Read To Me Daily Semester 2Sample

1SAMUEL 16:
Yesterday's reading in 1st Samuel told the story of Saul's incomplete obedience and the rejection of Saul as king— by both God and Samuel. In the process Samuel said some of the most important statements in Scripture, which I will underline here:

NLT 15:22b-23a “Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice,
and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.
Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft,
and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols.”

A second quote:
NLT 15:29 “He who is the Glory of Israel will not lie, nor will he change his mind, for he is not human that he should change his mind!”

PSALM 100:
Today’s poem is Psalm 100. This psalm probably ranks second in the most-memorized psalms, next to Psalm 23. 

ROMANS 6:
As we turn to Romans 6 today, we can observe this: Mankind can at best only hope for the kind of partial obedience we have seen in Saul. We can't just ‘try harder’ to please God. We always ‘fall short’ of ‘God's glorious standard’— as we have heard before in Romans chapter 3. The only hope for us is for God to recreate us. This is done through our understanding and applying spiritual realities which we cannot see, and one crucially-important spiritual reality is found in today’s chapter!

We have a short reading today. I encourage you to take time to think about the spiritual concepts Paul has been talking about in these last chapters— particularly Romans 5-6. The way to apply unseen spiritual realities in your life is to ask God to help you fully understand and believe them.

Let’s pray.
O Lord, our Father and our God. You are holy! Holy, holy, holy are You! You are Israel’s majestic God, and You do not lie or change your mind. It was your amazing will to give the Mosaic Law to mankind, in order to make us aware of the depth of our sin. We thank You that while we were sinners and your enemies, at the right time— the time you appointed, Christ died for us. And now how amazing it is that this passage calls us your friends. Adam’s action brought death, but our Lord, Christ Jesus, your action brought us eternal life. Our Father, Samuel said in today’s passage that “obedience is better than offering sacrifices,” and “rebellion is as bad as witchcraft, and arrogance is as sinful as idolatry.” So we ask You today to keep us from the terrible evil of consciously sinning against You, and then thinking we can do some kind of good deed to make up for it. Neither let us become proud or arrogant that we have found your favor. Lord Jesus, may we never trample on your grace and kindness to us. Again we ask You to be with us today.