I was asked to participate in an upcoming “Come Follow Me” podcast with Emily Crapo, host of “To Know Him” where she invites guests on to share 3 ways they see Christ in a particular lesson.
I thought today I would share one insight from it but also show how I prepared for it using Scripture Notes. If you are a teacher, or you are one of the few who actually study the lessons before going to class, you may find it helpful to do this.
Start out by opening a library pane in Scripture Notes and navigate to the last book and chapter in the lesson. This particular lesson is the one ending June 26th and covers these chapters.
2 Samuel 5–7; 11–12; 1 Kings 3; 8; 11
So start off by clicking on chapter 11, then 8, then 3. Then click Old Testament to back up a step and open 2 Samuel and click chapters 7, 6, and finally 5.
When you are done, you will have all the chapters open in order left to right like this.
Then expand chapter 5 to expose your notes and begin reading the chapter and making notes and marking the scriptures as you desire.
After you finish with chapter 5, collapse your notes pane and expand the notes for chapter 6 and begin studying and making notes and so on till you finish the section of chapters.
The advantage to this method of how to study Come Follow Me is you have all the chapters open at the same time. There are things you will notice that tie back into prior chapters and you can often make connections to the story sections between the chapters.
One of the lessons that stood out to me in this section was from 1 Kings 11. The Lord uses the best people he can even though they are deeply flawed and often disappoint the Lord.
David was taken from being a shepherd boy to becoming king of Israel because his heart was right before the Lord. Yet the Lord knew what giant sins awaited David. He still gave him the opportunity to take a life exam and fail it, and then on top of that, produce Solomon through Bathsheba which after starting off strong in asking for wisdom, later turned to idolatry and turned Israel toward the worship of foreign gods. God knew this would happen, and then God chose to use this genealogy as his own.
In Matthew 1:1 it lists out the generations of Christ. The word generations used in that verse comes from the Greek word Genesis (which you can click to see using the Blue Letter Bible link in the link tool), and means origin point or source.
The source of Christ’s lineage is his Genesis, his beginnings. The accumulation of every type of person we can imagine went into his DNA. Prostitutes, adulterers, murderers, idol worshipers, child sacrificers, people from outside the covenant lineage, evil politicians and kings, and so on, and of course some righteous kings, patriarchs, and people. Every sin and flaw imaginable was put into that genealogy.
Now recall Leviticus 6:25-27, that when a sin offering was made by one of the priests, it was called “most holy” and whatever thing came in contact with the holy flesh of that offering, was made holy as well.
Remember Christ touched the leper and according to the law should have been pronounced unclean, but instead, the leper was made clean. The woman with the issue of blood would have made Christ unclean in touching him, but instead by faith she was healed and Christ’s holiness made her holy and clean.
When Christ’s mortal DNA was mingled with the tiniest seed of heavenly DNA, it turned all those generational problems from unholy to holy.
We, being unholy, seek to be adopted into the family of Christ to be healed of all our problems and that of our generational Genesis.
If he had a perfect family line, maybe we would question if we could ever be worthy to enter into his family, but it isn’t perfect. It’s full of wicked and flawed people, just like the rest of us.
What a blessing to know that Christ’s origins included all the “black sheep” of the family and he still has room for us.
It is truly amazing that God is an optimist in all his actions with us right up to and including the points where we fail.
David committed adultery, and then murder to cover it up, yet all the while up to that point, the Lord, knowing it would happen, spoke to David with love and guidance and respected his agency.
When Solomon turned to idolatry, God told him the kingdom would be taken from Israel, but for David’s sake, who loved the Lord with all his heart (unlike Solomon), the Lord would let Solomon’s reign end before he allowed an enemy to capture Israel and scatter it as part of the loss of covenant blessings.
When you consider how to study Come Follow Me lessons, I think this is a great idea. Look for valuable lessons that point us to God. Here are three of the main ones for me:
1) The Lord takes us with all our flaws. He lets us repent, though we have to suffer the consequences of our choices. He is the good shepherd, and will help us recover from going astray as much as possible without violating eternal laws.
2) Loving God with all our heart, in spite of our flaws, creates generational blessings even if children go astray.
3) Generational sins and curses can be cured by coming to Christ and accepting of his holiness which overpowers and cleanses our unholiness.
Please leave your own takeaway below…
(Featured image by Freaktor at 123rf.com)
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Study by Comparing Chapters Side-by-Side
Why we know the Exodus really happened, and how to store it in Scripture Notes
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