Author: 7streams

Posted on

April 13


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Hosea 3-4

We are reading from the Exile Stream today while using the Lexham English Bible.

7streamsmethod.com | #7Streams | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

God wants to love His people and to bring them back.  He asserted that come chapter two of Hosea. But all they seem to want to do is run in another direction.

Someone called Hosea’s writing the throbbing of a broken heart.  It certainly is.  The passage today is filled with the words that clearly indicate that the horrible behavior of the people that once inhabited Canaan is reigning again. They ARE now fully behaving like the people they were to drive out.  What is God supposed to do for, pity sake? This symbolic marriage that Hosea is ordered to walk through is making God’s pain [that we are inflicting on Him] all too personal to us.  If God could have gotten to Israel another way perhaps He would have.  But what works anymore with these “moral hyenas” ?
3 – Israel is completely behaving like pagans and Judah is too to a point. So God is buying them back and He will chasten and discipline them. After this they will fear and follow God … yes? maybe? soon? ever? when?
4 – reads like a guilty verdict – because it is. Israel is so bad in its sinning that the land itself is suffering, and so are the animals.  This is a subtle theme that is still seen today. We’ve seen a land that is blessed turn thorny and repugnant, Gen. 3. Then Gen. 6 brings on a cleansing flood because of sin; nothing else brought on such weather.  There are vast deserts in the world today that were productive and fruitful farms back when they were a Christian majority. But violence and paganism and false religion came in and since Living Water (Jesus) was expelled, H2O / water left too.   Don’t get mad at God for this!.  No mystery here! It’s obvious. Read v. 3 again and there’s the testimony. Sin left undealt with ends up punishing the whole place. From top to bottom, Israel has gone amok. They act like they don’t know God; —-> and it’s NOT God’s fault!  They told Him to “get out!”
v. 8 says “they feed on the sin of my people…” This may sound puzzling, but it’s a billboard in all of our faces that there’s a terrible amount of money made off of wrong doing. It’s been going on so long in so many realms that the people can’t see it any other way.  Think of all the occupations that would be out of business today if all sin would stop.  Plenty of leaders and politicians worldwide perceive sin as something that must be massaged to keep employment numbers up.  A sinless world is very frightening to the analytical type and especially to the political type. I’ll leave this alone.
The list is bad in ch. 4: the whoring, prostitution, drunkeness and contests that exist to keep the people this way are astonishing in their lewdness. (God’s love on the other end of the scale is equally astonishing, btw) .  Symbolically the land is going to spit these people out at the rate they are going.  God’s main contention is with the Priests who are steering this nation into darkness and doing so aggressively.  The Priests are making sure of this.

v. 14 may seem strange, “I will not punish…” Sometimes a rascal of a kid in a classroom is so unteachable, that it becomes a waste of time and energy to even try anymore. So they are dismissed and the teacher needs to stop even caring where the kid ends up just to save sanity.  That’s the case here in Israel.  Disaster is on the whore-izon

God, keep us in your Word, for what we have read today is the “Way of all Flesh”. The song says that we are prone to wander (Lord, I feel it).  Thank you God for hanging on to us even when we haven’t the strength to hang on at all. More than being astonished by the sin, may we be amazed by Your Grace; Your Amazing Grace.  Amen.
Posted on

April 12


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Isaiah 55-59

We are in the Prophetic Stream as we read from the Lexham English Bible this week.

7streamsmethod.com | #7Streams | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

55-56  God is talking and it is soothing for this first 21 verses.  All of 55 and the first eight verses of ch. 56 is about the work of God expanding and blessing and feeding and watering and including and welcoming more to himself. People are so satisfied and God is shepherding and elevating and assuring. The whole world is invited to come; to come be cared for and ministered to the way God has been reaching out to the Hebrews since Abraham’s day.

56:9 ff – from here to the end of today’s reading, the boom gets lowered and God is giving some of His final warnings.  It isn’t pretty stuff, and God will avenge upon those who are playing the Joker in God’s face. Have you ever seen a kid, a teenager per se~ who was raised in a well-to-do family.  As has been said about what can happen to these types (especially the unmentored), they were born in the palace, so they think they own the place though they’ve done nothing constructive from their beginning.  Well the leadership in Jerusalem is thinking they are blessed regardless and since they have the “inside track” to God, they can bend His rules as they please and God is just going to let this arrogance slide forever.  Well He isn’t.  God is going to cut loose on these men soon. They are blind, ignorant, selfish, stupid, gluttonous, and partying like plastered college sophomores and could not care less about anything; oblivious as well as careless.
57 – By this time Isaiah is calling everything what it is and Israel is acting no different than the pagans, heathens, the godless and satanic people all around them.  Even child sacrifice is going on! for shame!  Their behavior is approaching the bottom if not there already and it’s been there awhile.  It’s nauseating to even mention what is going on. The sin is generational by now and many don’t remember anything different, they don’t know anything is wrong.  Trying to point things out to these people is like lecturing skunks about bad odors. Prostitution is rampant and soon there will be nothing left before long.        Even with all this, God will receive back those who will repent . . . When will He have had enough and just smash the place ?  wow.
58 – What’s going on is corrupted justice, manipulation of the people, “cherry-picking” through the Law and obeying what makes them merely feel holy and having no actual concern for holiness.  God is pointing out their injustice, the brutalizing of each other, the judgmentalism.  God is ordering them to stop this. He wants them to come back to Him. He wants to bless them.  They still aren’t letting God love them however.  They seem to prefer to love themselves [as if they even knew how to!]. They’re singing “i’ll do it my way”
59 – This is the final chapter of this run; this litany of horrid problems with God’s people. Again God is well into a monologue of accusation: There’s blood on their hands, their feet chase evil, their thoughts are all wrong, there’s no justice, and the sinning is endless.  God still has a plan for His nation and it is a good one.  He is going to send a Redeemer to those who will come to Him and turn from sin.
God we can ask, “how can you keep loving these people?” And yet you do.  How can you and why do you keep reaching out to us? It’s better that we just say thank you and not question you. And so we thank you for loving us as we are and yet loving us too much to not Redeem us to better living and better service to you.  Thank you Lord.  Amen.
Posted on

April 11


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Psalm 22-27

We are in the Wisdom Stream today as we read from the Lexham English Bible this week.

7streamsmethod.com | #7Streams | @7StreamsMethod | @serenatravis.com

Melissa Disney’s CDs – Sweet Faith & Love

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Today is some of, if not, the most famous literature and prayers EVER written.  Be blessed and keep reading these all your lives. My husband and I read this again and again.  And we are glad to read it with you today.

Ps 22 –   You heard Jesus quote this on the Cross.  God had not forsaken the Son. But to hang on a Cross is to feel forsaken, no matter what the Truth is.  Here is a Psalm that can only be attributed to the Crucifixion of our Lord.  And Jesus; The Truth, is on the Cross feeling forsaken, sneered at, pierced (bit by lions accd’g to this translation), his clothing getting illustratively “auctioned off”.  He’s in a bad way and calling out on God His Father.  That means that when we are in the worst of duress, we are to do that same – for God is listening.  Also it asserts that Jesus understands our plight, regardless.  That means we are never alone.
23 – When the Lord is your Shepherd, you have what you need; there is rest and peace and beauty, restoration, peace in all settings, comfort (strengthening), we are fed regardless of the surroundings.  We have anointing, plenty, goodness, love and mercy along with eternal security.  That should answer all our questions, oy mate? In all seriousness, David likely wrote this when he was a boy in Bethlehem, tending sheep.
Just over 1000 years later, angels announce to shepherds that the Good Shepherd has arrived. It wouldn’t surprise me if it all happened in the same field. Ponder that amazement.
24 –  A series of writers and biblical commentators muse that Ps.24 was what David wrote when the ark was brought back into Jerusalem as told in II Sam. 6:12-15.  The sentiment of the Psalm certainly matches the festivity of the occasion. God IS a celebration of love and remember that our entry and the beginning of heaven for us starts with worship and celebration.
25 – David is looking for rescue, guidance, mercy, a right-standing in God’s Presence,  protection, and redemption.  It’s a Psalm written and recited by a man in anguish who knows where to turn when life has taken a turn such as this.  It’s the same David of whom we see cheering and praising in other places. This is what made David a man after God’s own heart. He wanted to know and have the heart of God – so he did. Such a wonderful model David is for us.
26 – whereas 25 if ‘David lamenting, “God, I’ve messed it up here. Help me”, 26 is David nearly protesting, “God, I’ve been good about it all, don’t “diss’ me out now.  You said you were good … ”    It’s similar to us if we prayed, “uh, God, you told me to call on you and that you would answer me.  I’m calling on you now, and I need you to answer me.  I don’t want to listen to a recording, I want you to ‘pick up’.”   ‘Ever feel this way?  So did David – and it kept him in prayer.
27 – We all know what it’s like to arrive at a favorite place, be it a meadow, or a vista on the trail, or a beach, or a relatives’ house.  We pause and sigh, “wow, I love it here!!”  David says that when he sits with God.  He loves to sit with God and sing and listen and bask and rest.  Let’s let this urge us accordingly.  Don’t drift when we pray. Don’t check your watch during a sermon. Turn off your phone when in a worship service. Pull away from the screen when family is telling you something vital and impassioned. Don’t read the news or popups when your spouse is dining with you.  Come on, now.  God calls us into his courtyard.  Get there.  Psalm 27 helps us all get there.
God thank you.  Thank you and thank you again.  You ARE everything we need.  Fill us with gratitude and may it spill over back into your house as we worship with you.  Amen.