I'm really starting to love being a dad. Don't get me wrong...I've always loved my kids. But I haven't always loved my responsibility of being a dad. For better or worse, it's taken some time for me to appreciate the responsibilities. By God's grace, I'm getting there.
As Emmalynn gets older and expresses emotions a better, I'm coming to love those dad responsibilities more and more. And if I could pick a favorite, it would probably be my responsibility to protect my children. Not going to lie...I love it. When my children get scared, they run to daddy. It's that simple. My job is to protect them from whatever "it" is. Whether it be a loud crash or a creepy man or something worse, I'm my children's refuge. They know they are safe in my arms. They know everything will be okay when they are with me.
And if that is true about us earthly fathers, how much more true is it about our Heavenly Father. He is a refuge for us. He is our salvation. From our own sin, from the evil one, from this evil world. He is our fortress. And He is a surer refuge than us mom's and dad's could ever be. That's why we can say with the Psalmist, "We shall not be shaken."
When we are tempted, we run to him. When we are ridiculed, we run to him. When we fail, we run to him. When we're the topic of gossip, we run to him. When we must do something difficult and are afraid, we run to him. God is a refuge for us, which was all made possible because Jesus paid our debt on Calvary.
"Trust in Him at all times O people; God is a refuge for us."
Praise be to God!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
What God Requires...for Our Good - Part 1
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (NIV)
"And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your good?"
As you meditate on that passage, what stands out to you?
Here we have Moses asking the Israelites a simple yet comprehensive question. Moses had just described how God himself had written the 10 Commandments on the stone tablets Moses had cut. He had just described how he stayed on the mountain for 40 days and nights and how the Lord listened to him and was unwilling to destroy them for their disobedience. And he quotes the Lord, reemphasizing the mission God has set them on: "Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore the their fathers to give them." (Deut 10:11b). God says, "This is what I'm going to do...I'm going to give you the land that I promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am the Faithful God. Now here's what I require of you..."
I was going to go into a whole long explanation into why a better translation of v. 12 is "...what does the Lord your God require of you..." instead of "...what does the Lord your God ask of you...", but I'm not going to unless someone wants me to. My short explanation is that in other places in the Bible God commands that we shall fear Him, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him and obey His commands. So I think the word 'require' conveys the intent of the passage better.
Here's the breakdown:
1. God requires we fear Him
2. God requires we walk in His ways
3. God requires we love Him
4. God requires we serve Him
5. God requires we obey Him
6. And God requires these things for OUR GOOD
To me, the interesting thing about these requirements is the reason God requires them. Why does God require we fear Him, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him, and obey Him? Does he not require these things for our good? Yes, He does. And why would it be good for us to fear Him, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him, and obey Him? Is it not so that we might draw near to the One whose name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace and Everlasting Father? Is not so that we would have a real relationship with the great and holy I Am? Is it not so that God would be greatly glorified in His people as we are greatly satisfied in Him? It is for all these reasons and more.
God's requirements are for our good! Hopefully, I'll get into why we must meet God's requirements to have fellowship with Him, why we should not have fellowship with Him because we don't meet the requirements, how Jesus met the requirements for us, and how we should live in light of God's requirements by faith in Part 2.
Please comment on the passage. I was really encouraged by everyone's comments on the last post.
"And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your good?"
As you meditate on that passage, what stands out to you?
Here we have Moses asking the Israelites a simple yet comprehensive question. Moses had just described how God himself had written the 10 Commandments on the stone tablets Moses had cut. He had just described how he stayed on the mountain for 40 days and nights and how the Lord listened to him and was unwilling to destroy them for their disobedience. And he quotes the Lord, reemphasizing the mission God has set them on: "Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore the their fathers to give them." (Deut 10:11b). God says, "This is what I'm going to do...I'm going to give you the land that I promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am the Faithful God. Now here's what I require of you..."
I was going to go into a whole long explanation into why a better translation of v. 12 is "...what does the Lord your God require of you..." instead of "...what does the Lord your God ask of you...", but I'm not going to unless someone wants me to. My short explanation is that in other places in the Bible God commands that we shall fear Him, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him and obey His commands. So I think the word 'require' conveys the intent of the passage better.
Here's the breakdown:
1. God requires we fear Him
2. God requires we walk in His ways
3. God requires we love Him
4. God requires we serve Him
5. God requires we obey Him
6. And God requires these things for OUR GOOD
To me, the interesting thing about these requirements is the reason God requires them. Why does God require we fear Him, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him, and obey Him? Does he not require these things for our good? Yes, He does. And why would it be good for us to fear Him, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him, and obey Him? Is it not so that we might draw near to the One whose name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace and Everlasting Father? Is not so that we would have a real relationship with the great and holy I Am? Is it not so that God would be greatly glorified in His people as we are greatly satisfied in Him? It is for all these reasons and more.
God's requirements are for our good! Hopefully, I'll get into why we must meet God's requirements to have fellowship with Him, why we should not have fellowship with Him because we don't meet the requirements, how Jesus met the requirements for us, and how we should live in light of God's requirements by faith in Part 2.
Please comment on the passage. I was really encouraged by everyone's comments on the last post.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Faithful God - Part 1
“1When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you 2and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.
“6For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. 10But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him. 11Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.
Here in Chapter 7, we find the Lord telling the people of Israel what He is going to do to the nations inhabiting the promised land and what Israel is to do to those nations. All of the commands in the first 5 verses have their foundation in verse 6. “You are a people holy to the Lord your God” says God. “The Lord has chosen you out of all the people on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” Israel was chosen by God. Chosen for what? They were chosen to be “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). And “to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:4-5). Israel was chosen by God to be the vessel through which he would save sinners. He set them apart for this reason. The Israelites were not to mingle with any other nation. They were to be the Lord’s people.
In verses 7 and 8, the Lord explains why he chose Israel and delivered them from slavery. It was for love, and for a promise. He loved them, so he had mercy on them when they cried out to him while in slavery. And he delivered them, because he promised Abraham that he would “make of [him] a great nation, and [would] bless [him] and make [his] name great, so that [he] would be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2). And God continued that promise through Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5) and through Jacob (Genesis 35:9-12). God made a promise, and he kept his promise.
So here we are at verse 9. God wanted all of Israel to know that He is God, the faithful God. Everything God promises, is surely true. God is faithful to His Word. God can be trusted. We can trust him, even when it seems like he is far off. But it works both ways. God is faithful to carry out his promises of blessing (as we see in verse 9) and his promises of judgment (as we see in verse 10). We'll get into more of that in the next posting.
Please write in your comments, whether your commenting on something I wrote or on the passage itself.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Welcome to the Fight!
I'm very excited to begin a journey into God's Word with you! It is my prayer that the Lord will bless our journey and use this experience to transform us into the image of His Son, as we behold his glory in His Word, that we might glorify Him and enjoy Him more. Our daily prayer should be "Open [our] eyes, that [we] may behold wondrous things out of your law" (Psalm 119:18).
For the first few weeks I plan on posting daily to remind all of us of the Scripture memorization. Hopefully, we'll get in a good habit of remembering to memorize. I don't know about you, but sometimes that is the most difficult part for me. Just remembering to remember. As the weeks go on, I'll probably cut down a little.
I'll also post some of my reflections on the week's passage here and there. I hope you'll interact and share some of your reflections as well in the comment section so that we may all benefit from the insight the Lord gives you.
A word of caution, though. It is likely that we will run into a passage from time to time that presents a challenge for us theologically. Our opinions may differ on the exact meaning of the passage or what the passage implies. This doesn't mean we should just skip over it as unimportant. The Bible says that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). All of it is profitable, even the difficult stuff. If we come to a difficult passage, I plan on presenting you with my best interpretation of it using other Scripture as support/clarification and other men of God from ages past as help. I hope you'll join the discussion.
Father, we ask for your help in this journey. It is a great privilege to be able to store up the very words and thoughts of the Everlasting God in our hearts and minds. Help us to be faithful and persevering in this endeavor. Would you draw us into your presence as we reflect on your Word? Would you transform us into the likeness of the Son as you renew our minds with your Truth? Would you cause us to taste and see that the Lord is indeed good, and cause us to delight in your glorious Truth? Would you help us to kill sin and temptation by the Spirit and cling to our wonderful Savior? We thank you for your goodness towards us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
For the first few weeks I plan on posting daily to remind all of us of the Scripture memorization. Hopefully, we'll get in a good habit of remembering to memorize. I don't know about you, but sometimes that is the most difficult part for me. Just remembering to remember. As the weeks go on, I'll probably cut down a little.
I'll also post some of my reflections on the week's passage here and there. I hope you'll interact and share some of your reflections as well in the comment section so that we may all benefit from the insight the Lord gives you.
A word of caution, though. It is likely that we will run into a passage from time to time that presents a challenge for us theologically. Our opinions may differ on the exact meaning of the passage or what the passage implies. This doesn't mean we should just skip over it as unimportant. The Bible says that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). All of it is profitable, even the difficult stuff. If we come to a difficult passage, I plan on presenting you with my best interpretation of it using other Scripture as support/clarification and other men of God from ages past as help. I hope you'll join the discussion.
Father, we ask for your help in this journey. It is a great privilege to be able to store up the very words and thoughts of the Everlasting God in our hearts and minds. Help us to be faithful and persevering in this endeavor. Would you draw us into your presence as we reflect on your Word? Would you transform us into the likeness of the Son as you renew our minds with your Truth? Would you cause us to taste and see that the Lord is indeed good, and cause us to delight in your glorious Truth? Would you help us to kill sin and temptation by the Spirit and cling to our wonderful Savior? We thank you for your goodness towards us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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