God is in the business of saving people. The Israelites decided that they would
do salvation
in their terms but God saves through His terms not ours. We can not try to subvert the design of God for salvation and impose upon it a plan of our own construction. The Israelites tried to do salvation their way did but God not ask their opinion. Gods means of salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ. God does not care if you are a Jew or Gentile He just wants to know if you are a beliver. Today we must understand that God does not discriminate with Salvation. Our salvation does not rest in the fact that we are called but it rests I'm the fact that we trust in Jesus the one who called us.

Have you ever found Jesus to be a"stumbling block" or a "rock of
offense"? If so, how so? That is, what were you doing that brought you into that situation? How did you get out, and what did you learn so that, one hopes, you never find yourself in that
type of contrary relationship with Jesus again?

Sometimes as humans we can be so stubborn. When we set our minds to something we have the capacity for great good or great evil. Sometimes the things which we fix our minds to are contrary to Gods will. When we find ourselves in a place where we do not want to surrender our will to God then Jesus becomes a stumbling block for us. This usually happens when we don't trust that God has our best interests in mind. I have found that even when we don't understand what God is doing we should give Him the benifit of the doubt because Gods way is always the best way. The only way we overcome this problem is to trust in God. We can either learn by our experience or the experience of others. It is best to trust Jesus this is a prequsite for not making Him a stumbling block.

Prayer: Father
please have mercy on our souls. Please help us not to stumble at Jesus. Teach us to trust you completely. In Jesus name amen.

One idea of this passage is that God is in control. An example is Gods dealing with the Pharoah of Egypt. God used him to display His power. God hardening Pharoah's heart did not remove his freedom of choice but it shows how God works in history with our choices. With our limited scope of things we will not always understand. In situations where we lack understanding we must ask God but if we don't get it we must trust God.

Sure, we don't always understand God's ways, but Jesus came to reveal to us what God is like (John 14:9). Why,
then, amid all of life's mysteries and unexpected events, is it so crucial for us to dwell on the character of Christ and what He has revealed to us about God and His love for us? How can
knowing what God's character is like help us stay faithful amid trials that seem so unjustified and so unfair?

We will not always understand the things which come our way. The hope is that when we look to Jesus we will obtain strength to deal with what we are going through. We can get discouraged if we focus on our problems but if we focus on Christ we can never go wrong.

Prayer: Father Thank You for all that you have done please help us to trust in you when we do not understand. Thank you I'm Jesus name Amen.