“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is a rather jarring beginning to a letter. Count it all joy when you experience trials. Really?!? ALL joy? How? Why? Read the rest…
Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 3:13
“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Battling sin is a task for today. We live in a world of doing the hard stuff later and the fun stuff now. Battling sin isn’t fun. It’s hard. It’s dangerous. It brings guarantees of success, yes, but also of pain. And yet it is a task we cannot put off until tomorrow. We must tackle it today. Read the rest…
Morning Musings: Hebrews 12:1
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Most people have two kinds of manners: Private manners and company manners. When we’re by ourselves we’ll let certain things go that we won’t when other people are around, particularly people whom we are interested in impressing. Read the rest…
Digging in Deeper: Lamentations 3:21-24
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Lamentations is a series of complaints to God. Jeremiah wrote these toward the end of his ministry when Babylon had conquered and destroyed Jerusalem. It is mostly a bitter book. It’s tone is both corporate and personal. Chapter three here in particular is very personal. The prophet describes feeling totally abandoned and even actively attacked by the Lord. They are words that ring with familiarity to those who have experienced loss and grief and seasons of great distress today. Read the rest…
Morning Musings: Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
As the writer of Hebrews defines it here, faith is, by definition, a conviction about the positive existence of something we have not seen. For instance and as the writer observes in v. 3, it is by faith that we conclude the world and everything in it was created by God. We weren’t there and so we could not possibly have seen it. And yet we believe it all the same. The question here we must address in light of modern misunderstandings about the nature of faith, though, is this: Is it reasonable? Read the rest…
The Nexus 