Tag: Grace

Digging in Deeper: Psalm 107:6, 13, 19, 28

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“Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This refrain echoes four different times in this Psalm.  “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”  This was the God they served and the people of Israel experienced it over and over and over again.  They found themselves in all kinds of trouble, most of which was of their own making.  Each time they fell headlong into the mess and from the perspective of the moment, it looked like they were going to be goners. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 2 Chronicles 33:12-13

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“And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.  He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.  Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Manasseh’s story should give us a great deal of hope.  He was the most evil and overtly pagan of any of the kings to rule over Judah.  He essentially took his father Hezekiah’s legacy and turned it on its head.  If there was some practice that would offend the Lord, he jumped into it with both feet.  He led the whole nation astray and primed the pump for terrible judgment.   Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Chronicles 13:10

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“And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God.”  (ESV – read the chapter)

This is another of those hard verses in the Old Testament that we struggle to understand.  Why would God strike Uzzah down like this?  What exactly did he do that was so wrong it justified an immediate death sentence?  It sure seems like all he did was touch the ark.  Why was that such a big deal?

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Morning Musings: Romans 14:1

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“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.”  (ESV)

So many fights in the church are over issues that are far less significant than we have made them.  Often someone has read something in the Scriptures (even in community) with a desire to apply what he’s seen, but, in his efforts to apply the Scriptures, he’s given too much power and position to the issue.  The result is an insistence on a certain behavior that, while not necessarily unwise, much less sinful, is an unnecessary restriction on the freedom we have available to us in Christ.   Read the rest…