As an illustration of how thankfulness promotes a God-honoring lifestyle we may turn to the following quote from the pen of John Milton, the celebrated English poet: “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” If we thank God, we will revere Him, and such reverence will help us look at all of life as that which we are to live coram Deo – before the Lord’s face in a way that pleases Him, with no reason to be ashamed.
In Romans 1:18-32, Paul locates humanity’s most basic sin in our refusal as fallen creatures to honor God “or give thanks to Him.” Lack of gratitude for all of God’s blessings is the first step toward idolatry, and the more we have the easier it can be to forget that all we have comes from the Lord’s hand. Spend some time today thanking God for His blessings and always endeavor to acknowledge that your success is due ultimately to His kindness.
In Exodus 4 two elements introduce complex developments that stretch forward to the rest of the Bible.
The first is the reason God gives as to why Pharaoh will not be impressed by the miracles that Moses performs. God declares, “I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” (4:21). During the succeeding chapters, the form of expression varies: not only “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (7:3), but also “Pharaoh’s heart became hard” or “was hard” (7:13, 22; 8:19, etc.) and “he hardened his heart” (8:15, 32, etc.). No simple pattern is discernible in these references. On the one hand, we cannot say that the pattern works up from “Pharaoh hardened his heart” to “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” to “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (as if God’s hardening were nothing more than the divine judicial confirmation of a pattern the man had chosen for himself); on the other hand, we cannot say that the pattern simply works down from “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” to “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” to “Pharaoh hardened his heart” (as if Pharaoh’s self-imposed hardening was nothing more than the inevitable outworking of the divine decree).
Three observations may shed some light on these texts. (a) Granted the Bible’s storyline so far, the assumption is that Pharaoh is already a wicked person. In particular, he has enslaved the covenant people of God. God has not hardened a morally neutral man; he has pronounced judgment on a wicked man. Hell itself is a place where repentance is no longer possible. God’s hardening has the effect of imposing that sentence a little earlier than usual. (b) In all human actions, God is never completely passive: this is a theistic universe, such that “God hardens Pharaoh’s heart” and “Pharaoh hardened his own heart,” far from being disjunctive statements, are mutually complementary. (c) This is not the only passage where this sort of thing is said. See, for instance, 1 Kings 22; Ezekiel 14:9; and above all 2 Thessalonians 2:11–12: “For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
The second forward-looking element is the “son” terminology: “Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son” (Ex. 4:22–23). This first reference to Israel as the son of God develops into a pulsating typology that embraces the Davidic king as the son par excellence, and results in Jesus, the ultimate Son of God, the true Israel and the messianic King.
Carson, D. A. (1998). For the love of God : A daily companion for discovering the riches of God’s Word. Volume 1. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
All people are naturally inclined to some form of religion, yet they fail to worship their Creator, whose general revelation makes Him universally known. Sinful egoism and aversion to our Creator’s claims have driven humanity into idolatry, the error of giving worship and homage to any power or object other than God (Is. 44:9–20; Rom. 1:21–23; Col. 3:5). In their idolatry, apostate humans “suppress the truth” and have “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:18, 23). They smother and quench, as far as they can, the awareness that general revelation provides of the transcendent Judge and Creator, and they transfer the ineradicable sense of deity to unworthy objects. This in turn leads to drastic moral decline and misery, as a first manifestation of God’s wrath against apostasy (Rom. 1:18, 24–32).
God will not allow human beings to suppress entirely their sense of God and of His judgment. Some sense of right and wrong, as well as of accountability to God, always remains. Even in the fallen world everyone is endowed with a conscience that from time to time condemns them, telling them that they ought to suffer for wrongs they have done. When conscience speaks in these terms it speaks with the voice of God.
In one sense, fallen humanity does not know God, since what people believe about the objects of their worship falsifies and distorts the truth about God. In another sense all human beings do know God, but in guilt, with uncomfortable inklings of the judgment they cannot avoid. Only the gospel of Christ can speak peace to this aspect of the human condition.
Whitlock, L. G., Sproul, R. C., Waltke, B. K., & Silva, M. (1995). Reformation study Bible, the : Bringing the light of the Reformation to Scripture : New King James Version. Nashville: T. Nelson.
One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations. People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
. . . Genesis 12, marks a turning point in God’s unfolding plan of redemption. From now on, the focus of God’s dealings is not scattered individuals, but a race, a nation. This is the turning point that makes the Old Testament documents so profoundly Jewish. And ultimately, out of this race come law, priests, wisdom, patterns of relationships between God and his covenant people, oracles, prophecies, laments, psalms—a rich array of institutions and texts that point forward, in ways that become increasingly clear, to a new covenant foretold by Israel’s prophets. Even in this initial covenant with Abram, God includes a promise that already expands the horizons beyond Israel, a promise that repeatedly surfaces in the Bible. God tells Abraham, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:3). Lest we miss its importance, the book of Genesis repeats it (18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14). A millennium later, the same promise is refocused not on the nation as a whole, but on one of Israel’s great kings: “May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed” (Ps. 72:17). The “evangelical prophet” often articulates the same breadth of vision (e.g., Isa. 19:23–25). The earliest preaching in the church, after the resurrection of Jesus, understood that the salvation Jesus had introduced was a fulfillment of this promise to Abraham (Acts 3:25). The apostle Paul makes the same connection (Gal. 3:8).
Even when the passage in Genesis is not explicitly cited, the same stance—that God’s ultimate intentions were from the beginning to bring men and women from every race into the new humanity he was forming—surfaces in a hundred ways. In fact, quite apart from this passage, two of the three remaining passages in today’s readings point in the same direction. In Matthew 11:20–24, Jesus makes it clear, in disturbing language, that on the last day pagan cities, though punished, may be punished less severely than the cities of Israel who enjoyed the unfathomable privilege of hearing Jesus for themselves, and seeing his miracles, but who made nothing of it. His own invitation is broad: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). And in Acts 11, Peter recounts his experiences with Cornelius and his household to the church in Jerusalem, leading them to conclude, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). Christ receives the unrestrained praise of heaven, because with his blood he purchased people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9; see meditation for December 15).
Carson, D. A. (1998). For the love of God : A daily companion for discovering the riches of God’s Word. Volume 1. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
GENESIS 2:1-16; 3:22-24 “Out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden” (2:9).
Genesis 1-3 and its account of creation and the fall lays the foundation for the entire history of redemption, so we should not be surprised to see many of the themes introduced in these chapters recur again and again.
The Tree of Life introduced in 2:9 is one such theme that is developed throughout the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New.
Before we look at the Tree of Life in particular, we should note some of the ways the Bible understands trees in general.
Trees are often used in Scripture as symbols of life, particularly life that is considered full.
The fruitfulness of righteous people, for example, is likened to a tree filled with life (Prow. 11:30), and the fullness of life and honor is also associated with righteousness (21:21).
Moreover, the Old Testament also uses trees as metaphors for the life that God gives, especially since trees remain perpetually green in the arid climate of the Middle East and thus, in a certain sense, “eternally alive” (Jer. 17:7- 8).
Given these realities, it is easy to see why the Lord chose to supply life to His people by means of the Tree of Life while they lived in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:9).
Apparently, immortality was the gift to anyone who regularly ate the fruit of the tree (3:22) and, as one commentator notes, the Tree of Life was also an early means of sacramental communication between God and His people.
The tree was a physical means of conducting a spiritual transaction, the very essence of a sacrament.
As long as Adam and Eve ate of the tree they had life, and they had access to the tree because before sin they were in a right relationship with God.
While they trusted His wisdom and obeyed His command not to eat of the forbidden fruit, our first parents could eat freely of the tree that gives life (2:16-17; 3:22-24).
Their trust in God’s promises, signified by their eating of the proper tree and not the forbidden fruit, maintained their place in Eden and consequently, their life of blessedness.
Of course, we know that Adam and Eve failed and they and their descendants were barred from eating the Tree of Life (3:24).
Cut off from the Lord’s presence and His life-giving tree, their deed plunged all of us into darkness and death, and all people have been trying since that day to find their way back to Eden. +
Hands down, Matthew 7:1 is the most frequently quoted Bible verse today: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” It’s been twisted to mean we can’t say someone’s action or lifestyle is wrong. However, when someone says, “Don’t judge,” he’s judging you for judging someone else. You’ve done wrong by saying someone else has done wrong! Clearly, we can’t escape making moral judgments. Furthermore, in the same context of the oft-quoted verse, Jesus made a moral judgment about certain persons, using metaphors about “dogs” and “pigs” (Mt 7:6), stressing that we shouldn’t continue to present God’s grace to those who persistently scoff and ridicule. At some point we must shake the dust off our feet and move on to the more receptive (Mt 10:14; Ac 13:51). On the other hand, Jesus commanded, “Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment” (Jn 7:24, emphasis added). How do we resolve the apparent tension? By taking note of the spirit in which we make judgments. Do we think we’re superior (the attitude Jesus condemned), or are we assessing actions or attitudes with a spirit of humility and concern, recognizing our own weaknesses (1 Co 10:13; Gl 6:1)? In Matthew 7:5, Jesus told us first to examine ourselves (removing the log from our own eye), then we can help our brother or sister (taking the speck out of his or her eye). So there is a problem to be dealt with—but only after self-examination. The wrong kind of judging is condemning. The right kind of judging is properly evaluating moral (or doctrinal) matters with a humble, helpful attitude. (In 1 Co 5:5, “judging”—even excommunicating—is required in light of a church member’s shameless sexual misconduct.) We should treat others the way we would want to be treated (cp. Mt 7:12), thinking, There—but for the grace of God—go I.
So when discussing judging with others, first clarify what you mean by the word “judge.” This can serve as the context for clarifying right and wrong kinds of judgment. Further, we must take care to avoid the “Who am I to say So-and-So is wrong?” mentality. We can’t shrink from making moral judgments, nor can we escape them—lest we declare it wrong to say another is wrong.
by Paul Copan
Cabal, T., Brand, C. O., Clendenen, E. R., Copan, P., Moreland, J., & Powell, D. (2007). The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (1417). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
“Assurance is having a confidence of eternal life which is rested upon the sure foundation of Jesus Chris, but presumption is presuming ourselves to have eternal life when, in fact, our confidence is based on nothing more than the flimsy foundation of our own self-righteousness.”
- Dr. McDowell Richards, president of Columbia Theological Seminary
For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that “nothing happens” when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude …
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our Attitudes.”
The Life God has given each of us is short, and it will be measured in the heavenly rewards He has promised us. We should therefore make the most of it that He might find us to be good and faithful servants. Our goal is not to make ourselves busy with programs just for the sake of programs but to allocate our time wisely that we might serve our families and the people of God, and thus the Lord. Do you manage your time well in service to our Father?
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
ESV Study Bible Notes:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
This is the core maxim of the book (of Proverbs): the quest for wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord (cf. 9:10 and Ps. 111:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”).
“Knowledge” and “wisdom” are closely tied together in Proverbs: “knowledge” tends to focus on correct understanding of the world and oneself as creatures of the magnificent and loving God, while “wisdom” is the acquired skill of applying that knowledge rightly, or “skill in the art of godly living” (see Introduction: Purpose, Occasion, and Background).
On the fear of the Lord, see notes on Acts 5:5; 9:31; Rom. 3:18; Phil. 2:12–13; 1 Pet. 1:17; 1 John 4:18.
The reason that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of both knowledge and wisdom is that the moral life begins with reverence and humility before the Maker and Redeemer.
The idea of a quest for knowledge sets biblical wisdom in the broad context of the ancient Near Eastern quest for truth, and this verse also validates such a quest as legitimate and good.
Thus it affirms a kind of “creational revelation,” the idea that one can find moral and theological truth through observing the world.
At the same time, it distinguishes the biblical pursuit of knowledge and wisdom from those of the surrounding cultures, for it asserts that submission to the Lord is foundational to the attainment of real understanding (cf. Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10).
By using the covenant name “the Lord” in preference to the more generic “God,” this verse makes the point that truth is found through Israel’s God. (For fearing the Lord in Proverbs as the right response to his covenant, see 1:29; 2:5; 3:7; 8:13; 10:27; 14:2, 26–27; 15:16, 33; 16:6; 19:23; 22:4; 23:17; 24:21; 31:30; see note on Ps. 19:9.)
In addition, the verse asserts that fools despise wisdom and instruction, thus setting up the alternative between the two ways of wisdom and folly.
This contrast dominates the entire book, as the way of wisdom, righteousness, and the fear of the Lord is set against the way of folly, evil, and scoffing.
The regulations for war in ch. 20 need to be used with great caution when principles are sought for the conduct of modern wars.
The first requirement is to distinguish holy war from other kinds, even in Israel.
Holy war is a concept which applies only, once and for all, to Israel’s occupation of its God-given land.
Even Israel’s wars in general are special, because at that period in the history of God’s dealing with humanity his people was also a nation, a political unit.
Now that that people is a church, which fights no wars as such, no nation has a mandate to suppose that God marches in its ranks in the wars that it fights – even where those wars may reasonably be thought just.
By the same token, Christian ‘just-war’ theory is right not to take this chapter as a mandate for fighting against impossible odds.
On the other hand, the principles of restraint, diplomacy, mercy and respect for noncombatants remain valid for all wars.
And any warfare which involves large-scale devastation of the creation itself should be repugnant, in view of vs 19-20.
3 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
ESV Study Bible Notes:
Spirit, soul, and body represent the entirety of human nature.
It seems unlikely that this is a tripartite division of human nature into body, soul, and spirit, where “spirit” and “soul” would refer to different parts; more likely Paul is simply using several terms for emphasis.
For similar ways of expressing the totality of human nature see Matt. 10:28; Mark 12:30; 1 Cor. 7:34.
There is no need for the Thessalonians to worry about whether they will be sufficiently holy and blameless at the coming of the Lord.
God is faithful, and he will surely make it happen.
Reformation Bible Study Notes:
Three aspects of the human person are enumerated to empahsize the wholeness of this perfection.
Most often in Scripture, “spirit” and “soul” are used as virtual synonyms for the spritual element in a person.
Infrequently (here and Heb 4:12), Scripture considers this spritual element from different points of view, though it is difficult to tell just what shade of meaning distinguishes them.
Compare the fourfould representation of “heart,” “soul,” “mind,” and “strength” in Mark 12:30. See WCF 13.2′ WLC 93,195; HC 127
THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR US; WE ARE GLAD. – PSALM 126:3
Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, but with scarcely any reference to the mercy and help that God has provided them. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state will come forward joyously and say, “I will not speak about myself, but to the honor of my God. He has brought me up out of a horrible pit and out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings; and He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. The Lord has done great things for me—I am glad.” This summary of experience is the very best that any child of God can present. It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and sadly we acknowledge this, but it is just as true that we have an all-sufficient Savior who overcomes these corruptions and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has “brought us out to a place of abundance.”‘ The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through them all and preserved us until today. Our griefs cannot spoil the melody of our praise; we consider them to be the “bass line” of our life’s song, “The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.”
From Just Thinking October Q & A, Part 1 “Response to Virginia Tech Massacre”
Why Violence?
When we desecrate everything sacred the only thing left is what Nietzsche talked about “the will to power”
The only way you can affirm yourself when your life is empty is to tell yourself there are somethings you can do and go down laughing
Emptiness spawned by disappointment by disappointment after all kinds of engagement leaves the heart with only one way to fulfill itself – the will to power, anger and violence
Moral decline in east vs. west
In the east there are geopolitical forces that keep people in line (ie, Islam) or culture (India) but erosion is occurring in east as well
As an illustration of how thankfulness promotes a God-honoring lifestyle we may turn to the following quote from the pen of John Milton, the celebrated English poet: “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” If we thank God, we will revere Him, and such reverence will help us look at all of life as that which we are to live coram Deo – before the Lord’s face in a way that pleases Him, with no reason to be ashamed.
In Exodus 4 two elements introduce complex developments that stretch forward to the rest of the Bible.
All people are naturally inclined to some form of religion, yet they fail to worship their Creator, whose general revelation makes Him universally known. Sinful egoism and aversion to our Creator’s claims have driven humanity into idolatry, the error of giving worship and homage to any power or object other than God (Is. 44:9–20; Rom. 1:21–23; Col. 3:5). In their idolatry, apostate humans “suppress the truth” and have “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:18, 23). They smother and quench, as far as they can, the awareness that general revelation provides of the transcendent Judge and Creator, and they transfer the ineradicable sense of deity to unworthy objects. This in turn leads to drastic moral decline and misery, as a first manifestation of God’s wrath against apostasy (Rom. 1:18, 24–32).
One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.
. . . Genesis 12, marks a turning point in God’s unfolding plan of redemption. From now on, the focus of God’s dealings is not scattered individuals, but a race, a nation. This is the turning point that makes the Old Testament documents so profoundly Jewish. And ultimately, out of this race come law, priests, wisdom, patterns of relationships between God and his covenant people, oracles, prophecies, laments, psalms—a rich array of institutions and texts that point forward, in ways that become increasingly clear, to a new covenant foretold by Israel’s prophets.
GENESIS 2:1-16; 3:22-24 “Out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden” (2:9).
Hands down, Matthew 7:1 is the most frequently quoted Bible verse today: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” It’s been twisted to mean we can’t say someone’s action or lifestyle is wrong. However, when someone says, “Don’t judge,” he’s judging you for judging someone else. You’ve done wrong by saying someone else has done wrong! Clearly, we can’t escape making moral judgments. Furthermore, in the same context of the oft-quoted verse, Jesus made a moral judgment about certain persons, using metaphors about “dogs” and “pigs” (Mt 7:6), stressing that we shouldn’t continue to present God’s grace to those who persistently scoff and ridicule. At some point we must shake the dust off our feet and move on to the more receptive (Mt 10:14; Ac 13:51). On the other hand, Jesus commanded, “Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment” (Jn 7:24, emphasis added).
“Assurance is having a confidence of eternal life which is rested upon the sure foundation of Jesus Chris, but presumption is presuming ourselves to have eternal life when, in fact, our confidence is based on nothing more than the flimsy foundation of our own self-righteousness.”
For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that “nothing happens” when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. 
The Life God has given each of us is short, and it will be measured in the heavenly rewards He has promised us. We should therefore make the most of it that He might find us to be good and faithful servants. Our goal is not to make ourselves busy with programs just for the sake of programs but to allocate our time wisely that we might serve our families and the people of God, and thus the Lord. Do you manage your time well in service to our Father?
THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR US; WE ARE GLAD. – PSALM 126:3
