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3 They did not conquer the land with their swords;
it was not their own strong arm that gave them victory.
It was your right hand and strong arm
and the blinding light from your face that helped them,
for you loved them.
Ah, sizzle. This is from where victory comes! HIS right hand!
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
A few thoughts:
To me it’s absolutely incredible that God would forgive our sins. They are like scarlet, red as crimson, yet He, through the work of Jesus Christ (if indeed we are trusting in Christ), has made us white as snow–brilliantly white. I know what’s in me and it’s not very pretty. The real me is pretty black. So it’s humbling and staggering and hard to believe, but God has loved us and lets us be made perfectly clean. It’s incredible.
The second thing I want to draw out of this passage is in the second two verses. God is telling Israel (and surely us, too) that if we’re willing and obedient, we will be blessed. If we refuse to obey, we will reap the consequences accordingly–there will be destruction.
This concept, for some reason, is so tough for me to practically grasp. I can intellectually preach it all day, but when push comes to shove it’s often so much easier to settle for immediate comfort/satisfaction than to wait for the long-term blessing.
See, I think it’s always easier to disobey. Because sin, most of the time if not all of the time, provides faster and/or easier “satisfaction”. Obedience, on the other hand, usually involves us making a hard decision now for a payoff later. It takes discipline, perspective, maturity, and faith to live for later and not now. But that’s the decision we have to make repeatedly to experience God’s best.
So, let’s live for later in faith that God will deliver on his promises, for He loves us.
Today’s passage is Psalm 19:7-14
I love this passage so much. It shows two things clearly: a right understanding of God’s law and a right heart-response to it.
In short: God’s law is infinitely good for us. It protects us, blesses us, makes us wise, and brings success. Therefore, the right response to God’s law (in light, too, of our inability to follow it on our own) is to simply say, “God please help.”
Father, I pray that you would burn a true understanding of your law on my heart and help me to seek righteousness out of love for you and faith in your goodness.
Delight in God’s goodness to you today.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Whether we realize it or not, sin is our greatest enemy. Every pain, heartache, and hardship we face is the consequence of our or someone else’s sin. Jesus Christ came and died to free us from it. Praise His name!
Every human in one way or another seeks security. Some seek money, some look to control, others to relationships. It’s not bad that we do this; it’s in our nature. It’s our survival instinct. The reality, though, is that nothing in this life is secure enough to bank our hope on except the God who created it.
Check this verse out:
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.
First, it’s only by God’s great mercy that he has saved us. Without his mercy, we would all be left to pay for our own sin by ourselves in death. Yet, God so loved us that He gave His only Son, so that when we believe in Him we can have eternal life.
Because Christ died and was raised, as the verse says, we can have great expectation of good to come! Then this line rocks me: “We have a priceless inheritance–an inheritance that is kept in heave for [us], pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay[!]”
I have an inheritance in heaven! I have something great to look forward to there. Furthermore, it’s totally secure, not even I am able to lose it at this point.
To me this is a total power thought. When my circumstances day to day are not good, when I have a huge (and growing) list of things that I wish would change, and when I struggle to find hope in my circumstances I can rest knowing that God has things set for me in heaven. That powerfully gives me the strength to persevere through this life.
Praise the Lord today and be thankful to Him!
Bless.