Posts from June 2024 (Page 3)
Daily Devotions
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.” vss. 3-4 Psalm 130 If, by the grace of God, we have reached a point in life where we have given up on the folly of blaming others and are able to humbly confess our own sinfulness we are still left with the burden of our iniquities. We can even find ourselves so close to the bottom…
Daily Devotions
The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’” vs. 12 Genesis 3:11-15 From the very beginning, it has been important in difficult situations to know how to assess blame! In our ancient scriptures, the very first story about human interaction with God has the man blaming the woman for his act of disobedience, and more than that, the text implies that the real culprit is God!…
Daily Devotions
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” vs. 8 Genesis 3;8-10 The second creation story in Genesis 2 paints a picture of an idyllic world in which humans lived in harmony with God and nature. Of course those who told this story knew that this wasn’t the…
Daily Devotions
He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” vs. 5 Mark 3:1-6 Standing with a crippled man in front of the Pharisees in the synagogue, Jesus asked them a straightforward question, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” And the Pharisees were silent.…
Daily Devotions
One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’” vss. 23-24 Mark 2:23-28 There was a time when faith communities encouraged believers to observe the Sabbath by refraining from work on Sundays. Obviously there were some things that needed to be done, e.g. taking care of livestock and preparing…