I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. (ESV – Read the chapter)
For the previous three chapters Paul has been unpacking the incredibly high nature of the calling those who are in Christ have received from Him. It is not just a high calling, but a holy one. Read the rest…
“All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.” (ESV)
Being righteous doesn’t mean being perfect. That is certainly the goal, but the two aren’t the same thing. The righteous person still has desires for all kinds of different things, many of them things which are not good for them. As Solomon writes here, he craves and craves all day long. What the righteous person does do is deny those cravings for the sake of others. He learns to say no to what he wants in order that he might be able to give to those around him. She is in control of her desires in order leverage her resources for the benefit of people who do not have similar access to them. Read the rest…
I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
Whoever has a haughty look and an
arrogant heart
I will not endure.I will look with favor on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
he who walks in the way that is blameless
shall minister to me.No one who practices deceit
shall dwell in my house;
no one who utters lies
shall continue before my eyes.Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all evildoers
from the city of the Lord.(ESV – Read the chapter)
These are powerful words. David was writing this from his position as king of Israel. He was laying out his commitment to God of how he was going to manage his kingdom in such a way that would keep it on the path of righteousness. He was talking about how he was going to set guardrails to keep it from teetering into evil. Drawing from v. 2, he was committing himself to walking in the way that is blameless and then going on to describe how he was going to do that. Read the rest…
“Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Ever wonder where the phrase “a little bird told me” came from?
All day long we see people and have thoughts about them. We can’t help it. They come to us almost before we even realize what is happening. These snap judgments may be kind and charitable, but they also may not be. In fact, for most of us, they’re not more often than they are. Read the rest…
In part two of our teaching series, A Word on Reality, we talked about how we can know with assurance that we are close to God by looking at 1 John 2:1-17. What is the evidence of a life spent in Christ? Read on for the answer.
Whose Word Is Final?
Close your eyes for me for just a minute. I’m going to say some words and I want you to internally react to them. Whatever your reaction is, I want you to just dwell on it for a moment and then we’ll talk about it in a bit. Heaven. Grace. Love. The world. Sin. Submission. Obedience. Okay, open your eyes. Now, by a show of hands, how many of you reacted positively to all of those words? Anyone react negatively to all of them? How many were split between some of the words? How many of you reacted positively to the first couple of words and more negatively to the ones after that? Okay, how about this one: how many of your reactions went from most positive to most negative in the order of the words as I spoke them? That last word, obedience, leaves a sour taste in the mouths of a lot of people today. I think part of the reason for this is that we have been fed since birth a worldview by our culture that believes the highest good is achieved when we are singularly in control of our lives. Now, while there are a few people in the world who have personalities that are very comfortable in a setting where we simply do as we are told, I suspect they are more the exception than the rule. Read the rest…
The Nexus 