Restoration – Page 4

Digging in Deeper: Zechariah 10:11

June 17, 2020June 17, 2020Leave a comment

“The Lord will pass through the sea of distress and strike the waves of the sea; all the depths of the Nile will dry up. The pride of Assyria will be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt will come to an end.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

History is linear. It is unidirectional. It is going somewhere. We may not be able to see where from any single point along the way, but yesterday was not the day before and the day before that was different still. This wasn’t always thought to be the case. For a time it was fashionable science to hold that the universe was cyclical–it had been expanding and contracting in an endless cycle since eternity past and would continue like this on into eternity future. Then some smart folks looked a little harder and realized that the universe actually started at a single point and has been expanding ever since. Some religious worldviews today still believe that history is cyclical. But it’s not. History moves in one direction. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t repeat itself.

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Morning Musing: Zechariah 10:6

June 16, 2020June 16, 2020Leave a comment

“I will strengthen the house of Judah and deliver the house of Joseph. I will restore them because I have compassion on them, and they will be as though I had never rejected them. For I am the Lord their God, and I will answer them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you even seen someone do a project halfway and then quit? Sometime when you want a chuckle, google “that’s not my job memes.” You’ll be treated to a series of pictures of times when someone obviously did exactly what they were asked to do and not a scintilla more, even though the situation clearly required just a bit more to be made truly right. Well, when it comes to God’s restoration of the people of Israel–and us–He never quits until the job is totally complete.

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Morning Musing: Zechariah 8:16-17

June 5, 2020Leave a comment

“These are the things you must do: Speak truth to one another; make true and sound decisions within your city gates. Do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all this” — this is the Lord’s declaration.”‬‬ ‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been offered a gift with conditions? Those are always hard to accept. On the one hand, the gift may be really good, but, on the other hand, the conditions may be really hard to live with. While God offers us unconditional love, the gift of His presence does come with conditions. The decision we have to make is whether or not we are willing to live with those. It was the decision Zechariah was offering to the Israelites here.

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Digging in Deeper: Zechariah 5:10-11

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020Leave a comment

“So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the basket?” “To build a shrine for it in the land of Shinar,” he told me. “When that is ready, the basket will be placed there on its pedestal.””‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

God hates sin. He hates it. He loathes it with every fiber of His being (and there are a lot of fibers of His being). But, He loves us. He loves us perfectly and completely. He could not possibly love us anymore and there’s not a single thing we could do that will make Him love us any less. Even sin. As much as He wants to have us close, though (and He created us specifically to be in a relationship with Him so He wants that a lot), sin cannot be in His presence. At all.

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Digging in Deeper: Zechariah 3:1

May 20, 2020May 20, 2020Leave a comment

“Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right side to accuse him.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been part of an inside joke? Those are always kind of fun. You know something that only a select group of people know. You get to laugh about it together while everyone else just wonders. It creates a bond among you that is strong. Even years later a single word or phrase can reconnect people who otherwise have nothing in common. It’s hard as a modern follower of Jesus not to look back at passage like this one and feel like we are part of an inside joke that much of the original audience never got.

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