Daily Bible Readings YLT January 17th

"Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath" Matthew 12:12 I am amazed by the Pharisees' response to Jesus healing the man in the synagogue - they went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. How horrific human beings can be. How wrong in their responses, their reactions. Proverbs 3:21 My son! Do not let them turn from your eyes, "Keep wisdom and thoughtfulness"Our thinking needs to be trained in the Scriptures, in the fear and love of the Lord, in wisdom and thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness is an attitude of unbiased, unprejudiced thinking: thinking that is not hampered by fixed notions, fixed standards. For the Pharisees had fixed thinking about the Sabbath and the Scriptures which meant it was all interpreted as law which must be obeyed and they must police such obedience to ensure the law is kept. There was no understanding that God seeks a relationship with His people: we are His because he created us and gave us life. Of course we can reject this. Or, as the Pharisees did, we can turn this relationship into a set of rules that must be obeyed. In our lives, relationships must come above all things, and be held in the right attitude of mind. That attitude is the attitude of love, not control or dominance or intimidation, nor fearful submission and obscuring oneself. Jesus says that those of us who are like the Pharisees, bound up in laws and seeing our prime purpose in life as keeping those laws, need to know what this Scripture means: 'Kindness I will, and not sacrifice' for if they had known this they 'had not condemned the guiltless'. (Matthew 12:7)May we not condemn the guiltless today or ever. Judge rightly.See also how Jacob seeks to be reconciled to his brother Esau, coming in fear of him and the punishment Esau might exact on him but also sending to Esau, ahead of him in the hands of his servants, a very great gift of goats, sheep, camels, cattle and donkeys. He humbles himself before his brother, both in word and action, bowing seven times as he approaches Esau and calling him, 'My lord'. This is the way of peace. If we truly desire to be reconciled to God, let this attitude be ours too.