Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and Psalm 119:129-136.

Tap here for a video meditation on today’s verses of Psalm 119.

The Hebrew word for “precepts” is piqud, occurring twenty-four times in the Bible. All the references are in the Psalms, with all but three of them occurring in Psalm 119. The meaning of the root of the word is “to oversee.” Precepts are the conditions of the job description that a supervisor develops for employees. They are specific. Yet much different from what often happens between bosses and workers, there is here a sense of affection and comfort the psalmist finds in his God, along with a joyful experience of protection that one rarely finds in the business world.

Are there some specific precepts that God is enjoining upon you for your spiritual growth in the Lord? Scan your life. What does your divine supervisor have to say?

Psalm 119:121–144

What are Bible Breaths? Learn More
Example: Joy for those whose heart is right v. 11

A Sample Bible Breath from today’s Psalm.
Light as a seed within me v. 11

On Wednesdays we follow a reading of the Psalms in numerical order.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and Nehemiah 8:9-12.

Catch the power of the preposition: Joy of the Lord, compared with the familiar Joy in the Lord. God is love and joy. God opens up the vast power of God’s own joy for you to find strength in it.

Place yourself amid this vast assembly that hears God’s Word for the first time. Cherish the first hours of the day, just as did our Jewish ancestors; they passed the whole morning listening to the Torah in the open square. You join many reading this passage with you on this very day.

Renewed festivals bring fresh joy to the people of Nehemiah’s day. Routine has not yet begun its erosion of fervor. The people confess publicly as they hear the recalling of God’s covenant and their ancestors’s infidelity to God. Note the reordering of priorities in chapter 10—the offering of first fruits to the Lord. What changes are you called to make?

Nehemiah 8—10

What are Bible Breaths? Learn More…
Example: The joy of the Lord, my strength 8:10

Tuesdays are dedicated to the Old Testament books of history
and the Hebrew “Writings.”
In the Easter Season this year we read Easter: Prov 24 -26; Nehemiah.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and Ezekiel 45:9-12.

Ezekiel’s audience is an exiled people longing for their homeland. Their pain is all the more poignant, for even if they could go back, there would be nothing but a barren waste where once the glorious Temple stood. Yet visions bring hope. After lifting the aspirations of the people through the vision of the new temple and its design, Ezekiel becomes an architect of time, measuring the year once again according to sacred festivals and how the people are to observe them.

What can you do to preserve that precious sense that all space and time in which you live can be sacred? Habits and rituals for personal prayer and worship are very important. They create boundaries of time and space that give life a deepening sense that God’s eternity is entering into our time.

Ezekiel 45—46

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In the Easter Season this year we read Ezekiel 33—48.

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Holiness of here and now

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.