Matthew 1

Spoke briefly to my pastor at church this morning again. He found some devotional books for me and I could pick whichever I wanted the next time I met up with him. That'll be good to give me some extra questions to add on to the bible passages I read. Taking on some advice from Griffith bible study guys, I'm also reading from the New Testament at the same time.
This morning's sermon was on Joshua 11. There were so many good points that are very relevant to our Christian lives today.
On Friday I finished reading the little book Seven Reasons for Believers' Baptism  by Rev. F. B. Meyer that my pastor lent me. It was pretty good and I learnt a lot more about baptism through that.

S - Matthew 1
O  - Matthew's gospel starts off by listing the genealogy of Jesus, which is pretty interesting. It starts off with Abraham and goes through 14 generations of funny names to King David. The one that stood out to me was Salmon and Rahab were the parents of Boaz. I can understand why a guy called Amminadab would want to call his son Nahshon, who then named his son Salmon. Good thing Salmon named his son Boaz, which has got to be the coolest name ever. Rahab is the prostitute who helped cover the spies Joshua sent out in Joshua chapter 2. She's a great lady who had faith in the Lord and her whole family was spared God's judgement because of her faith.

V17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.


That is really amazing. God always had a plan from us. From the beginning of time (Genesis 1) to New Testament days. However, I'm not sure if I'm counting the right way or what. From David to Jeconiah (time of exile) seems more like 15 generations to me. I must be counting it wrong.

V18-24 describes the birth of Jesus Christ.
The parts that stood out to me were
v18 "...His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit."
This reminds me of the conversation I had with my pastor last Tuesday. We were talking about how we receive spiritual gifts from the Holy Spirit when we become a believer. Sometimes the Holy spirit also gives us gifts that are a one-off (Which answers the question my friend Esther had when we were discussing this..."How do you discover what spiritual gifts you are given?" "Usually, you go through a list of common gifts..." "But I don't want to confine God's gifts to us in a list"). So like Mary, sometimes we are called to do things for God in a one-off situation. God's plans for us can be surprising and unexpected, but we are to carry his will out with obedience and he will be there for us every step of the way.


v20 "...an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,^[f] because he will save his people from their sins.”

Jesus' purpose was to save us from our sins. That was the plan right from before he was born. Imagine having to live a life just to die for others. Woah. and the people he died for (us) are a terrible bunch who don't have a care for God....God's character never fails to amaze me. God is gracious and merciful despite our sinful nature which angers him.

²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”^[g] (which means “God with us”).
²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.


A - Be obedient to God and be open to what he calls us to do.


P - Pray that I will continue with daily devotions and not be side-tracked.
Pray that I'll be able to do one-to-one bible reading; it seems pretty helpful. Just started reading through the book pastor gave me and pray that I will be able to learn from it and apply it to my life.