All the commandments reflect the nature of God, but perhaps none do it as completely as the seventh. God is completely faithful; He is a God of covenants and He is three persons united as One in perfect intimacy and shared submission. He created man in His own image and thus created him to need […]
The Ten Commandments show us how far we fall short of the perfection needed to approach God. They do this by causing us to understand sin. Paul says in Romans 7 that without the Law we would not know what sin is – “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; […]
I thought I’d pass along something I started doing last year that I’ve really liked. It’s nothing all that new in that people have been praying through Paul’s prayers for generations, but I took it a step further for my own use and thought you might find it helpful. I took three prayers of Paul […]
The Ten Commandments really give us a blueprint for who we are apart from sin. They are a guide to our true selves if we did not live in a world horribly altered by sin or if we were not conceived in sin. They show life in God’s image. As such the Law is a […]
The Ten Commandments break into two sections. The first section – commandments 1 through 4 – addresses our relationship with God. This section is summarized as you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength (the greatest commandment – Matt 22:37-38). The second […]
Moses begins his second address to the nation. Now that he has established God’s faithfulness to Israel and how He has brought the nation to this place, Moses turns to the Law. For Israel to be successful and live long in the Promised Land the people must know and keep the Law. Moses has established […]
Moses comes to the end of his first sermon. After giving the Israelites a history lesson on all that has happened since they left Egypt, he now begins to transition to his second address where he will remind them of the commands of the Law. In this chapter he extols the nature and achievements of […]
Moses continues his historical review of the journey from Egypt to the east side of the Jordan. His listeners heard in Chapter 1 how their parents rebelled against the command of the Lord and refused to enter the land 38 years ago. Moses now rehearses for them in Chapters 2 and 3 the journey from […]
I received an email from the local library today with a subject line of “Tis the Season of Gratitude.” The body of the email reads as follows: The spotlight is on gratitude this season. Gratitude is defined as a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation. Experts tell us that practicing gratitude can improve mental health, strengthen […]
When I was in college, I had a job one summer pouring basement walls for large houses. I was one of only two ‘college boys’ working on the crew (while everyone else had been on the crew for about 300 years each) and the crew chief liked to poke at us a bit. One of […]
