merittmusings

Selective Exegesis

www.bible.com/72/deu.7.9.hcsb

I “love” how many Christians read this verse for its first part, the part where God keeps His covenant throughout generations. But then they fail to add the last part of the verse, that this covenant keeping is with those who keep their agreement with God. This was true in the Old Testament system. Though God is a god of grace and mercy, especially when we don’t deserve, this verse very clearly dictates terms. We may lean on God’s grace for all things, but it seems disingenuous when we ought to know better, and have been told what He expects of us. We become selective in our exegesis, conveniently eliminating those pieces that we feel we don’t need anymore, because we are “under grace and not under law.”

Did we forget that under The grace of Christ, He still expects us to keep His commands as proof of our love for Him? He still expects us to make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey His commands. The New Testament is not a “do what you want! It’s all good!” But “do this and you will be saved!” “Do this because you are my disciples!”

When quoting Bible verses, quote them in context. Don’t pick and choose translations to best for what you want the verse to say. Study all of them, for they all contain nuance of the languages behind the translation. Study your Bible. Don’t just read it. This is the Word of God written down for your benefit. Don’t go praying to the heavens for a “WORD” from the Lord until you’ve exhausted the written word and wrung out all its meaning. Read. Pray. Study. Learn.

God bless you today.

As for me and my house

www.bible.com/72/jos.24.15.hcsb

I don’t know how much pull you have in your house, but in my family I am the head of household, at least until someone disagrees with me. 😁 I’ve been in ministry now for 25 years, and generally decisions about church have been settled simply by where I was preaching at the time. Here lately, we’ve been going where my wife feels more comfortable going since I’ve been out of the pulpit. It’s been an adjustment, but one that I am making because she has enjoyed church and worship far more than ever I’ve seen her. I love her and I love seeing her happy. The church preaches the Bible and really that’s what we need.

It is not a hard choice making Jesus Lord. It’s just hard to follow through. Becoming a Christian is easy. Growing as a Christian is hard. Being a Christian father of a home is even more challenging. Every one of us makes an independent choice and following Christ is supposed to be one of free will. Being a father who leads his family, especially with children who makes their own choices, requires both talking the talk and walking the walk. Kids see you when you are weak. They see you when you are in crisis. In other words, they see dad when he’s not in church.

I want to encourage you today, especially if you are a parent, to make the hard choices. You have a Father to look up to and Jesus to follow when you don’t know what to do. Your kids are looking to you, watching you when you face challenges and difficulties. Don’t give up. God has not given up on you.

My prayers be with you today. God bless.

Thank You

www.bible.com/72/php.1.3.hcsb

Happy Mother’s Day to all our mothers today. And thank you all for taking time to read this blog every day. I appreciate you for making this a part of your day.

Our text today I think is written to one of Paul’s favorite churches, the church at Philippi. I think he had a special place in his heart for this church, for Lydia the seller of purple and the Jailer who was converted overnight. This church was special to him, as was this letter. I have no doubt he means what he says here, that he prayed for this church and her people, many of whom he could picture in his mind as he prayed.

Though I can’t see you, I keep you all in my prayers as well. Have a great day and give mom a hug if you are able.

The God of Comfort

www.bible.com/72/isa.66.13.hcsb

In the context of Isaiah 66, God is comparing the revival and rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exiles return to the nurture and love of a young mother for her child. The source of this comfort is the nourishing milk that a mother provides her infant, giving him ease from his hunger.

The context for Isaiah 66 is interesting. Using this comparison, God is like a nursing mother bringing and nurturing life in His city. Like a nursing mother, God provides all that is necessary for life in this place. A nursing mother does more than simply feed her child. She holds him close and speaks softly to him, comforting him. This is the image that God wishes to convey to us.

When we need comfort, His are arms that we can run to. Last fall, my father had heart problems and had to have surgery. With my father feeling so vulnerable, I experienced a moment when I felt lost. The man in my life who had always been strong was now suffering, and I had to move into a role of strength for my family. I felt terribly unprepared. I really needed someone in that moment that could tell me it was all going to be ok. I really needed a pair of arms that would hold me and whisper in my ear that everything was going to be fine. And I think if someone actually did that I probably would have melted right then. I almost did when my uncle showed up a couple of hours later. The hug I received from him was priceless.

In those moments I wished for someone I could turn to, but we all have to grow up sometime, and be that comfort for others. Where do we get that comfort? We get it from the Master Comforter. He throws His arms around us, whispers in our ear and tells us it’s going to be ok. As a comforting mother, He wraps us up in His arms and eases our anxiety and fear with love and compassion.

Be grateful to your mother today. She gave you life from her own body. Be grateful to God today. He gave you life both from beginning and from the cross.

God bless you today.

Clearly Seen

www.bible.com/72/rom.1.20.hcsb

God has not left Himself without evidence. Natural selection and random chance cannot explain why all there is exists. We know without thinking that a watch found on a seashore was made by a and probably lost by a person, not the random creation of tide, seashells, sand and wind. Why? Because without considering whether such a thing was randomly ordered over billions of years, we begin to look around to see if anyone dropped it. We recognize intelligent design instantly. We don’t have to be taught it

Likewise, when we view the order of the natural world, and discover the laws that apply there, we understand a Lawgiver must have been behind it. That things aren’t as random as they seem.

We are without excuse. Just as He said. God bless you today.

Godly Grief

www.bible.com/72/2co.7.10.hcsb

What kind of repentance does God expect for sin? As this verse suggests, it is the repentance that emerges from “godly grief”. Just not sure what that is. We naturally experience grief when we experience a loss. When we lose a job or a loved one, even our keys, we experience a measure of grief. Really it is the mind’s reaction to a readjustment to normal. We relate to life by assuming a normal, this so we can ignore extraneous stimuli. If you’ve ever had something happen that is unusual in your daily schedule, and if it is brief and temporary, you may even forget it happened. It fell outside of normal. But if it’s effect is prolonged, you come into the transition period known as grief. Your mind is fighting to reestablish a “new normal” so that it can resume normal function. This is why sometimes when a loved one is lost, we sometimes see them again out the corner of our eye, because our mind is used to seeing them. The older we are, the prominent this is because our minds are less flexible.

But what about “godly grief”? If this is like grief, it means a loss has occurred. If we are leading to salvation, then we might trace the steps back to a loss of innocence, or a loss of relationship with God that we thought we had. We lost relationship with God because of sin. When we mourn that loss, and what the implications are for that, then we are led to repentance. It is this repentance that leads to salvation. When we properly mourn the loss of our innocence before God, aware of the brokenness that sin has caused between us and God, we ought to be repentant.

I have more to say about this, but I will leave it for another time. God bless you all!

Gifted to Serve

www.bible.com/72/1pe.4.10.hcsb

Getting an unexpected gift always puts a smile on my face. It’s amazing to me that someone else would take the time out of their schedule and devote it to me, which is why I want to thank all of you for reading these posts, even if you only read occasionally.

Peter talks about gifts as a responsibility. What we have received in grace, we also ought to give to others just as freely. It’s like the old hymn, “freely, freely you have received; freely, freely give.” Grace is something you can never run out of, so you can freely give it to others.

One of the hardest lessons I have to learn is that God watches how well we forgive. “For if you do not forgive others their trespasses, your God will not forgive you.” Ouch! This follows the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. God takes this subject seriously. And I think He knows better than we do the power resentment has over our lives, when we hold grudges long after their expiration date. An unforgiving heart is an evil heart, especially when it belongs to a Christian.

Grace is like a river. It flows to you, but it must also flow away from you to others. You cannot hoard it for yourself, because you have no dam strong enough to contain it. If you cannot extend grace to others, it will destroy whatever hoard you have created for yourself. No one likes bitterness. No one likes a bitter Christian.

As I’ve been going through Acts, I find Paul as someone with every right to be disenchanted by his own upbringing, people he thought he could trust, his fellow Jews, men he probably grew up with and trained with, turning on him and calling for his death. Paul has every right to be angry with them. But you never see Paul angry. He fears for his life, but he is never angry with them, continuing to call them brothers, wishing even his own life forfeit for their salvation. He extended the profound grace he’d been given to others. Wow.

My encouragement to you this morning is to first consider how much you have been forgiven by God. And then consider the sins of others against you. Remember how much you have been forgiven, that wonderful free gift of grace, and extend that gift to others.

God bless!

No Longer I Who Live

www.bible.com/72/gal.2.20.hcsb

The old and the new. Am I talking about the old and new testaments? I could be. Am I talking about how I feel when I get up in the morning now verses when I was much younger? Well, I do feel old. It could be that.

No, none of these things. I am talking about the old man and the new man in Christ. I have been made new in light of the insurmountable gift found in His cross and shed in His blood.

Spanish Conquistadors searched for years for the fountain of youth in the new world, or so the story goes. They thought it would be in Florida. The fact is, everyone is searching for this fountain, whether it be in a magic pill or exercise or medical treatment. We all want life, life like when we were young. We keep looking for the next breakthrough or the next discovery. But eternal youth and vitality are not to be experienced in this life. We are subject to sin and it’s inevitable corruption. These bodies will waste away to nothing (cheery thought).

But the search for the fountain of youth was not in vain. For the fountain is not filled with water, but with blood. Stay with me here. Eternal youth, the vitality of life, can be found in soul-cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. Our bodies will waste away because the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. It is no mere life spent unending with the Lord, but a full, vibrant, joyful experience. All that we have here is the preparation. We are in labor pains even now, waiting for what will be born anew. But for those of us in Christ, we have already begun that new life, because our old selves, corrupted by sin, have been put to death on Jesus’ cross, and we experience the new and better life now.

Are you still looking for the fountain of youth? Look to Jesus, the way, the truth, and the LIFE.

God bless you today!

No Condemnation

<a href=”https://www.bible.com/72/jhn.3.18.hcsb”>https://www.bible.com/72/jhn.3.18.hcsb</a>

Everyone loves John 3:16. It’s on billboards, t-shirts, even football players. But what about John 3:18? While 3:16 is all about the extravagant love of God, 3:18 narrows the focus. Only belief in Jesus Christ will free you from the condemnation of sin. Now you may say that is all well and good. Sure, I believe in Jesus Christ. Who doesn’t? But we are not talking mental assent or agreement in the historical veracity of a man named Jesus from Nazareth. We are talking about moral commitment. This is changing my behavior, my moral habits, my hope and destiny. The way we have undermined “belief” has reduced it to facts without motivation. That is not faith. And this verse is surely speaking of faith, not agreement. Faith motivates to action. Because you believe in Jesus, you act. Because you believe in Jesus, you change. This is the belief in Jesus that frees you from condemnation.
I challenge you today to make your belief matter.

The Gospel of Entertainment and the Exodus of the Next Generation

The Gospel of Entertainment and the Exodus of the Next Generation

http://helpmebelieveblog.com/2019/05/07/the-gospel-of-entertainment-and-the-exodus-of-the-next-generation/
— Read on helpmebelieveblog.com/2019/05/07/the-gospel-of-entertainment-and-the-exodus-of-the-next-generation/

I want to share this because I have seen this happen over and again. Kids need the same thing adults do: community! If we neglect that part, we cannot keep them with anything else. Also, when they go off to college, as we do often encourage them, they leave all the things that help them in their behavior and have to find all new things. This may swerve into the “do they really need college” discussion, but such a transition can be jarring if not detrimental to our youth development.