Crops (Ex. 22:5-6)

6/30/2008 6:57 AM

My Worship Time           Focus:  Crops

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Exodus 22:5-6

            Message of the verses:  “5  "If an animal is grazing in a field or vineyard and the owner lets it stray into someone else’s field to graze, then the animal’s owner must pay damages in the form of high-quality grain or grapes.  6  "If a fire gets out of control and goes into another person’s field, destroying the sheaves or the standing grain, then the one who started the fire must pay for the lost crops.’”

            In the days when these laws were written for Israel they were not in their land but were written for when they were in their land.  The Israelites did not have fences around their fields, but only had stones to mark their boundaries, and therefore the owners had to be responsible for their animals and if they wandered into a neighbor’s field and destroyed part of their crop they would be responsible for giving the best of their crops to the one whose crops were destroyed.  The same held true if someone caused a fire and it ruined part of a neighbor’s crop, that person would be responsible for those crops that were burned and would have to give the best of their crops in repayment for those crops.

            Dr. Wiersbe points out that the Hebrew word “shalam” is used six times in chapter twenty-two and this word is related to the Hebrew word “shalom,” which means peace or health.  Shalam means to make whole, to make complete and that is what the person who causes the offence must do for the person the offence is made.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  God is a God of justice and I have to have my sins paid for in order to have a relationship with the Lord God.  The fact is that the only way I could pay for my sins is to die or to accept the fact that Jesus Christ paid for them when He died on the cross for my sins and in doing that God’s justice was satisfied.  This truth can be seen in today’s lesson. 

            I am truly blessed to be forgiven for my sins, blessed that Jesus Christ, God’s best, loved me enough to make a way for me to have a relationship with God the Father and thus spend eternity in His presence doing His will and work.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Continue to trust the Lord in faith to guide my paths.
2. To be, by faith, yoked with the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. To be, by faith, trust the Lord to make a way of escape when trials, temptations, and test become too hard for me to bear.
4. To, by faith, give myself to the Lord for service and worship today.
5. To, by faith, believe that the Lord will teach me to be content in whatever circumstance that I am in.
6. To, by faith, learn to pray as Epaphras prayed.

Memory verses for the week:                      Colossians 4:12-13

12.    Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.

13.    For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

6/30/2008 7:41 AM