated in His life and teachings, and ultimately His substitutionary death.  If we have means and see a brother in need, love will motivate us to help them!  Love is an action verb!

    Love in action in Deuteronomy:  “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.  Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.”  (Deuteronomy 15:7-8)

     

  • Thankful God rescues the righteous!

    Scripture reading for December 21st:  2nd Peter 1-3, 1st John 1

    Key Scriptures:  2nd Peter 2:6-9  “. .if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment while continuing their punishment.”  

    Peter, writing to the church, encouraged them in the suffering that they were then enduring.  He used the example of Sodom and Gomorrah.  God rescued Lot and his daughters from that wicked city and then burned it to ashes.  God is powerful, yet just and punishes the wicked, keeping them for the final judgment at the end of time!  Believers can rest secure in God’s justice and His mercy toward His own!

    God’s mercy towards Lot:  “When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful towards them. . . .Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah–from the Lord out of the heavens.  Thus He overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities–and also the vegetation in the land.”  (Genesis 19:16, 24-25)

  • Thankful to belong to God!

    Scripture reading for December 20th:  1st Peter 1-5

    Key Scriptures:  1st Peter 2:9-10  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  

    Peter wrote to the Jewish believers to encourage them that God had indeed chose them to belong to His family through faith in Jesus Christ.  Believers are “chosen people” and a “royal priesthood” that continually offers praise to the One who called them out of the darkness of sin and fearful religion to a glorious holy people!  “How wonderful!  How marvelous, is my Savior’s love for me!”

    Praising the Lord our God:  “To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.  Yet the Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today.  . . . Fear the Lord your God and serve Him.  Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His Name.  He is your praise; He is your God, . .”  (Deuteronomy 10: 15, 20-21)