“And she vowed a vow and said, ‘O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Check out Hannah’s vow here. The last major judge of the people of Israel prior to Eli (who, while personally faithful, was not a great father and whose sons were faithfully carrying on the terrible legacy of the era) was Samson. Given Hannah’s vow here, Samuel was in some ways the anti-Samson. Read the rest…
“When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Daniel had been doing this three times a day in this same place for years. This time, though, had to feel a bit different. This was the first time he knew he was actively breaking the law by doing it. And yet, the place and the pattern were both well-worn in his life. At the time to which he was very much accustomed, Daniel got down on his knees in front of the window in his upper room and prayed. Shortly afterwards–as he knew would happen–he was arrested and hauled before the king. Read the rest…
“Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me!” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Do you listen to God? I don’t know about you, but I can pretty easily find myself in a rut of talking to God a lot, but not stopping to listen very often. I can get into a pattern of reading God’s word every day because I’m supposed to (especially as a pastor!), but not paying very close attention to what He might want to say to me through it. Let’s just call it what it is: Listening to God is tough. Read the rest…
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…
“O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Where do you look when you are surrounded by troubles in this life? When things seem to have fallen completely to pieces, on what do you first set your eyes? Read the rest…
The Nexus 