Desert Wanderers

That's what we are - desert wanderers. We are just like God's people who were rescued out of Egypt. If you are unfamiliar with this story, it can be found in the book of Exodus in the Old testament of the bible. God miraculously led his people out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt and was leading them to a place of rest - a land he had promised their forefathers that he would give them. But they were faithless. Hebrews 3:10 says, "Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways. God became angry with them and announced that none of these faithless ones would enter His rest. God was true to His word. They wandered the desert for 40 years until all of the original people rescued from Egypt were dead with the exception of Caleb and Joshua. These were the only two that remained faithful.

As I was reading Hebrews 3 and 4 this morning, I realized that our lives are very much like the nation of Israel wandering around in the desert. When we decided to believe that Christ is our Savior and put our faith and trust in Him alone, God rescued us from the bondage and slavery to sin just like God rescued the Israelites from bondage and slavery in Egypt. But just like the Israelites had to travel through the desert to reach the promised land and enter into God's rest, we too, need to remain in the world and travel through it before we enter into God's eternal rest. It is during this time that it is SO important that during this time we REMAIN faithful to God. As it says in Psalm 95:7-8, "for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert,"

For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. Hebrews 3:4 (KJV)

Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone,
rolls virtue around on his tongue.

Psalm 37:30 (The Message)

I love the word picture that the Message creates with this verse!

Online Bible Study Tools

I thought I would share some of what I use to do online bible study.

My favorite site for looking up verses and doing bible searches is:
Bible Gateway
They have a wonderful search function and MANY bible translation available.

Lately, for my daily bible reading, I have been using:
Crosswalk
because I like their "Bible in a Year" feature. It has the entire bible broken up into daily readings. Each day includes Old Testiment, New Testiment and either a Psalm or Proverb. If you register on the site and allow them to place a cookie on your computer, it wall keep track of your progress on a calendar which is nice. They also have several translations to choose from.

Both of he above sites have several study tools as well as commentary.

Another site I like to use when I am really digging into a particular verse is:
Blue Letter Bible
This site is strictly King James version, but I like that you can see the text in it's original Hebrew or Greek. Along with this, each Hebrew/Greek work is defined and every time that particular word is used throughout the bible is listed.