Tag: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 5:5

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“Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

We’ve been talking for a few days about Paul’s thoughts on life after death now. We’ve talked in particular about this sense of eternality that dwells in the hearts of people. We’ve also talked about the fact that we only gain any substance for this otherwise empty hope in Christ. Apart from Him, we don’t have anything to go on but wishful thinking that plays itself out in a variety of mostly ultimately harmful ways. In Christ, though, things get very much more solid. The reason for this is the Spirit. 

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Digging in Deeper: Joel 2:12

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“‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;’”‬‬ (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been so deep in a mess of your own making that you figured you were just going to have to ride it out and endure it until the end? That’s an awful place to be. Is there anything we can do there other than to simply hang on for dear life? As a matter of fact there is. We can repent. 

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

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“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

If this world is all there is, there is no reason to endure any amount of chronic suffering, particularly if we don’t have any reasonable expectation that it will end. That’s what we established the first time we examined these words. If this world is all there is, a great deal of what we do becomes meaningless. In fact, all of it does, but the hard stuff in particular. If this world is not all there is, however, everything changes. 

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Digging in Deeper: Psalm 78:5-7

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“He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;”‬‬ (ESV – Read the chapter)

What are you teaching your children? Because the fact is, you are teaching them something. Every single thing you do is teaching them to look at and interact with the world in a certain way. Everything. From the way you dress to how you talk to them to how to talk to their mother to the work you do to your attitude about that work to the kind of hobbies you have to how much time you spend with that hobby to all the rest. The real question is not whether we are teaching our children, but if we are teaching them by intention or by accident. 

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Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 18:1

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“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.”‬‬ (ESV) 

“I just need some time to myself.” Have you ever heard something like that before? If you’ve been through the preteen and teenage years the better question might be how many times do you hear that per day. Have you ever said it yourself (other than when you were a teenager)? What prompts such a declaration? Often it comes because we’ve had a bad day and want to be alone so we can lick our wounds in private. And, that’s okay. Being by ourselves isn’t a bad thing. Being isolated, on the other hand, is a problem. 

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