Meditations

Meditations by Mark — Mark’s comments on CLP Sunday School lessons. Read them for personal encouragement and challenge as well as for preparation for Sunday School class or some other study of the Scripture passages.

Please feel free to use the comments to add your own perspectives and questions.

Be as the Bereans of old — study the Scriptures to be sure these things are so. And if you find something amiss or unbiblical, please let me know — I do not want to be in error!

Oh, and you can find more of these archived at my Anabaptists site. For more than a decade, I wrote a page called “Applications for Youth” in the Sunday School quarterly for youth produced by Christian Light Publications. I have most of them online at Thoughts for the Week.

No Rest for the Wicked

Micah 2:4-11

“He hath changed the portion of my people” (Micah 2:4).

Why did God do that to His chosen people?

What would compel Him to do that to Christians today?

“O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the spirit of the LORD straitened? are these his doings? do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?” (Micah 2:7).

“You that profess to be Israelites.” What an indictment! Reminds me of the times Jesus dismissed the claims of some to be children of Abraham (John 8:31-42; Matthew 3:9).

“Are my words of no value to those who live according to them?” Let no one dissuade us from the certainty that living for Jesus is worth whatever we might invest or lose in The Way. Read it all

Our Better High Priest

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Jesus, the perfect intercessor

  • As a man, Jesus understands our temptations.
  • As God, Jesus knows our every need.
  • As our High Priest, He offered Himself to God as a sacrifice.

Why should we “hold fast our profession”?

  • We have a High Priest in Heaven (4).
  • Our High Priest understands and empathizes with our needs and struggles (15).

On what basis can we “come boldly unto the throne of grace”?

  • Jesus can “be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (15).
  • Jesus was “tempted like as we are” (15).

Read it all

God Will Never Forget

Amos 8:1-6,9,10

Neither will God be mocked. What we sow determines what we harvest. We must beware of sowing oppression and injustice. We must refuse to take advantage of another, the way they did in Amos’ day. God warned against this in Leviticus:

“Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 25:17).

The concept of not oppressing another “resonates” in my heart. I’ve got to sharpen my sensitivity in this regard.

It’s interesting to me that oppressing another is contrasted with fearing God. Read it all

Entering Into Rest

Hebrews 4:1-13

“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it” (Hebrews 4:2).

  • How well does faith mix with the Gospel in my life?
  • Just how much does the Word profit me?

May God give me faith in His Word and make me faithful to His Word. If I do not accept the Word with faith, I will not enter into the promised rest.

The term translated unbelief in Hebrews 4:6 is used six other times in the New Testament (one of them in verse 11). Half of those times it is translated unbelief; the other half, disobedience. This reminds me that faith is faithful. Or to put it another way, faith works. Read it all

God Abhors Selfishness

Amos 6:4-8, 11-14

Amos directs God’s message to those who are well able to indulge themselves…and freely do so. They are those who believe that being able to afford self-indulgence constitutes license for it. And not only license, but justification as well. Neither God nor Amos presents these folks in a flattering light.

“These folks” — do I flatter myself with that phrasing? Read it all

Above all, love God!