Redemption – Page 5

Digging in Deeper: Joel 2:13

October 8, 2019October 7, 2019Leave a comment

“Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God. For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you are a parent of two or more, you’ve been through this experience before I imagine: One of your kids does something ugly to another of your kids. What do you do? You make them apologize for what they did. And what do they do? If your kids are like mine, they look disgusted at this instruction, and quickly mumble a meager, “Sorry,” whose inflection makes clear they’re not really sorry at all. And that’s okay, because the exercise of apologizing when you’ve done something wrong is what’s really important in that moment. But relationally speaking, that kind of apology doesn’t accomplish very much. It doesn’t with God either.

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Digging in Deeper: Hosea 7:13

September 11, 2019September 11, 2019Leave a comment

“Woe to them, for they fled from me; destruction to them, for they rebelled against me! Though I want to redeem them, they speak lies against me.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

This verse starts out the way most folks expect the prophets to go. There goes God judging the people again, promising doom and destruction on them. It ends the way we would expect something from the prophets to end. There goes God again, accusing the people of wrongdoing. It’s that thing in the middle that catches us off guard. God wants to redeem them? Wait, what? Let’s look into that one a bit more.

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Digging in Deeper: Jeremiah 29:7

March 27, 2019March 26, 2019Leave a comment

“Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

As I said back when we started looking at this verse, we live in the midst of a culture that is increasingly more like Babylon than Jerusalem. Followers of Jesus are becoming, if not a numerical minority, at least a cultural minority. And we are not just a cultural minority either. We are increasingly a hated minority by the cultural elite. So then, what do we do when the cultural elite actively opposes and even attempts to legislate against us at every turn? We listen to what Jeremiah says here.

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Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 15:20-21

August 22, 2018August 21, 2018Leave a comment

“And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.””
(ESV – Read the chapter) ‬‬

Have you ever tried to confront someone with the truth and they just wouldn’t see it. Saul had been caught not doing what God had commanded. God send Samuel to confront him about not doing what He had commanded. But Saul just wouldn’t see it. And now that Samuel was getting more insistent with his charge, Saul was trying to deflect and point the blame other places. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Judges 3:2

August 6, 2018July 27, 2018Leave a comment

“It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before.” (ESV – Read the chapter)

I read this verse for the first time in a long time the other day and it got my attention as it hasn’t any of the previous times I’ve read it. I honestly have struggled with it some. This is the fifth reason we are given that the nations of Canaan were left in the Promised Land. Which one are we supposed to take as true? Read the rest…