We are taught that we must become upright people who, in God’s sight, are blameless and fully keep His commandments. “In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly” [(Modern Translation: “When Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and his wife Elizabeth also came from the family of Aaron. They were righteous before God and faithfully kept all the Lord’s commandments and regulations without fault”)] (Luke 1:5–6). While meditating on this passage, I would like to draw out the lessons given to us: (1) The author of Luke’s Gospel, Luke, first wrote to Theophilus about John the Baptist’s parents. The father’s name was “Zechariah” (meaning, “The LORD remembers...
Waiting [Psalms 130] One of the shortcomings that I realized when I looked at myself is "impatience." And because of my impatience, I think I sometimes hurt others with quick words and/or actions. Moreover, I got things wrong because I was impatient. In the midst of that, the word God gave me to meditate on was 2 Timothy 3:4 – “treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--.” The Bible says when there will be terrible times in the last days (v. 1), people will be “rash” (v. 4). Why do we get rash? Why do we get impatient? It seems that we become impatient when we fall into the thought that we can't wait any longer and almost at the same time we give up patience. Then we do what we want. This impatience leads to the inability to wait for God's will, creating wrong plans and methods, and eventually with terrible results. Im...