It’s Worth It

Leave a comment

In this final part of our series, Hard Sayings, we are faced with the ultimate reality: Following Jesus is worth everything.  After blowing the disciples’ minds, Jesus makes this point rather graphically for them.  Keep reading to see how and stay tuned for our next teaching series, Grace in Hard Times, as we walk through the book of Job.

It’s Worth It

Have you ever experienced the disorienting phenomenon known as sticker shock?  Let’s say you’re walking through a department store and there you see it: the dress.  What you might possibly need the dress for is entirely beside the point.  What your husband might say about you buying the dress doesn’t even factor into the decision-making process.  You must have this dress.  Somehow you know that it will fit perfectly so you don’t even bother trying it on.  You take it up to the counter, gently lay it on the counter, and smile at the cashier.  Then it comes.  The cashier scans the barcode, punches a couple of buttons on the register, and says, “That’ll be…”  Well, I’m not sure what your price-point is, but whatever it is, this dress is beyond that…well beyond that.  And it hits you: Sticker shock.  It may be the dress, but…that price.  Ouch. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Judges 3:2

Leave a comment

“It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

I read this verse for the first time in a long time the other day and it got my attention as it hasn’t any of the previous times I’ve read it. I honestly have struggled with it some. This is the fifth reason we are given that the nations of Canaan were left in the Promised Land. Which one are we supposed to take as true? Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Judges 6:7-10

Leave a comment

“When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel.  And he said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery.  And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land.  And I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.”  But you have not obeyed my voice.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The people of Israel were hurting and broken and desperate. They were starving. The Midianites were taking everything. They were keeping them weak and unable to mount any kind of a meaningful resistance to their reign of terror. The Israelites were but a couple of generations into the land God had provided for them and it looked like he had abandoned them to this enemy for good. Now, the reality was that it had only been like this for a few years, but when you’re trapped in misery, a few years can seem like a lifetime. They did the only thing they could: Scrape together a meager survival and cry out to the Lord. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 4:18

Leave a comment

“As soon as he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy.  He had judged Israel forty years.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

A couple of things stand out here to me. This verse is an indictment of Eli as well as a commentary on how tragic his family situation was. Both of these are things we want to avoid being said about us. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Judges 2:10

Leave a comment

“And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers.  And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The most important verse in all of the Old Testament as far as Judaism is concerned is Deuteronomy 6:4. It is called the Shema, the Hebrew command “listen,” because that’s the first word. It goes like this: Read the rest…