Category: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: Judges 11:30-31

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“And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here we see yet another dark chapter in the record of the judges.  Jephthah was a scoundrel and an outlaw.  When the leaders of Gilead sought him out, they had not sought the Lord.  In fact, although we are told near the end of chapter 10 that the Lord had grown impatient over their misery, He had told them rather explicitly that He was not going to come and save them this time because they had shown over and over again their dogged intention to reject Him.  He does relent a bit and helps the guy they foolishly choose win the battle, but beyond that He does not have a hand in the events here. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 2:14

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“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

We recently purchased a new house–our first.  We are pretty excited about it still.  Before we could move in, there was quite a bit of work to do including taming the jungle the previous couple of owners had allowed to grow up in the backyard.  With some excellent and most appreciated help from several of the men in our church, we got that and whole lot of other work finished. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Judges 6:22-23

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“Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord.  And Gideon said, ‘Alas, O Lord God!  For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.’  But the Lord said to him, ‘Peace be to you.  Do not fear; you shall not die.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been so upset about something that you were missing the world right in front of your face?  Most of us have at some point.  Life doesn’t go our way and we let it put us in a place where we can’t get past what went wrong.  All of our attention gets sucked into the frustration and things that most people would say are obvious don’t even register on our radar. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: John 10:41

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“And many came to him.  And they said, ‘John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Do you want to be great?  Most of us yearn for that.  I heard about another pastor a few weeks ago who does a blog too.  He has 200,000 followers.  My carnal first thought was, “I want 250,000.”  That’s inside of all of us.  We want greatness.  We want to be not just recognized, but recognized more than everybody else for what we have done.  Our culture encourages this too.  Our heroes are not great statesmen and scientists and public servants anymore.  Our heroes are sports stars and movie stars and social media stars.  It’s a great rat race whose catch is that there isn’t any cheese waiting at the end of the path. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 30:18

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“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The people of Israel were in a pretty hard spot.  They had turned on the Lord.  In fact, they had been turned away from the Lord for a long time.  They had been turned away from the Lord for a long time and it was beginning to show.  Their world was teetering on the edge.  Some of them had started to realize just how dire their situation really was.  They could read the international tea leaves.  They saw the Assyrian army moving steadily in their direction, gobbling up nations in their path and spitting out nothing but ruin and destruction.  But, instead of heeding Isaiah’s call to return to the Lord for their hope and salvation, they were running everywhere but to Him. Read the rest…