Digging in Deeper: Joshua 7:7, 10

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“And Joshua said, ‘Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us?  Would that we have been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! . . .The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Get up!  Why have you fallen on your face?'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Joshua was devastated and dismayed.  He had put his entire being on the line before the people that God was leading them to occupy this land and drive out its inhabitants entirely.  They had crossed the Jordan on dry ground.  They had conquered Jericho with its impregnable walls.  There was nothing that could stand in their way for the Lord was obviously with them.  And then they got beat by Ai. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Revelation 22:12 Part 1

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“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

There are two ideas in Jesus’ words here that are absolutely essential to understand if we are going to do life well during our time on earth.  The first reminds us that how we live now matters.  The second reminds us of our desperate need for grace.  We’ll tackle one this morning, and one on Monday morning. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Psalm 34:19

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“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Isn’t this a nice verse of deliverance?  God delivers us from all of our afflictions.  What great comfort this offers us when we are low.  God won’t leave you on the ground when you are down.  That could almost go on a bumper sticker.  My take?  If that’s how you are reacting to this verse, you might want to take a second look…and this time, take a minute to actually read it. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Jeremiah 29:10-14

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“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Promises like these in the Old Testament are encouraging almost beyond words.  To find ourselves in the midst of a truly difficult season–especially one in which we are reaping the bitter fruits of time spent sowing unrighteousness in our lives and the lives of those around us–and to encounter these kinds of reassurances to a people who were in just that kind of a situation, gives us hope that the mess doesn’t need to be our end either.  But in this hope and encouragement that God is for us, these promises were intended to accomplish something even more important. Read the rest…

Stand Down

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In this third part of our teaching series, Stand Up: How to Fight Injustice, we finally start talking about action.  We’ve spent the previous two weeks establishing a baseline from which to begin our fight.  This week the fight begins…but not where we might expect it.  Our battles against injustice begin best not on our feet, but on our knees.  Keep reading to see how this plays out through the story of Esther.

 

Stand Down

One of our good friends in Virginia is a handyman who enjoys woodworking.  Prior to living there and getting to know Rod, the only time I had ever done any woodworking was my junior high shop classes—classes which I thoroughly enjoyed and was pretty good at.  I still have most of the things I made.  Rod and his wife, Pat, had the gift of loving us and they did it well and in a number of ways.  One of the ways Rod did this with me in particular was to let me come down and play in his shop and create.  I only got a few projects finished before our growing family reduced the time available for woodworking to nil, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  Some of my favorite projects are a spice rack/cookbook shelf that’s hanging in the dining room and a toy bulldozer that was intended to be for the boys to play with until I realized how quickly they were going to break it relative to the number of hours that went into making it at which point it became a display piece.  Well, Rod liked to collect t-shirts with inspirational or funny messages on them.  One of my favorites was one that was perfect for the novice woodworker.  It read: Measure twice, cut once, curse, go by more wood, repeat. Read the rest…