Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Wednesday, June 6 - Kathryn

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Proverbs 7-9
Today's scripture focus is Ecclesiastes 3:16-22

16 And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

17 I thought in my heart,
“God will bring to judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time for every deed.”

18 I also thought, “As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[a]; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal[b] goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

How depressing! And truly this is our lot if we don't have the Lord in our lives. We end up just enjoying, or partying in this life because we are nothing more than animals. That is what science tells us, right? We are nothing more than apes, so we might as well indeed just enjoy this life, our work and just die.

I believe Solomon is right, in part. I believe God does allow us to be tested so that we can see our shortcoming. So that we can see that we do not have any more power over our situation than the animals around us. He shows us that we, in and of ourselves, lost and nothing more than the created animals around us. He allows us to be tested so that we can see we are in deep need of a Savior.

How terrible for those who don't have their faith in Jesus. The hopelessness, the futility of it all. And Solomon does say that, it's all meaningless. Well of course it is if we all end up as the animals!! But we don't have to. We know there is an end. We know there is a day of judgment and we know there is a hope, a Savior. Praise be to God for His wonderful gift!!


Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ecclesiastes 4:1-7
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Proverbs 10-12

2 comments:

Tammy said...

So sorry Kathryn! I pressed publish on my post yesterday, but it didn't work, so that's why we have posts on the same scripture.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm learning more about Ecclesiastes than I was expecting, that's for sure.

Miriam said...

Great post, Kathryn! Praise be to God indeed!